lolita fashion – Page 2 – Luna By The Lake With Cake

Considering Actually Doing That One Hypothetical

Content Warning: There will be some discussion of sizing and weight in this post. If that’s triggering to you please skip and do something else that’s nice! If you feel like you’d benefit from reading some thoughts from a plus-size lolita with their relationship to this fashion. Read on!

I went to declutter my wardrobe and the majority of my lolita wardrobe does not fit. I have gained a lot of weight from when I first started this fashion, and also have admittedly lost a considerable amount of tolerance for squeezing myself into clothes. (The second part of that is probably for the best)

First go round I told myself I was going to sell everything that didn’t fit, and then talked myself into keeping most of it. One thing that made this easier to justify is that I am actively trying to lose weight. That isn’t something I discuss on most of my social media as it is kind of a hot-button topic and I am afraid of the responses I could receive if I mention it. This blog is a bit of an exception as I feel like I have a slightly different audience on this site. I’m not trying to get stick thin, in fact I’ll probably still be considered plus size in lolita fashion if I get to where I want to go. (I am intentionally not mentioning numbers)

I have diabetes in my family and limited access to a primary care physician at the moment due to difficulties in the healthcare system where I live. So I want to stay ahead of it. Even though I am genuinely interested in improving my health and lifestyle, I’d be lying if I said vanity didn’t play a part in it. In the future, I’d like to be able to model for a wider range of brands. With all that said, I am fairly committed to this health and weight loss journey even if it’s slow going. Bringing it back to decluttering my wardrobe, this journey makes it very easy to justify keeping things that don’t currently fit.

It’s embarrassing to admit this but I have 2 full totes of clothes that I cannot wear at the moment. A lot of it is back from when I was a teenager, no matter what happens. I’m never gonna fit in that again and that’s alright. But it is still so hard to let it go. There is a lot of sentimental value in those early pieces of my wardrobe, some of it is from my comm members and were some of the first strong connections I made with my local community. In some ways letting those clothes go feels like saying goodbye to an era of who I’ve been. It feels silly to mention this to people I know in day-to-day life who don’t have the same kind of relationship with the clothing they wear. But I feel alright sharing it on here where hopefully someone who may be going through something similar or having similar thoughts won’t feel so alone.

Counter to the above, I’ve recently been aching for a drastic dramatic change in my life and I’ve committed to taking care of myself and trying to grow out my hair and not attack it with scissors or hair dye when I get stressed but I still want that change. So I’m seriously considering “starting over” What would it look like if you had to start over with your lolita wardrobe? Very well may be time for me to find out. It’s both scary and exciting for me and probably more productive than running away. Although I do have fun dreaming about that sometimes. I can’t say with 100% certainty that I am doing this, especially as my town’s post office still hasn’t come back from the flood last year making mailing packages difficult. But if I decide here soon to have a massive sale on my lacemarket, I’ll let you all know.

If I do start over, I want to focus on solid and sturdy pieces, things that are easy to clean and accessories that work across multiple styles. My favorite wardrobe colors have been black, pink, and red recently but I would still want to make sure I had some pastels too. I would want to commit to only keeping pieces that actively fit in my wardrobe available so I won’t be cluttering up my apartment. This would likely mean me needing to accept that many of my dresses wouldn’t be forever if I did keep that commitment. They would also need to change with the seasons of my life as well. I would still keep some things like the dresses that were anniversary gifts from my husband. In some ways the thought of having a free-flowing wardrobe like that itself is freeing and honestly not uncommon in the lolita fashion community. In some ways I feel like an odd ball for clinging so hard to every piece I’ve bought.

Thanks for giving this post a read and remember to eat good food, drink some water, and get some rest. Luna, out!

lolita fashion

Wedding!

Hello everyone! Last month I had my wedding! I’ll only be showing pictures of decorations and myself as my lovely people didn’t necessarily agree to be put on my blog, but it was too pretty not to share with you all.

Here is my outfit for the day!

Then to top it off my cake! I had an absolutely lovely day.

lolita fashion

Finally Breaking my 2023 No Buy

Happy spring everyone! I had a resolution for lolita fashion in 2023 to do a full no-buy, and I succeeded! I succeeded so much that I didn’t buy anything new until just about a week ago! I learned a lot throughout the year.

