Half of 2020 in Coords

In an attempt to start a tradition borne out of a Twitter trend last year, I thought that I’d review the first 6 months of 2020 through my coords. Rather than talk about the outfits, as I did in the monthly coord roundups, this will look at the big picture and identify any trends, seeking explanations/reasons for them where applicable.

Coords

Coords from January to February.

Coords from March.

Coords from April.

Coords from April and May.

Coords from May.

Coords from June - really squeezing that last one in so as to not post it all on its own!

These are all of the outfits that I have worn between January 1st and June 30th of this year. Although it’s immediately obvious that there were more outfits here than during the same time last year, it is unfair to directly compare a time dominated by staying at home to the carefree months of 2019. Nonetheless this is 55 coordinates in just six months, enough to make your head spin. That’s an average of 9 coords per month. In any other circumstances I’d say that that’s at least halfway to being a lifestyle lolita, though as already mentioned, given the circumstances this statement seems at least unfair.

It was genuinely mind boggling to even try and pick out any patterns from this mass of photos. Whereas in the first half of 2019 I could simply look at the three collages and get an idea of what the trends were, this time I actually had to break it down in a spreadsheet. (It’s not as bad as it sounds, I like spreadsheets.) I listed each coord, then labelled it by substyle (limiting myself to just the main three, no themes or hybrids like sweet-classic), type of main piece used and dominant colour (cheating a little here by making ‘tricolour’ into a standalone thing). For the heck of it I also noted the occasion, breaking it down into meetup (including virtual), filming, staying at home (for work or otherwise) and other, which incorporates anything that does not fit into any of these categories. With so many outfits you have to stay methodical, otherwise it’s all just a giant messy pile. And whilst direct number comparisons between 2019 and 2020 would have been unfair, once converted into percentages it was easier to draw parallels between the two. I clearly can’t stop making more work for myself, but it’s all in the name of Fun with Basic Data Analysis, so it’ll be worth it, for me as well as for you.

Substyle

In simple terms, classic outfits have dominated this first half of the year with 32 outfits out of a total of 55. Looking at the coords above, there’s an interesting thing I’ve observed which probably contributed to that. On the one hand, classic lolita is easy to throw on casually and with minimum accessories. It works well with bare face and low effort hairstyles, which suits a lockdown environment well. On the other hand, almost every time I wanted to dress up, either fully OTT or just considerably more than at other times, those were also classic outfits. Of all  the meetup outfits of this year, only two are not classic. It’s an interesting duality whereby classic is my go-to for both casual and OTT wear. This isn’t to say that none of this year’s sweet outfits were casual, plenty were, but I think of all 21 sweet coordinates this year I would only consider 2 as more than casual, though not necessarily OTT. I guess my sweet outfits fit into that niche in between, in many cases in the form of retro lolita coords, which are substantially more effort than casual outfits thanks to hair and makeup, but aren’t in the outlandish realm of OTT. And if I were to include my larme lolita experimentations as retro lolita, then out of 11 retro lolita coordinates only two would be labelled as classic ones in my books.

However, reasons for wear aside, the bigger factor playing into what substyles I wore and how often is the composition of my lolita main pieces. If I were to assign a substyle to each main piece based on its look and ignoring how some might work for more than one substyle, then over half of my wardrobe is classic. So if the majority of my main pieces fall into the realm of classic lolita, only two are strictly gothic and the rest are sweet, with many being interchangeable, it’s only logical that I end up wearing classic lolita most often.

With that in mind, when comparing these trends as percentages of all coords worn over the first six months, 2020 mimics 2019 pretty closely. Although the difference in classic to sweet coord ratio was more significant this year than last (32:21 in 2020 vs 12:11 in 2019), percentage-wise both half-year periods have seen me wear classic at least half the time. And whilst lockdown obviously could not play any part in that in 2019, my wardrobe composition can. I would have to obtain more sweet lolita pieces to tip the scales and looking at my current wishlist, with only 2 sweet pieces there in a list of 13, this isn’t very likely to happen. My relationship with sweet lolita is also somewhat complicated at the moment, but that’s a discussion for a whole other post.

Main piece type

As far as the composition of main pieces used in coords, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The majority of lolitas that I know own and wear more JSKs than they do OPs or skirts. We also all know that wearing skirts is one of the most common ways to wear lolita casually, whilst OPs are a godsend on lazy days when you want to dress up with less effort (which doesn’t necessarily translate into casual coords, depending on the OP itself). The only significant thing here that could change in the future is how often I wear ouji considering that this is a growing part of my wardrobe.

Last year, although I did have a pair of ouji shorts by that point already, they only got worn once in the whole of 2019 and not once in the first half. By wearing ouji once in the last 6 months, this is already a 100% increase compared to this time last year. Now that I have a second pair of bottoms to use, by the end of this year I should have worn ouji at least three times in total, potentially more, if I manage to get enough pieces to put my ouji shorts on the same “good for casual” shelf as lolita skirts. Unlikely, but not impossible.

