AYWi30C #16 - Break the Rules

Now this is more my jam! Whilst I’m not trying to claim the title of the most inventive or notorious lolita rulebreaker out there, I enjoy experimenting with lolita fashion and bending its formula to make new things that excite me. I am also a self-proclaimed heathen who enjoys exposing my shoulders in lolita (although conversely, years of wearing lolita have made me rather self-conscious of doing that in other fashions), so I decided not to reinvent the wheel and run with a blouseless coord for this rule-breaking prompt.

| Angelic Pretty Fantasy Theater Gilet JSK | Angelic Pretty Crown Logo OTK | BtSSB Border OTK| Hush Puppy boot | Angelic Pretty Elegant Doll boot | unknown mini hat | Angelic Pretty Royal Unicorn necklace | Wicked and Whimsy ring | Star Glazed Delights ring | offbrand earrings |

Not only that, this became my opportunity to redeem one of my first lolita coords that I wrote about back in June. Whilst my original idea was different (and you can read about it here), due to lack of time and pieces I used this as my backup idea, spiced up with a few different touches to the original version.

Mismatched in colour, mismatched in pattern and mismatched in brand. What could be more circusy than that?

The Angelic Pretty boot is minimally longer than the Hush Puppy one, but the heel height is exactly the same!

Starting with mismatched legwear! Whilst you could try and argue that mismatched socks and shoes could also be a way of breaking the rules, a quick phone call to the year 2012 and The Height of OTT Sweet would disprove that. This was a look that was incredibly popular back then and although it has died down a lot now, I still occasionally see people do it. Circus themed coordinates are ones where the look prevails as it matches that whimsical feel very well, plus you can mix and match patterns as well as colours, like I’ve done here. Having first put these socks and boots for a 1 Dress 4 Looks post, I knew I simply had to use that as soon as possible and it was really, really fun!

How did I not see that the necklace was laying all askew? This bothers me now...

Without a blouse, accessories become all the more crucial at balancing out the coordinate and making sure that you are not lacking in any detail. Although the bodice of the dress does some of the work here, as can be seen on the first attempt at this outfit from back in 2014, the devil really is in the detail.

Whoever made you, little hat, did a splendid job.

The hat is exactly the same as I used back then. I wish that I had made a note then of the shop I purchased it from because it really is lovely and the creator deserves to be credited. Sadly, all that I remember was that I purchased it on eBay and that it came from Australia. For all I know that person might’ve stopped making mini hats altogether, though they still deserve credit for this one because it’s made truly beautifully.

Going more for colour match than theme match. Are we counting that as another rule broken?

This time the necklace is fully on purpose, even if the theme doesn’t match the coordinate 100%. It matches in colour, which is all that matters, and we can pretend that the unicorn is another of this particular circus’ acts. As for the earrings, they are actually from the same set as the ones I wore in 2014. Once I put my hair up, I realised that an earring would really help, so whilst I didn’t have a bigger and fancier one, this little extra pop of red helped balance out the colours.

There's something oddly pleasing about the fact that I used the other Brand Whore ring with the 'follow the rules' coord.

I swear that I own other rings! I just don’t often wear different ones when there’s red in my coord. The curtain design on the Wicked and Whimsy one was too good to not include, whereas the Brand Whore one just makes for a lovely pair. If this coordinate were to follow “the rules” a bit more, there would be either bracelets or wrist cuffs. And indeed, I thought about using the detachable wrist cuffs from Meta’s Classical Sister OP, since an actual cuff shape (as opposed to ruffled lace) could’ve been cute with this coordinate, but in the end I decided against it. If the coord is to embrace being blouseless, then let’s embrace that fully!

Flattering and comfortable, I wish AP used this bodice cut more often, though I get that it's kind of limited to only a few print themes.

Love me some gold braid and military-style buttons! After buying this dress I genuinely believed that I'd be doing circus lolita more.

And in record time we get onto the dress, since we didn’t have to get distracted with talking about a blouse. Thanks to the gilet cut bodice, this dress genuinely works beautifully without one and in fact this cut actually clashes with most common blouse necklines like the Peter Pan collar. If you want to wear a lolita coord without a blouse and still have it be lolita, halterneck cuts will be your friend (just make sure the dress is lolita and not a rockabilly one).

I thought that this might be an actual AP dress, they've done that before where characters in prints wear other AP releases, but it's not. It simply takes elements from a lot of similar AP dresses.

Whilst the star lace is simple in comparison to other AP custom lace, it works really well with this print.

It’s been in my wardrobe for so long, yet I still find new details and elements in this print. Not even small things either - it took until filming the lookbook for this prompt to really notice the dress that Lyrical Bunny was wearing, for example.

That is a lot of pink in here - yet I was so focused on the reds, it took me until now to realise it.

And mint! So much lovely, bright mint. Was I blind before?

It was also the first time that I realised just how prominent pink and mint are as accent colours in this print. I always knew that there were loads of other colours here to play up, but the red kept distracting the eye, so I didn’t pay attention to how much mint and pink was in the print. It makes me want to wear this dress with pink next!

Thank you, Lola's Lashes, for producing this much drama in a magnetic version, it's a godsend for lazy people like me.

The goal for hair and makeup was to replicate the look from 2014 with some minor updates. I think I actually have less makeup on now than I did then because the size of those eyelashes meant that any eyeshadow wouldn’t show up anyway, so why waste the energy. My victory roll is a lot smaller, but that is more to do with the fact that my hair is significantly shorter than it was then. You’d never tell from those 2014 photos, but my hair then was almost 1 metre long, very much reaching down to my bum. The pain in my arms trying to roll it into a victory roll was real! Whereas this time it actually happened quite quickly and painlessly, it might encourage me to style my hair more.

Wow, I thought that there'd be more.
From left to right these are from: July 2015, August 2017, September 2018, April 2019 and March 2020.

Looking at those outfits, it does actually make me sad how few there are. This is a dress that I’ve owned since June 2014 and while my lolita wardrobe was very (very) budding between then and 2016, there could’ve been so many coords since then. I know for a fact that I’ve worn this very first outfit at least once, in October or November 2015 for World Burlesque Games in London, but then not a single time in all of 2016. And it’s such a versatile print that I barely scratched the surface of what I could do with it! It works with basically every colour imaginable and I don’t think that what I actually wore showcases that well. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy with the outfits that I did wear and like them all - I am simply disappointed in my past self. It seems particularly appropriate to say that during a prompt about breaking rules because even when you’re sticking to said rules, you can still try to create different things and I want to explore this dress’ potential to the fullest!

Of course, the lookbook would not be complete without some circusy music. That’s all that I can really say about it, isn’t it? Circus-themed coord has to have some circusy music, and those are the rules that I will not be breaking today.