AYWi30C #17 - Something you like, but wouldn't wear

Urgh, another really hard prompt! I know that I complain about difficult prompts often with this challenge, so let me say that I am actually grateful for them. They force me to think outside the box and really stretch my coording possibilities, which tends to result in outfits I am very happy with that otherwise wouldn’t get to be.

The problem with this prompt, however, is that for me it’s practically an oxymoron. My wardrobe is both large and diverse. I also love experimenting, trying new ideas and seeing what sticks. This boils down to the fact that if I like something, I would wear it, and if I don’t like it - I probably don’t own it in the first place. Every idea that I had was quickly met with a possible scenario where I could wear that. Or a realisation that it’s not something that I like, so it doesn’t fit the prompt. The Venn diagram of ‘things I like’, ‘things I own’ and ‘things I wouldn’t wear’ was quickly turning into more of a ‘pick 2’ chart instead of those three areas meeting in some sort of a middle.

I changed my approach several times and had countless false starts before finally - FINALLY! - landing on something. It still doesn’t tick off the main criteria for this prompt perfectly, but it’s the best that I can do without buying something just for this one outfit, so I am running with this before I genuinely go mad.

Welcome to the madness that is decora lolita, the ultimate form of OTT sweet that ever existed. The guiding principle of this coord were wise words from my friend Like a Teacup (YT, IG) who is much more knowledgeable about this style: if you’re doing decora and think you have enough - add some more. So I very literally threw everything I had at this pile and then looked for some extra crap to shove in there. Seriously, there were things that I had on that I couldn’t show on the flatlay, which means watching the video is a must for the full experience. And you know what the sad thing is? I feel that this still isn’t enough to really be decora.

So why do I like this, but wouldn’t wear? Decora is an insanely fun style to look at. I enjoy it a lot on others, whether that’s on its own or mixed with lolita. But for myself I prefer to achieve OTT-ness through having large pieces rather than having a lot of pieces. And now that I technically have done it I also know that I am 100% not cut out for decora. Putting this on was tiring! It felt like I’d never be done, even though my makeup and hair took so little time, putting on the hair clips and jewellery was a lot already, AND THEN I still had the stickers to do. It took me good two hours to get ready, after which I was tired and wanted to sit down like a granny and just chill. But not only I had to photograph and film things, doing this look also involved A LOT MORE tidying afterwards than I’m used to. How do people who wear decora regularly do this? Where do they get the energy? Is it that they’re naturally more chaotic and don’t store their accessories in as much of a separated way, so they can just throw things into a bag or box afterwards? I don’t know. Suffice to say that whilst I like decora on others and even enjoyed the transformation that this outfit was on me, I would not wear anything this involved again. Because that was basically the only thing I did all day that day, not counting some mindless phone scrolling and eating. I did kind of want to go to the supermarket, just for the experience (well, and having some fresh bananas would’ve been nice), but my body gave up and said a very firm NAH.

Still, this is now an outfit that happened and I’m happy with it as an outfit for this prompt, so let’s talk about it some more.

This lace is just adorable!

Nice keyhole detail at the back.

We stan inconspicuous branding through embroidery in lolita.

Even though I now discovered how much energy goes into wearing decora, the kind of clothes that it uses are more on the casual side, streetwear vibes and comfortable fabrics. I’ve already tested how well this JSK looks with a cutsew on top, so I ran with that idea again. This Crown Label cutsew is so comfortable and cute. It’s fairly simple, which means that every bit of decoration is really thought through. I’m a little sad that after this look the cutsew is now littered with pinholes from all the brooches, but hopefully this will smooth itself out a little after a wash.

The blue of the dress is so awkward by lolita standards that I was surprised how well these mint socks match.

Picking the right legwear was a bit of a struggle. The thing with decora is that it’s about doing A LOT everywhere and sadly I just don’t have the right kind of socks or tights for this. These ones are not the busiest, but of the busier ones I have they matched the coord best. My own concrit to myself would be to get something bolder, maybe striped socks or mismatch two different ones, but since I know that there won’t be more decora from me, it seems a tad pointless.

I think besides very briefly at DMC, I've never worn these shoes with all those bows on.

Continuing with the “what do I have that’s A LOT” theme, shoes were a little bit easier to pick. Triple bows feels extra enough, right? Certainly better than standard tea parties, so in the absence of anything more ridiculous, these babies came out. Although for the record I will say that if I had any cute sneakers or more streetwear style shoe, I totally would’ve used those instead. They’re more Harajuku Fashion Walk friendly than these block heels.

You know you're doing decora when the accessories take as much space as the clothes of your coord flatlay.

