Lolita 52 Challenge: 5 Keywords that Describe my Lolita style

Hello everyone! Here we are again with another Lolita 52 challenge topic: 5 keywords that describe my personal Lolita style. Let's go!


#1: Pastel
 I generally prefer pastels and while I do have a few Gothic and slightly Classic pieces, my Lolita style is most definitely Sweet Lolita. Because of this, my wardrobe, including my Lolita, is most definitely pastel.


#2: Foodie
 No, I don't have gravy stains on all my Lolita dresses, nor am I morbidly overweight (I'm just a bit chubby :3 ). Though there is definitely a food theme to my Lolita style. Macaroon necklace, candy-like jewelry, heck, my dream dress (which I happily own) is Jewelry Jelly, a cute pastel print with lots of cute jelly treats on it. I definitely love cute food themed items and want to add more to my wardrobe in the future.


#3: Cutesy
 I definitely have a cute flair to my Lolita style, also evident in the fact that I mostly wear Sweet Lolita. Even with my Gothic Lolita pieces, I have cute oldschool styles and accessories.


#4: Simple
 While I enjoy OTT (Over the top) Lolita styles, due to time and money constraints my outfits are fairly simple in nature with one or two well place hair accessories, a main piece (or pieces if skirt or JSK), and some well placed jewelry. Also, I generally wear my natural hair with my Lolita coordinates as opposed to wigs.


#5: Mildly repetitive
 As mentioned before, I have money constraints, so my wardrobe is a bit lacking and I end up using the same pieces a fair amount. Because of this, my outfits can look a bit repetitive because, as an example, I'm always switching between the same two white-ish, short sleeved blouses and only really have one JSK and an OP.


So what about you? Can you come up with five keywords to describe your personal style, be it Lolita or some other fashion? I struggled a bit coming up with three key words, much less the five I ended up with.


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What's a Living Doll?

Hey everyone! So, today I want to talk about a style that I've been interested in as well as imitating for several years now: The Living Doll style.


 So, what is a Living Doll? What defines them? To explain simply, Living Dolls are those who choose to imitate the look of a certain style of doll both with their makeup and hair as well as clothing. Many Living Dolls choose to try and modify their figure to be more doll-like through methods such as diet and exercise, corseting, or surgery. The type of doll imitated varies widely, but typical inspirations are Barbie dolls, Asian ball-jointed dolls, porcelain dolls, or anime. Barbies are known for their dramatic proportions, glamorous features, and somewhat flashy clothing. A few well known Barbie inspired Living Dolls are Valeria Lukyanova and Angelica Kenova. Asian ball-jointed dolls tend to have slender figures, large, but still realistic looking eyes, and a somewhat natural, yet still elegant look to them. By far, Asian Ball-jointed dolls seem to be one of the more popular inspirations amongst the group I'm in (an online community on Facebook). A popular Living Doll that has this sort of style is Dakota Rose or Kotakoti. Unfortunately, Kotakoti is known for achieving her look partly through image manipulation, but not all Living Dolls choose to do this. Porcelain dolls are well known for their child-like features, extravagant clothing, and perfect skin. Many Living Dolls also draw inspiration from porcelain dolls. Venus Palermo or Venus Angelic is a popular YouTuber that is known for her porcelain complexion and doll-like features. When she was younger, she used to dress more extravagantly like a porcelain doll, but more recently her style has become more natural like an Asian ball-jointed doll. Anime is well known for its long legs, huge eyes, and slender figures (actually more typical to Shojo anime, aimed at girls 12-16, but still common in other styles of anime). Anime Living Dolls tend to exaggerate their eyes greatly through use of false eyelashes, circle lenses, and white eye makeup. A very popular anime Living Doll is Anastasiya Shpagina on YouTube. There are some other doll styles that Living Dolls choose to imitate such as Pulips or French dolls, but these are the main inspiration for many Living Dolls. Now, let me answer some frequent questions that arise when Living Dolls are brought up.


 So, are Living Dolls trying to actually be dolls?
 In most cases, no. Living Dolls just like the look of dolls and choose to imitate it with their style and make themselves into what they consider to be an ideal look, similar how many people choose to dress like runway models or popular icons. While there are some dolls that choose to imitate their preferred style of doll very closely through use of plastic surgery, I find that most of us choose to stick to makeup, diet and exercise, and corseting (also known as waist training) to achieve our look.


