AYWi30C #12 - Inspired by Another Lolita

You’d think that in a fashion with such strict guidelines as lolita there wouldn’t be much room for individual style. And yet plenty of people have developed a signature look or feel to their outfits. Although I follow a lot of other lolitas on social media, there are only a few who I’d say I really admire in a way that directly influences my outfits. There is a difference between admiring someone’s outfit, and admiring it whilst thinking “I should try this” or “I’d like to look like this too”.

On that note, I could’ve just tried to find another lolita with a similar style or wardrobe, and do an outfit inspired by them. However, that doesn’t encourage any personal growth and if there’s no growth, no trying new things and no stepping outside of your comfort zone, then is the Around Your Wardrobe in 30 Coordinates Challenge really a challenge? Besides, finding someone with a similar aesthetic really pushes the definition of how much you’re inspired by the other person and how much you’re just trying to do your own thing and get away with it.

Quite early on in my planning for this challenge my heart made a choice, which has surprisingly stuck all this time: Myrsky who goes by @myrreli on Instagram. Between my starting to follow her and now her style has shifted somewhat, although its key elements remained the same. Whether it was lighter and sweeter hime lolita or the current renaissance and more historical classic hime lolita (or the dark witchy looks, or the casual otome ones!), she always looks flawless. Whilst I’d love to learn the secret to her voluminous hair (which is full of secrets), I respect that she spent God-knows-how-long figuring this style out through trial and error to make it the signature look that it is now. Through her coords, custom-made and handmade pieces you can really tell that she has a clear vision of what she wants, and has plenty of artistic flair, which makes her outfits stand out all the more.

| BtSSB Full of Stars "Bright Starry Night" JSK I | Infanta overblouse | Bodyline L380 skirt as underskirt | Peacockalorum underskirt | Enchantlic Enchantilly Crown of the Rose Princess tights | Irregular Choice Total Freedom shoes | Puvithel Crystal Heart necklace | Wicked and Whimsy ring | Star Glazed Delights ring | all other accessories offbrand | Dalao Home half wig |

This coordinate is something that I think Myrsky would wear. Although it is less historical than she seems to enjoy at the moment, it has all the nods to Rococo style that she keeps going back to. The combination of wine red, ivory and gold is regal, befitting the person who inspired the outfit. So while the style of this coordinate sits more with Myrsky’s earlier hime lolita coordinates, the colour palette is closer to what she does now with her renaissance and more historically accurate ones.

Three different textures which nonetheless complement each other so beautifully.

Personally I’m not a big fan of underskirts. I think they’re practical if you need to add some length, but actually making them look good and sit well is harder than it appears. Yet here I’ve gone for two underskirt layers, one created by the Bodyline L380 skirt and one from an actual underskirt (although it’s a shame that the former doesn’t show up much when worn). Myrsky not only wears plenty of long dresses, but also often adds length to shorter ones. It does create a more mature, refined, elegant look, which I enjoy on her. On myself I think I’d prefer just a longer dress. Or maybe I just need to learn how to wear multiple underskirts well?

I still have massive regrets over not buying this in other colours when it was available.

Both the lace and the fabric are so soft - although at this point I can't be sure if this isn't my fabric softener's doing.

As I started with the underskirts, I needed a blouse to match them in colour and fanciness. I wanted something princess with sleeves and it took me a while to remember that I own this, which matches perfectly. For a while it was my go-to blouse for anything fancy, though I have obtained fancier ones since, which is probably why I forgot about this one. Nonetheless it fits the brief perfectly and matches the underskirts not only in colour, but in lightness of the fabric.

The most sparkly shoes ever. One day I'll finally break into them and then I'll be unstoppable.

Shoes proved a little bit trickier for me than I would’ve liked. Myrsky has a lot of shoes she customised herself to match her wardrobe. As a result her shoes always have that historical look that compliments the coord (that is when the dress is short enough for us to see the shoes). My own collection is a little bit all over the place and certainly could do with some improvement in the wine red section. So since I wasn’t happy with any of my wine red shoes, I opted for timeless gold instead. While they are still sweeter than what I would’ve ideally wanted, they are still elegant and work well with the coordinate overall.

Enchantlic Enchantilly does some absolutely amazing tights, I'm glad I got these ones, I would've been very upset if they sold out.

And as I went with gold shoes, I needed some red and ivory in the legwear. You know, I almost ended up with Brigitte Regiment OTKs, these are one of my favourite socks, but I stopped myself thinking that this is a little too predictable for me right now. Instead I went with these Enchantlic Enchantilly tights, which aso feature both colours, are very classy and I feel were more like something that Myrsky might pick. Her legwear, again , when we do get to see it, is on the simpler side, something complimentary but not too fussy. So although these tights are quite busy, they’re not overpowering the coordinate.

This is fairly tame for such a regal look - but a queen doesn't need much to be royal.

The key to any regal outfit are accessories. Luckily I had just the right pieces to truly tie this regal hime theme together in a way that seems befitting of my muse.

I honestly can't remember the name of the shop I purchased this from. I do know that they closed down not that long after I bought this, so if I ever find myself needing more crowns, I'll have to search elsewhere.

First off, the crown. Every princess (and queen) needs her crown. Although when she wears her big rococo hair, Myrsky often doesn’t have a hair accessory or puts a hat on, I really wanted something on my head. In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but at the time the head area simply seemed too bare for my liking. And this truly is a gorgeous crown, I couldn’t resist its siren call tempting me to wear it.