Like while I wasn’t buying new things my style actively changed quite a lot and I feel as if it had more freedom to change due to the fact that I wasn’t focused on purchasing items and more just using what I had. I have started to lean towards more gothic styles and now have a very intense desire to start wearing military lolita. Unfortunately, that is not a very popular substyle so finding secondhand pieces, and ones in my size has not been a very successful undertaking. I also plan on sorting through my closet here soon for a YouTube video.

I shocked myself by not immediately jumping into buying something right after the new year. Part of it was due to being extremely busy at my past job and transitioning to my new position, but another part of it is that I simply got out of the habit of buying things. My wallet has certainly thanked me in the past year. I am very excited to be getting back into buying new things, however, I know I shall be far more intentional with it going forward.

A new goal of mine is to try to blend my wardrobes together as much as I can. I don’t necessarily want to wear full lolita coords to work but I would like to have more pieces I can easily make use of throughout more parts of my life, and sell off what won’t work as well. I will certainly keep some “special event” dresses though.

I have been feeling my style pull a bit more gothic which is very interesting for me since my social media right now is very sweet-themed. I still adore sweet lolita so I’m not planning on changing anything right now, however, in the future, there is a strong possibility I may choose to switch being more of a black forest cake.

lolita fashion

Spring Lifestyle Lolita Tips

I am unfortunately under a foot of snow in March and wanted to feel some spring! Enjoy some lifestyle tips!

🪻Use a ribbon for a bookmark, if you sew there’s likely one around and it looks really pretty in between the pages

🪻Read household management books from historical periods of your interest It can get you inspired for your own spring cleaning.

🪻Do a closet clean out!

🪻Do a style inventory, is your style still the same? Are there new things you’d like to try? For example I’ve recently found myself more drawn to a gothic style, use that inventory to help guide your closet clean.

🪻Revive an old hobby, is there something you used to do that you miss? Look into doing it again to help celebrate the spring

🪻If you’re part of a comm, plan a meet around flowers

🪻Learn a new hairstyle braiding thread or ribbon into your hair

🪻Redecorate your home/room according to a theme or style that you’re interested in at the moment

🪻Find new music to listen to that helps lift your mood on days where winter keeps outstaying it’s welcome.

🪻Make sure to get some sunlight each day.

lolita fashion

Nostalgia Might Be a Little Overrated

(testing)

I did it!! I finished a resolution early for once! I just finished the process of updating the resources page! Which is why I disappeared from this blog for a little bit and what I discovered in the process is that google sucks for newbies in lolita fashion and there is a wealth of information out there that either simply didn’t exist yet when I started or I had no idea it existed due to algorithms not being kind to the word lolita.

There are so many kinds of people into lolita fashion, of different races, sizes and genders and when I went looking to find creators and resources I found so many small creators that just had a wealth of information! I finally learned so many things from how to properly tie waist ties like brands do, to a trick for plus size Lolita’s to get brand dresses to sit right by running safety pins through the JSK, blouse and bra/under layer to hold the dress waist in the right spot and keep it from moving, one I have been using a lot. I also found videos explaining how to graciously receive concrit, how to know when concrit is appropriate, and how to actually make sure any concrit you give is actually constructive. There are guides on how to buy from numerous shopping services, and how to be a lifestyle lolita. There are guides on how to pack Lolita fashion, how to store it in small spaces, guides on how to wear niche substyles and even guides on how to wear it to the Disney parks. We are so spoiled for information and resources on lolita fashion and I love it!

It can often feel like Lolita fashion peaked in the very talked about and missed 2010 era and according to google trends interest in lolita fashion has been declining since 2004, but as I mentioned earlier this might not actually be a good measure since google seems fairly unable to “see” us. I know that when the pandemic hit we all felt a noticeable bump in people participating and joining the fashion and now I feel like it’s leveled out again! I’m so curious what the future of this fashion holds.

I think it’s really important to appreciate what we have now and continue on maintaining and building a positive community for Lolita fashion as time passes. I think ensuring that we consider what we do now just as important as the people we look to in the past for Lolita fashion

Also, thank you so much to everyone who is an active member of the Lolita fashion community today, I genuinely love getting to be part of something special.

lolita fashion

Will I Wear Lolita Fashion Forever?