Why do you want to look like a doll? Why not Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift?
 Most Living Dolls choose to look like dolls just because we like how they look and we aren't as interested in trying to achieve the look of some famous actor, star, or model. In some cases, a Living Doll might have features or a build that resemble a doll and just choose to run with it and start making their looks even more doll-like (similar to Venus Angelic). They may also just be interested more in anime and Japanese fashion than typical European styles and looks, like me.


Are you obsessed with looking like a doll?
 In many cases, Living Dolls are just as obsessed with our looks as any typical teenaged girl or fashionista. We typically aren't so into our fashion as to spend every living minute focusing on looking like a doll, but we make changes to our lifestyles to accommodate our style such as planning a wardrobe, makeup, or redecorating our surroundings. Just like anyone else interested in something, we surround ourselves with our interests and develop them. Much like someone into video games might collect games and systems or someone into runway fashion might surround themselves with model inspiration pictures and the trendiest clothing, Living Dolls tend to surround themselves with items they deem "dolly." For some this might just be the clothing and makeup required to look the way they like, or it might mean completely redecorating their surroundings to reflect their style.


I hope you all enjoyed this post. If you have any questions about Living Dolls, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer. I'll be doing a post later talking about the Living Doll community, so please look forward to that.


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Building a Wardrobe: Part Two

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second installment of my wardrobe revamp series! Today I'll be talking about how to plan your wardrobe to get the most bang for your buck. Let's go!


 Step Two: What works for you?
 Step two is where you'll start laying some of the ground work for your new wardrobe. You've gotten rid of the old and now you're looking to start adding ne. However, before you start adding things higglety-pigglety to your closet, get a more defined idea of what will work for you. Start off by looking for inspiration. Find bloggers, models, and YouTubers that have a defined wardrobe in the style you want. Look at what they have and how they put it together to get a better idea of what you want in your wardrobe. Look up pictures for inspiration, be it through google, pinterest, or your favorite search engine, do it. Get as much inspiration as you can so you know what to work with to achieve the look you want. Pay attention to details and find transformation or instructional videos for your style. While I was looking into the Gothic style, I looked for outfit videos as well as beginner suggestions to better define what I wanted. In one such video the author talked about how when you dress up in all black you have to make use of different textures and materials to get a good look. This helped me a lot when looking for clothes. Rather than just get all black clothing, I looked for knits, mesh, sheer detailing, and similar things to add variety. The same is true with any other style. Find out the basics of the style that really make an outfit pop and stand out. Maybe it's a distinct print in Lolita or a milti-colored tutu for Fairy Kei. Whatever your style is, figure out what it is that helps make that style what it is.


 Once you have an idea of what your looking for, it's time to figure out what works for you. Go to a local mall of thrift store and try on EVERYTHING. Alright, that may be a little much, but try on different pieces. See how different cuts and colors look on you so you know what to look for and what to avoid while shopping. This is especially helpful if you mostly buy items online due to their rarity in your local area. We can't all be Lolitas living near a Baby the Stars Shine Bright store. If you have a friend with a more defined wardrobe than you, see if you can try on some of their clothing and see how it works for you. This step has been helpful for me so I can see what sort of cuts are flattering on me and which just make me look like a Fatty-chan or a hobo.


Step Three: More research
 Once you know what looks good on you, look for that sort of clothing. Find brands that sell flattering pieces for you in sizes that work for you and start shopping around. Look for colors, cuts, and prices. There's a lot of Storenvy stores that sell similar items, so sometimes you have to dig around through other sites to find where articles originally came from and what sort of prices they have. Find out how much those sorts of items go for second hand and document some of your favorite "must-haves" in a notebook so you know what sort of price range they have for future buying excursions. This is the time to set up wishlists, not buy everything in sight. Take advantage of promotions and desperate sales later, you're just window shopping right now.


More to come next week!
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The Peticoat Debate: My Views

So, as many Lolitas know, there has been an argument raging on the internet over whether Lolita is still Lolita without a petticoat. Obviously there are many different perspectives on this as the Lolita style can be defined many different ways. Here are my personal opinions on what defines Lolita and whether a petticoat is necessary or not.