I mean… *nervous gulp* I guess there’s finally a prompt where I could say that this is a lot, right? And the funny thing is, laying flat it kind of doesn’t seem like that could’ve been enough, wearing this felt like more. With quantities like this there is absolutely no point naming anything, so if you do spot something you’re curious about, just ask, it’ll be way easier than me trying to list each individual piece. Seriously, just the memory of putting all of this on and taking all of this off is tiring.

I must have a small head if this is all that I could fit on it, even with the extension provided by a clip-on fringe.

Generally using the waist bows from Bodyline dresses as headbows is something I discourage. Those bows are very awkwardly shaped, certainly not in a way that’s flattering on the head, and just very big to be perched on top of your head. Having said this, between the hairstyle and the sheet volume of other clips and pins used here, the waist bow not only was balanced, it practically disappeared. Some of these clips were things I’ve had for years and plenty others that I doubted I’d ever use, so it’s great that they finally all had a moment. And this isn’t even all the clips I own!

Event badges and freebies getting their moment too.

Since you already had a glimpse at those above, let’s get down to brooches and pins. Again, still not all the ones I own, but plenty that I haven’t had a chance to wear prior to this outfit. Had I owned an ita bag, I maybe would’ve put them there, but since I don’t, they ended on my cutsew. Which probably was a good idea anyway, as otherwise that part may have been just that little bit too plain to match the wild excess that is decora.

Hello, sudden minimalism.

It’s a shame that I only have three piercing holes in my ears to utilise because I do own way too many earrings. If I could’ve done what I did with the hair clips but with my earrings, that would’ve been cool. Alas, that’s not an option, so instead I opted for a pair that was simply big enough to show up without you having to squint. And the extra one to be something different than my usual plain stud.

Thank goodness that all of these necklacess are different lengths, otherwise they wouldn't have worked so well together.

Only four things around my neck also seems like so little in comparison to everything else, but they’re the ones that match best. They’re appropriate for sweet lolita, they’re pastel and they’re big. Every other sweet necklace I own would either add too much red or brown to the coord that’s not anywhere else or it would’ve been too small or the wrong theme. And once worn, particularly when surrounded by all the brooches, it all fit into place nicely. I quite like how I was able to pin this tiny lavender bow from a Chess Story blouse onto the ribbon to spice it up a little.

The rings together with the brooches clanking against the necklaces made me super jangly with the slightest movement.

This sort of gave me flashbacks to last year’s International Pink Day meetup when I realised that I owned more pink pieces than I thought. The two bee ones do not go with anything else here, however, I had nothing on my thumbs and of what I had left after putting these ones on they were the best to fill the gap.

Double wristcuffs don't always work, not just with the coord but with each other. So it's nice that these two did.

I am never again doing that to myself. My forearms were not happy.

My initial idea for this outfit involved using the cutsew cardigan from Angelic Pretty for that extra bit of casual clothing. However, I wanted to first try out what excessive bracelets and double wrist cuffs would look like with this and I liked it, so it stayed. Although please, don’t do that unless you’re sure those bracelets are made to comfortably fit your forearms and not just the wrists. After wearing them for however long it took me to actually finish getting ready and then film the lookbook, all of this left marks on my arms that stayed for a good few hours. Again, how do people who wear decora regularly actually do this?

Ladure's Ispahan, but make it Bodyline.

So, the dress. I picked this one for several reasons.
1) It’s a sweet print and sweet prints go great with decora.
2) The colours are bright and vibrant, still more pastel than true tones, just brighter, which again is a good colour palette for decora.
3) On me the dress sits a little bit shorter than I’m currently comfortable with. However, as decora still has that strong street fashion vibe, shorter length wouldn’t be a disadvantage here, whilst the dress was still long enough to read as lolita.
4) As time goes on I find myself reaching for this dress less enthusiastically. I’m still reluctant to sell it, but I’m also not sure how many more ways I can style it. So it seemed like a great choice for a prompt that’s about something I like, but wouldn’t wear.

I'd love to one day be able to coord this dress with yellow. Or with that bright mint green.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great dress! Bodyline did a stellar job on this print and the design remains great even now. It doesn’t feel like it’s dated and whilst obviously not brand quality, the stretch polycotton is durable and feels nice enough to want to wear it more. I think that had Bodyline brought it back in stock, people would still keep buying it. Of the people who I know own this, most have the black colourway, I’ve not seen that many owners of the blue one in the wild. However, as people’s interest in sweet lolita is rising once more, I think that Bodyline would be successful with a re-release of this.

Let's not forget about the polka dots too, they're very important here.