Maybe? I think so. It’s always been a bit of a topic of discussion in the Lolita community whether you see yourself being a Lolita forever. When I started there were a lot more lifestyle lolita creators around and there was a lot of passionate declarations that they would wear lolita to their graves but as time as gone on. I’ve seen many of them grow out of the fashion into more toned down more wearable soft feminine fashions, and there’s nothing wrong with that. With the shift to treating Lolita fashion as a fashion you can take on and off in more recent years I feel as if I’ve seen it have more staying power for people. I feel as if the lifestyle lolita idea was suffocating for some people and it felt suffocating once peoples interests and hobbies changed and I think that’s a bit sad. There is no need to be a lifestyle lolita to wear lolita fashion and I feel as if once upon a time those two things were expected to go together and you couldn’t just wear the clothing on its own, or at least there was some sort of internal pressure that people felt. With Lolita fashion being such an extravagant fashion there has definitely been “part-time” lolitas for a long time.

I personally consider myself a lifestyle lolita but I make sure that I don’t force myself to be anything I’m not. It just makes me genuinely happy to try to live my life to a “lolita fashion ideal” that I have defined for myself. I try to do and wear things that bring me joy and bring kindness into the world. I don’t know if I’m always successful but I try. As far as the clothing itself, I think it suits me very well! I look best in lolita in my opinion and it’s something I can’t imagine ever giving up. I haves spent years collecting my wardrobe and developing my style and I genuinely feel like I just now barely finally got the hang of it and are happy with my coords more often than not. That took me over 6 years to fully get! I imagine that I’ll develop and grow even more as the years go on in this fashion and there are infinite possibilities and avenues for me to explore. For example I have hardly touched classic lolita in my time wearing egl so if I ever get bored there is always something new to develop and explore. I feel like lolita fashion exists almost as a skill based hobby where you can infinitely reach towards a perfection you will ultimately never be able to achieve and that is so exciting for me! Two of my hobbies outside of lolita are karate and ballet and they are the two sports I never quit. (I played a lot of sports when I was a kid) Once I get a sense that I have “completed” something I will often get bored and leave. I compare lolita fashion to ballet and karate due to them having in common what I believe is the spirit of reaching for that unachievable ideal. I think for many people this is an exhausting notion that can wear them out and that is entirely understandable, but I love it. It means I can cherish these activities forever and will never tire of them because they will never be completed.

Once upon a time I did wonder if I would quit lolita fashion after becoming a mother, I don’t have children yet and they are about a decade away in my life plan at the moment but I do want them some day. I thought about the practicality of the dresses chasing after little children and babies and when they are little it is quite possible I’ll take a break. However, I have seen so many lolitas on social media that have become mothers recently and it hasn’t hindered them at all. Also, how exciting will it be to get to share something I love with my children, I want my children to know me well when they’re all grown and lolita fashion has been a big part of my life for a good chunk of my life at this point and if I’m still in it when they’re born will be the majority of my life. I fell in love with the fashion from afar at 16, and starting wearing it in earnest at 18 and am about to turn 25 soon. I want my children to grow up having known who I was as a person and I think stopping what I love wouldn’t help with that. It’ll be fun for them to have unique stories and for me to have reasons to go out and get to be just me from time to time as well.

And then once they’re all grown and off, how fun will it be to be an eccentric middle aged woman then an eccentric old woman. Since lolita clothes are made to fit a variety of sizes with shirring panels and waist ties I may get to keep a lot of my wardrobe for the majority of my life. I have pieces in my closet that fit me at 135lbs and at 210lbs and how awesome will it be to tell a young person that I have had a dress for 40 years and maybe show them a picture of myself wearing it 20 years ago. I would love to host tea parties for my grandchildren (if I have them, who knows what my children will decide) and pull out cute china sets and bake cookies for them all dressed up. Maybe I will be able to pass down clothing I no longer care for to any of my young relatives who are interested and tell them stories about all the fun things I got to do with the friends in my comm. I am so excited to get to grow and change throughout my life

And then there’s now, my local lolita fashion comm has really helped me fight off that common loneliness from when you graduate school. Since my friendships with them were never based on seeing them in classes or living with them in dorms they didn’t fade. We have meets regularly so I am able to go out with a friend at least once a month and I feel so blessed to have them. Some of my best friends are from my lolita comm and they make me so happy. The clothing itself has brought me so much joy but the community I think has become even more important to me as time has gone on. The lolita fashion community is unique in how active we are and how much we value going to do things together, I talk to people in other hobby groups in my area and they describe having a harder time getting to do things or making friends with the people they are in groups with.

