October Coords Roundup

For all my best intentions of engaging with the Spooky Month, I don’t think it’s been any more spooky than I usually get. If anything, it may have even been a little less spooky than in the last few years? That’s probably not up to me to judge though…

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Coord 1: Happy Spoops

| Metamorphose Airline JSK | offbrand top | vintage vest | Angelic Pretty Lovely Ribbon OTKs | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | Lotus Ribbon hair clips | Cutie Creator headbow | Fox and Fountain earrings | Two Days Slow necklace | handmade bracelets |

I've been into doing my lipstick a certain way, which I keep forgetting leaves the corners basically bare.

Nothing like realising that one of the hair clips flipped at the end of the month.

I took the first Friday of October off because I had some carry over annual leave to use and wanted to give Spy a full day play date. Well, Spy ignored me, as cats are wont to do, but I still dressed up cute for the season before this dress is packed up for autumn/winter. I fully thought that I’d be wearing the hell out of this vest throughout the month, but I actually barely wore it. Sad times.

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Coord 2: Matt Hansen Once Again

| Metamorphose Polka Dots tiered skirt | offbrand top and belt | MuFish tights | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | The Naked Lace Company barrette | Axes Femme earrings | Rose Marie Seoir necklace | Patisserie Pink Lock and Key brooch | Magical Mews Swan Hoe pin | Bed Room bracelet | Star Glazed Delights Brandwhore ring |

Been a while since I wore those earrings.

The polka dots looking particularly dotty.

Over a year after the first time I saw him live I got to go to another Matt Hansen gig. This time I slightly tweaked a coord I first wore in 2021, since it felt like the right vibe and balance between comfy/casual and dressed up. Opted for more hearts in honour of all the love songs that would be played that night. Not much more to say about this.

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Coord 3: Back from Storage

| Innocent World Double Braid Tartan skirt | Angelic Pretty Logo Embroidered Turtleneck cutsew | Innocent World Pure Smooth Millefeuille bolero | Angelic Pretty Rose Lace Pattern OTKs | Modo Prayer Poem shoes | Cutie Creator Maiden’s Prayer headbow | offbrand necklace | Little Rogue and Co brooch | Enchantlic Enchantilly Queen Cat Secret Library ring |

I know I keep saying it, but I need more brown clothes. It's so nice to get away with a literal tinted lip balm and some mascara because the colours of the clothes work for me.

Every time I look at this ring, I wonder why I don't have more Enchantlic Enchantilly in my wardrobe. That feels like something to change.

The bi-annual wardrobe changeover happened only the day before and I felt so much joy from getting my autumn/winter pieces out. Mainly because of this skirt, but also some of the thicker cardigans. I have missed this skirt so much and therefore wanted to wear it as soon as I could, settling on another brown x red coord because it just works. It was comfy, unfussy, AND it happened to be a particularly good hair day. What more could one wish for?

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Coord 4: Joan of Arc-maxxing

| Haenuli Joan of Arc JSK | offbrand T-shirt, boots, and belt | Angelic Pretty Crown Logo OTKs | Physical Drop headbow | Fox and Fountain earrings | Le Petit Four Sacred Heart Warrior necklace | Summer Tales Boutique Strike a Pose pin | handmade bracelets | Le Petit Four ring |

The joy of Joan of Arc-maxxing whilst still being casual is real.

As my other pair of gothic-leaning bronze earrings broke, I was very happy to pick these up at a maker's market recently.

I did say that I would wear this Powerwolf T-shirt with this JSK and that was the day for it. It took a bit of faffing to tuck the T-shirt under the belt (when will bands give us cropped length merch?), but I like the result overall. Exactly what was needed for a WFH day.

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Coord 5: Dinner by the Sea

| Angelic Pretty Royal Unicorn Switching JSK | Millefleurs Georgette blouse | Angelic Pretty Salon de The Rose OTKs | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | Cutie Creator Maiden’s Prayer headbow | Sour Cherry earrings | Enchantlic Enchantilly necklace | handmade (not by me) brooch | Star Glazed Delights Brandwhore ring | vintage bag | offbrand brooches |

Sorry, but for this coord you get the world's shittiest selfie because, frankly, I was too busy having a grand time catching up with my friends.

Same for the detail shot.

A lolita friend’s wedding the day after meant a reunion dinner with some of my friends the day before. And since this dress is perfect for packing due to the fact that it doesn’t wrinkle, as well as is warm, I worked around that. These OTKs were one of the trickier ones to tick off from my list of what remains for the rest of the year and they actually inspired styling this with pink accents to bring in the roses from the design more into it all. Are the selfie and detail pictures crap because I was too busy having a good time catching up with my friends? Absolutely! Worth it.

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Coord 6: Wedding Guest

| Physical Drop Long Sleeve Shirring Dress | Innocent World Ribbon Lace Millefeuille bolero | Putomayo Celestial Light OTKs | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | Haruhi Clover headbow | Puvithel Crystal Heart necklace and earrings | vii ring | vintage belt | offbrand ribbon |

By that point it had been so long since I've worn a full face of makeup that at times, when I caught a glimpse of myself, it really took me aback for a second.

For how flippantly and quickly this detail shot was taken, it came out really nice, actually.

