🎀 Raid the store for early Halloween Candy and save some for props to take pics for October ahead of time
🎀 Try a new fragrance in your home depending on where you live and your mood you could go with a nice coconut or start moving towards cinnamons and spices
🎀 Give foraging a chance and look for edible plants in your neighborhood, it’ll help you feel like a frolicking maiden
🎀 If it’s safe to do so in your area look to see if there’s places you can give back to or volunteer if time or money allows
🎀 Find a new cute game you can play on your nights in be it a board game or video game to save some money on going out
🎀 As the changes of the seasons are coming upon us soon, go through your closet and sell or donate any pieces that you don’t see yourself wearing next summer, anything else that won’t work going into fall or winter can go into storage
🎀 Invite a friend over and have tea together and chat
🎀 Take advantage of any back to school sales of dorm decor to find cute decorations for your home at a good price. I find target is great to find pastel organizers if your aesthetic is on the sweet side
We have all seen it, the leaving lolita sales, or long winded posts about why people have to leave, but why does it happen so often in egl? To be fair I haven’t spent a lot of time in other alternative fashion spaces, and as far as gyaru goes I am a complete and total beginner. But I have been actively participating in the lolita community for around five years now and it is an amazing phenomena to me that this community seems to engender burnout in its own unique way.
Why is this? I have a few theories of what could be contributing to this. I haven’t done any studies so all that follows is merely opinion based on some observations I have made throughout the years. One of the things I think leads to members leaving so drastically is the sheer high maintenance of the fashion itself in a lot of ways. The clothing is expensive and taking care of it will either take a lot of energy or a lot of money and for a lot of people you can be pretty short on both. Most lolita fashion events in order to protect the communities integrity and safety require that you have at least one coord you can wear to go to that event, so if you run out of energy or money to care for your clothing, selling it off is a good option. However if an individual sells off all of their clothes than they no longer have a wardrobe to wear to events and if they wish to start over that is a daunting task, as wardrobes take years to build. Especially if you are on a budget
The second theory I have on why I see the burnout rate in lolita fashion being so high is because of what I will dub the “small town effect” egl is a group of extraordinarily passionate people but in the grand scheme of things and subcultures it is an amazingly small subset of the alternative fashion community as a whole. Also, egl is a very internet based subculture, we take the time to meet in person and do a lot of in person events however this means that there is eyes constantly on what’s being talked about online. This encourages lolitas to share their journeys with the world but there is always a risk of being posted to sites specifically to belittle the work they have done by people who they will never know who it is. This is a lot of pressure to be under and it can be really overwhelming especially for younger members of the community.
There are other factors that go into play here, but these are the two big pieces I see factor into people deciding to end their lolita fashion journey. There is nothing wrong with your fashion journey growing and changing with you and if one day you completely grow out of egl or you wear it to your grave there is no shame in either path. What breaks my heart is seeing people who are still so in love with the fashion still have to painfully leave it behind. Here is some of my tips I want to share to try to prevent that from happening, so that when or if it comes time for you to move on you’ll be able to leave with fond memories of this wonderful fashion you dedicated part of your life to.
My first tip is to never collect more pieces than you can maintain, regular closet cleanouts and selling what no longer fits your body or style can help you attain this to prevent yourself from having overwhelm. Remember with clothing care you will either spend money or energy maintaining it. If you don’t have a lot of disposable income on the regular you can always handwash your clothes however remember that this will cost you energy. If you don’t have a lot of disposable energy you can pay to have your clothes taken care of and maintained for you but this will cost money. Make sure that you keep within both of resources so that your wardrobe can remain a joy and not a burden
My second tip is to build egl into your budget so that you know what you can spend on it and it won’t be a financial burden on you. This isn’t something I’m an expert on but I will link a video that I find supremely helpful from someone with more experience with money than me here.
My third tip is that it’s okay to take breaks from the fashion from time to time if you need to, it will be there when you come back, your physical, mental and financial health come first.
My fourth tip is to if possible connect with your local comm and try to focus more of your energy into your irl comm than you do the online comm. Egl on the internet is a very complicated place and it can drain a lot of the passion and energy that you have for the fashion if you keep looking in places filled with negativity. People behind screens can’t see you and your reactions and the layer of anonymity means people might say things that they normally wouldn’t say. That being said, it is 100% okay to make online friends and reach out to individuals on accounts and work with those seeking to build more positive community online in egl spaces that work is important and will help combat on a community level the burnout many individuals in this fashion face.
My fifth tip is to stop seeking perfection, it is of course totally fine to want to improve your art in your coords as I see each of our outfits as wearable art that we transform into our own masterpieces with each coord that we build, but it can be easy to give into constant self critique and never really allow yourself to love what you’re wearing. Allow yourself to love your clothes and your fashion.
This is my first month participating in the bibliotecha blogging circle and I am so grateful that I was accepted to join! This months theme was self care! If you would like to check out all of the other wonderful bloggers and subscribe to a monthly newsletter click on the link down below
Luna By The Lake With Cake 