Lolita Fashion is so special to me, and I can’t imagine ever giving it up, but I will never force myself to keep wearing something if I don’t love it anymore. The egl community has given me so much to do, introduced me to fun hobbies and lifelong friends. So for now, in my heart of hearts, I truly believe I’ll wear it forever.

lolita fashion

Lolita Fashion Resolutions 2023 | Bibliotheca: Challenges

Afternoon tea and a book by Jakub Kapusnak is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

I have some pretty intense goals for 2023 all around this upcoming year! My lolita fashion life is no exception. I will be submitting this as my biblioteca “challenges post”

1.) Full Lolita Fashion No Buy

I will be going on a no buy for Lolita fashion! I will not be buying any new pieces for Lolita this year, I already have a great wardrobe but unfortunately can only access about 50% of what I own right now due to pieces needing to be repaired, altered, or not fitting. I have already gone through and sold what I want to give up so it seems impractical to keep buying clothes when I have so much I can’t use already. This no buy extends to other parts of my life too I am trying to keep discretionary spending as low as possible without losing my marbles this year. Cupcake Kamisama made a great comment on how to deal with the “itch” and I think playing video games where I can buy things (with in game currency, not real money) will be a great help. I’ll develop more ideas for the itch going forward.

2.) Use What’s In My Closet More

I have a habit of wearing the same 5 things recently and I want to switch it up more and try more combinations of things going forward. I think it’ll be fun to push myself and see what I can come up with. I bought the app stylebook forever ago and I actually used it consitently for about 6 months but then my wardrobe changed significantly and I just never ended up updating it again and stopped using it entirely with the exception of using it to store inspiration. I think I’ll try to add 10 pieces to it at a time so I won’t feel so overwhelmed.

3.) Read more blogs

I always have so much fun reading the articles when bibliotheca comes out each month! I want to try to read the blogs more frequently even in between articles! People post amazing resources and thought pieces and I want to support the art of the Lolita fashion blog going forward. I am always amazed at the diversity of people who blog those who started 10 years ago, those who are brand new sweet, gothic and classic blogs. Everyone contributes wonderful things.

4.) Fill Out the Resources Section of my blog more

I was taking a look at the pages on my blog and I realized that I have gotten to use a lot more resources in the past year than has actually been posted on my blog! I want to collect as much information as I can from as many active/recently active creators to shine a light on their work and share resources with people who want to learn more about the fashion. I love seeing the ingenuity of people on a budget and the special skills that people will bring to this hobby from other hobbies whether that be textile restoration, tailoring, millinery or jewelry making.

5.) Sew More

I really love sewing! And I have done next to none of it in the recent year. I have a giant pile of scrap fabric and patterns I inherited from my late grandmother 4 years ago and it would be wonderful to make them into something. I have this weird pressure that to sew means I need to make it a big grand event but a lot of what I could use in my wardrobe are things like accessories and wrist cuffs, stuff that I won’t be able to buy for the next year but I certainly can be able to make!

lolita fashion, Personal

How did I do on my 2022 Resolutions?

It’s the end of the year and I’m looking back on what my resolutions were! Like most people, I actually forgot some of them so let’s see what progress I have made!

1.) Post more consistently to my socials without sacrificing my health

I actually moved towards this goal quite a bit! I don’t think that I did it consistently through the year but I have improved my abilities quite a bit and have been using the mantra of consistency over intensity for the past few months and I think it has been serving me well

2.) Finish repairing and altering my lolita fashion wardrobe

I was so close! I have just two projects that I need to finish, altering my FanplusFriend Tardis Skirt and turning my Love Nadia Skirt into a tote bag

3.) Improve my financial literacy

I have made leaps and bounds on this one! I actually think I achieved this goal and have made strides in paying down my debts and choosing methods that work well for me. I have been on time with all of my bills, have a separate rainy day and emergency fund going as well as learning more about retirement.

4.) Pay off my credit card debt

This was an entirely unrealistic goal, but I did pay it down aggressively. I paid down 3,000$ of my credit which is nothing to sneeze at. I have since moved my attention over to a snowball method with all of my debt since I don’t anticipate my income increasing too much anytime soon. I will keep working on lowering that balance.

6.) Work on improving my physical health

I spent much of 2022 getting to know my body and trying and restarting and doing all sorts of things to see what works for me. In the past 3 months I think I finally developed a system that works for me. I try to work out at least 150 minutes a week and eat 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. I try to get enough sleep. Honestly the USDA guidelines work really well. I really struggled coming to terms with that since literally everything else is more exciting but hey I really love the extra energy I have and it’s pretty easy to do. It just requires planning.