Especially since it’s a sweet dress with enough classic potential to work for both camps. The roses are a classy secondary motif, allowing for floral coordinates. The ribbons surrounding those desserts are also quite elegant, they remind me of ribbons used by fancy patisseries to tie the boxes for your takeaway purchases. Even the sweets on the print, despite being very quintessentially sweet lolita, are drawn in a way that’s not too sugary, especially as the white sections they are drawn on are finished to look like doilies.

Tiny detail that adds a lot of cute to the dress. Thank you, Bodyline, for thinking about those things sometimes.

The final touch that really makes this dress so wonderful are the rose lace and the tiny bows on the waist ties. Yes, those ribbons will make you work harder to tie the bows nicely, even despite the waist ties being Bodyline’s typical double sided deal, so that they face the right way because they’re not detachable. But it makes for such a simple, yet effective finishing element when you do get it right. And the rose lace, although admittedly not the nicest lace in the world, is still pretty enough. I honestly couldn’t tell you whether it is or ever was scratchy at all because after so many washes with fabric softener it settled into being ok, if somewhat stiff. It’s certainly nice enough given that this dress was like ¥4000 max back in 2011 (which was something like £30 then), lasted this many years and still looks pretty damn nice.

Finally finding appropriate use for the stickers I've managed to hoard over the years. Also shoutout to Sugarpill's Dollypink eyeshadow, the brightest Barbie pink out there. It's perfect when you need some bold blush!

For a long time I debated with myself whether to wear the pink wig instead, for extra kawaii points. In the end I decided to stick with my own hair as both a comfort choice and a sort of nod to the first decora kids who wore their own hair. Plus I think that all those clips stand out nicely against darker hair - not that you actually see much of it, certainly not at the front. You could also argue that makeup isn’t necessarily important if you’re going to cover your face with stickers. But it sure makes for a fun addition, as well as I can then fill the gaps on my face with colour. I used a few techniques I picked up from Bridget Yong’s videos, who has a really fun YouTube channel all about J-fashion-appropriate makeup. I will say though, once I was ready (after an entire lifetime has passed) and looked at myself in the mirror, I really liked the effect. I was worried about looking too old for decora, but I feel like it actually made me look younger. That hair will certainly happen again, it was what late 90s/early 00s teenage dreams were made of and I totally dig that.

That's probably as many outfits as you'd expect given my lolita timeline.
From left to right, these are from: July 2012, approx. winter/spring 2013, January 2016, April 2016, January 2017, April 2018, July 2019, April 2020, and June 2020.
Click to enlarge.

This was the second lolita dress that I had ever bought. Just for you I dug through the depths of my Facebook to find some of those earliest photos, to give you an idea of what has been happening back in those days when I wasn’t necessarily thinking about myself as a lolita or as wearing lolita, when I was simply wearing a dress that I thought was cute and felt cute in. Sadly, not much remains and there were never any full-body pictures to begin with. But I do remember that in these first two photos, other than what you see, all I had was a pair of sheer tights and those shoes on the third picture. Yup. Also, please note that my hair on the second photo was actually dark green. I miss it sometimes.

As far as an actual reflection on the past coords with this dress, I still think I peaked with it in April 2018. That was the nicest and classiest coord I did with this JSK, it felt very much me. Although I will say, the one from this prompt gets like 10 bonus points for being the wildest one I’ve done with this dress - probably with any dress - and I honestly enjoyed wearing it. It felt kind of powerful to wear this much, like I was asserting dominance or something, as well as the playfulness of it all was just fun. But as I said, I’m too grumpy and lazy, and tire too easily to want to subject myself to that process again.

Of course, the chaotic energy of this coord had to come out in the video too. This would’ve been so cool if I had someone to help me to really get that Harajuku Fashion Walk coord video vibe, but it’s just my merry self and the tripod. Hopefully though I was still able to make the lookbook read that little bit more KERA magazine.

I thought that completing this prompt would make me feel a little bit more emotionally conflicted. As mentioned at the beginning, the perfect crossover area of things I own, things I like and things I wouldn’t wear is extremely, extremely narrow. Maybe this would’ve been the case had I done a flatlay only. Actually wearing this for the purpose of the lookbook definitely gave me a sense of closure: I know that whilst I had fun being this different from my usual look, this is something that I can now tick off as something I’ve done. Moreover, I now know that the amount of energy required is more than I am willing to give and I am at peace with that idea. I’ve done it once. It was fun. I discovered that I like decora on myself, but not enough to want to wear it more myself, so I will go back to enjoying it on others. Unless some friends decide to experiment on me, but I might have to make them do all the putting on and the taking off of stuff. Let this lolita granny have her diva moment.