When a lolita bride says that she’d like lolita guests to wear their best coords, you deliver. My original plan was to wear AatP’s Persian Rug, however, in the process of finding something for my BF to wear, he landed on his vintage blue velvet jacket with red stitching and I switched up my plan immediately. Which I’m very grateful for because not only was this comfy AF, it was also pretty warm as I forgot that the wedding was supposed to be outdoors. Still, barring some cold fingers, it was a great time, all the other lolitas delivered on some great outfits as well, and I am so, so happy to finally see my friend married.

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Coord 7: Lit Escape

| Lady Sloth Slavic Bestiary JSK | offbrand top, hair clips, earrings, brooch, and ring | AatP Lace-Up Ribbon OTKs | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | indie brand hair clip | Neant Glass necklace and ring | Metamorphose Le Grand Couronne necklace | AatP Hyakki Yakou badge |

A friend had gifted me a reddish-brown gel eyeliner that I've enjoyed using, I want to wear it more.

There's something very satisfying here about the dark, very gothic accessories with this light and classic bolero.

Don’t tell anyone that I was out at an author signing during what is technically my work hours. And also don’t tell anyone that I skipped the queue. To my credit on that one, I found the event very poorly signposted and just went in, following where some people were, then none of the staff had asked me if I was for the accessibility needs queue because they were too distracted by my coord. I may not have werewolves to match the book, but I have Slavic Bestiary and ghost Chris. That’s good enough and certainly gathered enough compliments, including from the author whose book I went to collect and have signed.

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Coord 8: Celebratory Date Night

| Metamorphose Charlotte JSK | Vallee Lys Nocturne sheer tulle dress | Innocent World Union Flag Lame OTKs | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | BtSSB headdress | offbrand jewellery |

With barely 45 minutes to change after work, I kept everything about styling as simple as I could get away with.

Oof, BtSSB headbands are so tiny, I was glad to yeet this one off at the end of the evening.

To celebrate BF getting a new job, we went out for a fancy meal. I had this coord stashed in the back of my mind after almost wearing it one time for working from home and then deciding that it was too involved and that I wanted to be comfy. Well, this was the perfect occasion for it, the right balance between lolita and elegant normie. 

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Coord 9: Travel Like Many Other

| Violet Fane Otome Nostalgia skirt | offbrand top, tights, and boots |

I’ve done a variation of this before and the best way to transport a petticoat is by wearing one, hence the coord for my train journey to York. Not much more to say about it, I wasn’t even going to include this in the post, but heck it, demystifying social media is in.

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Coord 10: Vengeance of the Grey Lady

| Angelic Pretty Cinema Doll JSK | Atelier Pierrot Decay blouse | Axes Femme Kawaii underskirt | Enchantlic Enchantilly Angel’s Ball Party tights | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | Ruby Rose cat ears | MandaRin Designs brooches | offbrand earrings, choker, and cape/overskirt | Neant Glass necklace and ring | 
Photo by @pistachibow

I tried a slightly different style of 1920s makeup and in hindsight, I could've gone darker/heavier with it. But in the moment I decided not to push my luck on the day of the event whilst I was winging stuff.

A Neant Glass ring group shot instead of my usual detail one. Courtesy of @tonblackberry.

For the Vengeance of the Grey Lady tea party in York I’d spent many an hour wondering what to wear, then going back and forth. But deep down I knew what I wanted to do: a cat coord that gave homage to vintage Halloween costumes. I also desperately wanted to wear these dumb gyaru cat ears that I’ve hoarded for like 13 years at this point and never wore – their time to shine was now. So after some try ons, then deciding that I hated the original try ons and changing my idea the week of the event, I finally arrived at this. Because no Halloween party is complete without a token (slutty) cat girl nyan. I am *extremely* pleased with how this came out, especially the Etoile Reverie cape doubling as an overskirt now – because what is a cape if not an overskirt for the shoulders? (Alternatively, what is an overskirt if not a cape for the butt?) The tea party was, of course, amazing, I am obsessed with the medieval themed art and stickers we got designed by @pistachibow (go give her a follow, she’s amazing), and even though Storm Boelo was disrupting everyone’s travel and coord plans, once inside, we were very minimally bothered by the outside world. As things should be at a tea party.

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A post shared by Liv (@pistachibow)

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Coord 11: Simple Black and White

| AatP Sugar Plum Fairy Princess JSK | Infanta overblouse | Resailan Jewelry Box tights | Elf Armorie Cupid’s Heart shoes | Atelier Pierrot Rose Lace katyusha | Promised Land Creations necklace | offbrand brooch, ring, and belt |

I've been slowly mastering the art of a thin eyeliner. Not necessarily photo-ready, but great for IRL easy wear.

I had such high hopes for this headdress when I bought it and now it turns out that I actually hate it on me. Oh welp, sometimes that's how things roll.

Realising that there was no reason for me to wait until November to wear these tights, I decided to dress up for a WFH day. Surprisingly, though maybe actually not so much, I haven’t worn this dress in your more black x white/ivory combos much, so I leaned into the simplicity of it. That I got to launch the next iteration of The Big Northern EGL Bring & Buy whilst in a coord was a nice bit of coincidence.

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And as such we come to the end of Spooky Month. Things have been relatively spooky, but not in any sort of an excessive way. My ‘wear every item of legwear’ challenge for this year saw an unexpected bump, where I started October out with 9 pairs left to wear and am ending it with only 4 (one of which physically isn’t with me yet and two of which absolutely can wait until December). Now we’re onto November, historically a pretty gloomy month, but I am determined to love November and to romanticise the heck out of it as the epitome of cosy season, that moment of downtime between the high of Halloween and the joy of Christmas. So here’s to November.