7.) Use a physical planner again

I didn’t really do this quite frankly. The only thing I have are dry erase calendar habit trackers in my Youtube studio. I need to have a pretty planner for me to want to use it. I plan on getting the Blogilates planner for 2023 as I used one in 2020 and loved it.

Thank you guys for a wonderful year! Goodbye 2022, Hello 2023!

lolita fashion

Favorite Things that Helped Me Improve My Coords

The December theme for Biblioteca is favorite things!! I have gotten a lot of new favorites this year, I discovered a lot of them right at the end!

I found a lot of ways to help improve my coords in the past year

1.) The Youtube Channel Dear Peachie, she is not a lolita fashion youtuber and seems to have a heavy focus on korean beauty but her mathematical approach to fashion and beauty is extremely helpful. I get the vibes that anyone can make anything they want to work, she just gives tips on how to make that thing work for your face shape and body type.

2.) Fashion Journaling

I have been keeping a digital fashion journal in both Pinterest and in Stylebook on my phone, the way I have done it is whenever I see a post on instagram or a magazine snap that sparks joy I save it. At first I just saved it, but then after a month I started to look for patterns in the outfits I saved. For example I seem to like simpler socks or tights and light colors or jewel tones.

3.) Taking Inventory of my Wardrobe

I tried really hard to be a spreadsheet lolita but I just do not have the brainpower to maintain that level of tracking, however I have been taking looser inventory of my wardrobe. For example I had next to no wristwear so I did a taobao order of pretty much only wristwear to improve my coords. For the longest time I would hit my wrists off of things because I am clumsy so I broke all of my bracelets I had when I first started lolita fashion. In order to adapt it to me, I decided to focus on now collecting wrist cuffs and fabric wrist wear.

4.) Rehearsal Runs

I started doing this the night before meetups or a day or two before I plan filming in a coord. I have been laying out my coord and accessories as completely as possible ahead of time and then I put everything on (usually minus makeup) to see how it looks on my body. Flatlays almost always look amazing to me but sometimes when the fabric has to contend with a 3D human body don’t always look great. This gives me a chance to use accessories to arrange things better change what I’m wearing underneath or switch out blouses while I still have time instead of settling for something I don’t love since I don’t have time to change

5.) Shapewear

First off, you absolutely do not need to wear shapewear if you don’t want to. I just have been really enjoying it! I personally have a binder, corset, mesh waist trainer and a pushup bra I use to help things look a bit better under my coords. I have a very large chest so wearing lolita can be difficult and these items help me maintain the silhouette that I want for the fashion. I plan on making a video on my youtube channel on how exactly I use these items in January.

Thank you for reading my post! Drink some water, eat good food, and get some rest. Have a great day!

lolita fashion

Lolita Holiday Checklist

December is a busy time for everyone! Lolitas included! If you are someone who are an active participant in your community there are quite a lot of things to do in December! Here is a fun little checklist of things you could do for yourself or in your comm for the month of December

1.) Prepare your coordinate for International Lolita Day

It only comes twice a year! Bust out a fun coord showing off your love for lolita fashion! You could wear it to a meetup, post it on Instagram or keep it all to yourself!

2.) See if there are any coordinate challenges going around social media you want to participate in!

If you are someone who is on Instagram you may see coordinate challenges going around from time to time! A person in my comm made one and it is super cute

3.) Help to plan/Host the International Lolita Day meetup! (First Saturday in December)

Speaking of ILD if you are a member of a comm you could host the ILD meetup! If that’s not in the cards for you at least be sure to RSVP early and offer to bring some snacks.

4.) Confirm whether or not you’re participating in your comm’s secret Santa!

My comm does secret santa every year and it will help your admin if you let them know as soon as you can if you’re participating!

5.) Buy and wrap secret santa present!

If you are participating don’t forget the present and to wrap it up! (I still need to wrap mine….)

6.) Help to plan/Host the Holiday meetup for your comm!

December is a busy time for lolitas too! My comm does both ILD and a holiday meetup, so give your comm a hand by either hosting or being proactive to responding to the meetups host.

7.) Check out the Lucky/Happy packs for this year and decide if you want to purchase any!

I have yet to have the chance to buy a lucky pack myself but I love looking at them this time of year, I’ll get one eventually

8.) Send a thank you note or card to whoever hosted your meetups this month

It’s always nice to receive a handwritten note!

9.) Send a thank you to your secret santa!

See above ^u^

10.) Have a happy new year!