Of course that these would've been better in gold - but they work well enough in the coordinate when worn.

I do wish that these earrings were gol rather than this gunmetal colour. However, that is more of an issue on the flatlay than when worn. A touch of dangling sparkly bits added that bit of interest around the head.

The dreamiest necklace ever, no discussion.

A Puvithel necklace is by now a lolita staple – and with good reason! It is a stunning piece of jewellery, only those glitter/sparkle filters stand a chance of giving justice to how sparkly they are in real life. Myrsky’s necklaces are often big statement pieces, more chokers than long ones, especially when she wears more Rococo looks. So whilst I did toy between this and the Violet Fane Marie Antoinette necklace, this one won by simply being more sparkly. And red.

I think I still have some of these rose beads, though I might not have enough pearl ones to make a matching necklace. Would love to one day though.

As the blouse has only elbow-length sleeves, something on my wrists was necessary from keeping them too bare. Wrist cuffs would’ve been too cutesy for such an elegant look, while the gloves that I have give off a more daytime garden tea party vibe than elegant queen. So trusty pearl bracelets it is. Can’t go wrong with them.

At this point this is my trusty combo that I whip out every time there's need for reds and golds. Can you blame me?

And last but not least, the rings. I picked these primarily for the colours, as I usually do. Very rarely I consider anything else when choosing rings, partly because of the ones I own and partly because I simply don’t wear rings much. All four of these are trusty favourites and if you’ve been here for more than a minute, you would’ve seen them time and again.

That star trim stole my heart.

Baby balancing between obnoxiously adding their brand name to a print and hidingit well amidst all the other gold filigree flouncy details.

Is there a teacup and pot constellation? Maybe we should make one?

There are roses on this print, now you can't accuse me of shoehorning roses into this coord.

Probably my most favourite ddetail. It's so small and only part of the background, but if there are letters, I am all over that!

100% useless, purely decorative corset lacing. I don't think I've ever undone it since I bought this dress.

Before we move on, let’s quickly talk about this dress. When I decided to try and put together a coord inspired by Myrsky, I knew it had to be something princessy. Whilst for a second my mind thought about AP’s Flower Garden JSK, in the end I stuck with my original choice, which is this. Full of Stars “Bright Starry Night” encapsulates what I like about Myrsky’s style: rich jewel tone, gold accents, attention to detail, a hint of cuteness. For all my talk of me not liking high waist dresses on myself, this cut does sit pretty high on me. Myrsky looks stunning in that cut and when channeling her style, I think I grew to like this look on myself a little bit more too. Maybe it is that extra length with the underskirts after all? And besides everything else, this is a gorgeous dress which not many people fully appreciate because that fabric does not photograph well on stock pictures. It has the most luxurious shine to it, complimented by the gold print, but with both the fabric and the print reflecting a lot of light, the details get lost in photos. It took me until receiving this dress to realise that it had rabbits in the print (which I’m not usually keen on). And until now to fully realise that it also has cute teacups. It just keeps on giving!

My makeup is very, very similar to my usual one. The only differences are doing the blush much higher (practically on my temples) and trying the gradient lip (and failing). I was also testing out a pair of magnetic eyelashes from Ardell, which I am now a very big fan of! Contact lenses are Geo Princess Mimi in AppleGreen.

And finally we get to what truly makes this outfit inspired by Myrsky: hair and makeup. I tried my best at recreating her signature look. This is still only my firsts attempt, so if I ever tried again, I think I’d manage to make it better, but I’m happy with how it came out. I shall acquire more secrets to make my hair bigger. When it comes to makeup, hers is pretty simple and also not that dissimilar to my own. Hers is I think slightly darker, she does her blush much higher and stronger than I do (although I had a phase of doing mine this way too, I just couldn’t capture it on photos well) and she often does this trendy gradient lip that I absolutely cannot do (this was still my best attempt at it to date and I had dark pink lip stain on my finger almost all day). And lashes! It’s not a Myrsky look without some big lashes. Yes, I could’ve gone bigger, but as I tried to film this quickly, I decided to try out my new magnetic lashes, which are much smaller. An attempt was made to compensate for that by adding circle lenses. It’s been a while since I had both false eyelashes and lenses on, my eyes were not happy about that for too long, which only spurred me on in trying to get this finished as quickly as possible. Next time I’ll skip the lenses.

Somehow I thought that Ive worn this dress more often than that.
From left to right these outfits are from: March 2016, June 2017, May 2018 and July 2019 (apparently I only posted that on IG and never here?).

You know how sometimes people say that they’ve peaked with a particular dress? This is how I felt about this one since summer 2017. To this day this is one of my favourite coords ever and I didn’t think that I’d ever make this dress look more beautiful than I did then. Although looking at the outfit for this prompt, I think I finally got over the creative block that early peak created in my head. I still have more ideas for this dress that I am yet to explore. Although I’ll probably skip attempting to make this look casual again – some dresses are best not to be dressed down. I tried it, it wasn’t my favourite look, I can move on from that now.

Like with everything, coordinates gain a new depth and dimension when worn. This is always the point I try to illustrate in these posts: that the same outfit can look vastly different on a flatlay vs worn with hair and makeup. So I hope that you’ll enjoy this lookbook clip and that it does justice to all those little details and elements I explained in my very wordy post. And to all of you who stuck all the way to the end – thank you.