As already mentioned, this whole section holds no surprises because that is simply what my wardrobe consists of. If 65% of it is JSKs, then wearing JSKs 63% of the times is what you’d expect from someone with a collection like that. What I am proud of is that in the last six months I have worn my OPs considerably more and each time it was a visibly differently coord than the last, if I may say so myself. The lolita community is a fickle hivemind that simultaneously loves the ease of making an outfit with an OP and laments their lack of versatility. To be able to combine the benefit and overcome the hindrance with my very small collection of 4 OPs feels like an achievement and I would like to push myself to do more, to keep proving that OP coords don’t all have to be the same. They can be if you want, wearing OPs in the same ways and re-wearing outfits are both valid options, but to me the stretch-and-challenge simply feels exciting.

Colour

What I hoped to achieve was to wear reds more. I knew that to wear them more than blues would be very hard, so I aimed to wear reds more than I did in 2019. And overall I think I did well, my coords over the last six months have shown quite a range of colours used, I’ve been embracing more pinks, as well as black, though both usually as secondary and tertiary colours. Although I haven’t been able to change the ratio of red to blue outfits, the difference is much smaller and depending on how you would view my tricolour coords if absolutely forced to assign them to one of the composite colours, that could have tipped the scales.

However, until my wardrobe grows in red main pieces this will simply not happen without a significant push and conscious effort on my part. When blue pieces are the most numerous in your wardrobe, followed by white, wearing reds more means wearing the same pieces more often. This is what happened in the second half of 2019 with my wearing the Winter Spices skirt for a full working week, which is the only time so far when the scales tipped in favour of reds.

And speaking of last year, whilst the overall trend of wearing blue the most remained consistent, the ratio between the different colours this year is much more even and closer together. Yes, this is partly because of my inability to commit the tricolour pieces to one category or the other, but also thanks to the gains in the ‘other’ category. In 2019 my 4 other colour coordinates consisted of 3 green and 1 black. This year there were enough coords of other colours that I couldn’t shove them under blue or ivory, like I have in the past. There were standalone mint and brown coors so far this year, so together with 3 black and 3 green outfits, the “other” category grew enough to level out the playing field for the other colours. And I guess this is something that there will be more of - not that I foresee myself doing significantly more black, but because I do actively want to expand my collection of greens and can genuinely imagine myself wearing coords where the dominant colour will not be either red, blue or white.

Occasion

It comes as no surprise that the majority of the outfits in 2020 were for staying at home. As depressing as lockdown is, it’s an environment that nurtures getting dressed more for a whole host of reasons. I used lolita to cheer myself up, to wear outfits I may not have felt comfortable wearing outside, to try new things in a safe space, to lounge in because generous shirring can be as comfortable as pyjamas and you feel more accomplished in frills than in a onesie. Despite there still being almost an many meetups this year as at this point last year, without being confined to my own flat I doubt that I would have had the energy to wear even half of these outfits, even the more casual ones.

Another big thing to note here is that I have moved out of my parent’s house and live on my own. As much as I love my parents, I did not feel comfortable wearing my frills just for the sake of lounging at home because it inevitably meant exposing my clothes to cigarette smoke. And trust me, it doesn’t matter what I did, how careful I was, where I kept my frills when unworn, that shit gets everywhere, so the least I could do was to limit direct exposure as much as possible. This also contributed to more 2020 coords being worn for filming, particularly the Around Your Wardrobe in 30 Coordinates posts, though not exclusively. Staying in the same clothes post-filming was something I did pretty often this year, which never happened last year. Lastly, in 2019 my “other” occasions mainly involved going out places, with my Mum, partner or on my own. Whilst this is the case with just over half of this year’s “other” coordinates, the rest were mostly the various twinning outfits that I did. Since there was a reason to put them on, it wouldn’t have been fair to lump them with the “staying at home” coords.

Summary

As I already said, making too many direct comparisons with last year would be highly unfair given that the circumstances differ so wildly. Having said this, in every area but the last one the trends were pretty much the same in the first half of 2020 as they were in the first half of 2019. Given that those other categories were tied to the clothes themselves, it was predictable because I can only do so much with the wardrobe that I have. Up until June this year I have followed the same goal as in 2019, which was to wear each main piece that I own at least once during the year. By trying to accomplish that, when I was wearing lolita considerably less often than I do now that lockdown continues, it was a matter of fact that I would prioritise wearing everything over re-wearing pieces in order to have more red outfits than blue or more sweet than classic. Right now, having been able to wear each main piece at least once in less than half a year, this isn’t necessarily a priority for me to try to achieve that again, so I could focus on wearing certain colours or substyles more.

The question is: do I actually want to? I can’t say that I see much point in that beyond proving that it can be done and for now I’m a little bit tired of proving a point for the sake of proving a point. As lockdown continues and we are battling frustration at our government, who are easing the restrictions when many of us don’t feel it is safe to do so, dressing up at home continues to be one of the few things we can safely do to lift our spirits, no matter how much we may itch to organise a meetup. In such a climate surely it is better to focus on wearing outfits that I feel bring me joy and make me happy, as well as take advantage of not having to deal with the public in frills. So let’s see how the next six months play out, both in terms of my outfits and in terms of what will actually be possible and safe to do. I am still holding on to the hope that I will be able to host the OT-Tea Party and give everyone a much needed respite from only wearing their fancy stuff at home and get that buzz of a big lolita event which we’ve been deprived of so far. Because we all know that a Zoom tea party with 20 people is never the same as a physical tea party for 20 people.

If you’ve read all the way to the end, thank you so much! I hope that my obsessing over numbers, labels, spreadsheets, and graphs has been interesting. Have a “well done” sticker as reward for being here, your reading this means a lot to me.