I've done fairly extensive research on what the Lolita style is as my Senior project was based around the style and also due to personal curiosity. From my research I've seen that the Lolita style is based on Rococo and Victorian styles and that is also a fairly loose fashion. There are many different substyles that break the "rules" of what is thought of as traditional Lolita. While many people insist that having a petticoat to achieve the cupcake shaped skirt is what makes Lolita Lolita, I instead state that it is optional. This is because of what Lolita is: a style based on Victorian and Rococo styles. I admit, poofy skirts were popular in those styles. However, Lolita is very marginally based on these styles. Many of the original Lolita ensembles were petticoat-less. And there are several substyles, including Casual and Punk Lolita, that rarely use or avoid petticoats. Some Lolitas might say these aren't true Lolita styles because they lack the proper shape. I say they are perfectly legitimate Lolita as they have elements of Rococo and Victorian fashion. Very watered down in the case of Punk Lolita, but still there. I've found that many of the "rules" of Lolita are really just suggestions that have been misinterpreted as being rules. It is for this reason that many Lolitas have a very strict image of what Lolita is. Lolita is just like any other style: It changes over time. Does the Punk style (Tthe one Punk Lolita draws from) still look the same today as it did a decade ago? Not entirely. There are still elements, but accessories have changed, the style has become more mainstream, and not everybody really knows what Punk is. Anyways, back to Lolita. I admit that many dresses and jumpers look much cuter with petticoats. However, some dresses look better with no petticoat at all. Not to mention if one wears petticoats all the time it can get quite cumbersome.

Ultimately, I feel the decision on whether or not to wear a petticoat is up to the wearer. If you insist Lolita has to be worn with a petticoat, fine. Just please don't attack the Lolitas that prefer not to wear petticoats all the time. We all love the same style and should be spreading our love of the style, not tearing potential wearers down with all the "rules" of Lolita. So everyone, let's all take a deep breath, relax, and wear Lolita as we choose. がんばってください！Go for it!

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Prints in Lolita: Why I Avoid them

Hello everybody! I'd like to discuss my take on prints that tend to be everywhere in Lolita nowadays. Please try not to be offended as this is my personal take on prints. If you love prints, that's fine! We all have different tastes in clothing and how we perceive things. So let's begin!

The main thing that puts me off of prints is that many of them are overdone. They have large pictures of cakes, teddies, and rainbows covering a significant portion of the dress. A good example would be this Conversation Balloons dress. The items in the pattern are large, covering a large portion of the bottom of the skirt. Smaller pieces from the border are scattered along the stripes on the rest of the dress. I personally feel that the larger prints like this stand out too much and add a bit too much of a childish element to the dress, especially when the print is of toys. Many times I feel that the dress is overwhelmed by the large images in the border, especially if they are very different colors from the dress like in the Balloon dress. These prints can look cute in certain colors, but I personally feel that they wouldn't look as good being worn outside of the catalogs. When I was first getting in to Lolita, I used a site that allowed you to design a dress and order it to play around and make "dream" dresses. Many times I chose prints that had a print that blended fairly well with the main color, like this Soft Cream dress. However these dresses were never anything I'd actually buy, just something I thought would look cute at the time I made them. Looking back on the dresses I designed, I still think they're cute, but have no interest in actually buying and wearing them at this point in time. I still appreciate these prints, but find them to be rather loud and cluttered.

However, not all prints are bad in my sights. There's plenty of prints I could see myself wearing that are simple, or small prints. Some examples would be gingham or a print with a small pattern of flowers or fruit on it. I actually own a skirt with a small pattern of flowers on it that I made and enjoy wearing. When I do wear it though, I tend to keep all of the other pieces of my outfit solid colors so that the skirt stands out and the outfit doesn't look cluttered. I've contemplated making a matching blouse with the remaining curtain, but I couldn't see myself wearing it with the matching skirt or even a plain one. Another take on prints I like is a simple line art printed in a contrasting color on a otherwise fairly plain dress. An example is this Moi Meme Moitie JSK which has an elegant print on a simple black JSK. I love Moi Meme Moitie's method of doing prints as they are simple and elegant. One of my original loves when I was new to Lolita was a dress similar to the JSK above with a white print on a black jumper. Even now I still love still love the simplicity and elegance of Mana's designs.

So you may be wondering, what do I wear instead of prints? My answer to that is: solid colors with lace accents. There are many cute dresses out there that use white lace to contrast against a solid colored dress. I have several dresses like this and plan to make another for myself before too long with one of my thrift store finds.

What's your take on prints? Like, love, hate? Let me know in the comments below! Try not to flame or troll please!

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