Do You Ever Talk To Someone And They Bring Up Trans Men And It Becomes Very Clear Very Quickly The Only

Shibuya, c.1987

Miho Matsuda Interview Kera Volume 4 October 1998

Lolita Accessory tutorial pages from Japanese mook “Gothic & Lolita Patterns”, 2004

Included are: head dresses, hair clips/ties, camisole pattern, drawers pattern, sock stoppers, multiple bag patterns, detachable collars, and jewelry.

Consider this as my Valentine’s gift to you guys!! Thank you for being very kind about my post ^-^

*Also* If you would like the patterns to some of the tutorials (ie: the mini top hats, pattern 62) let me know so I can make a post later!

I love incorporating things from my non-lolita (punk/goth) closet into punk or gothic or old school lolita. Here are some of my favorites. Most of closet is cheap secondhand finds including the brand pieces (not shown here). Prices converted for reference :D

1. Various thrifted jewelry, most are ~1-2 USD

2. My favorite lace cardigan, i love the raschel lace and how well it goes with old school meta pieces. Thrifted with no tags.

3. Axes femme bag for ~3.50 USD

4. More thrifted accessories

5. And more including my fav Victorian hand belt ~7USD

6. Thrifted suede pumps for ~6USD

7. Thrifted offbrand mary janes for ~3.50USD

8. My Super Lovers bag from a secondhand store!Super spacious. Probably the most expensive thing here ~15USD

9. Local brand skull bag i got at a discount ~5USD

10. Various thrifted belts (<5USD), a chain from a hardware store, handmade can tab chains.

>🍓<

Would any lolitas mind sharing their favourite offbrand lolita pieces? I want to show that you don’t have to drop a lot of money on brand to have a super cute coord.

Hand-me-down shoes, a vintage blouse, legwear from a lingerie shop, a novelty bag from the children’s section, a jacket that you cut up and repurposed into a skirt, hair accessories from Claires… whatever you have in your wardrobe.

Sweet lolita through the years

Part 2

2005-2008 (ish) “midschool” sweet

Moving out of the oldschool era we start to see sweet Lolita becoming more like we know it today. While solid color mainpieces and simpler styling were still common, printed pieces and more accessories were becoming more popular.

This transitional period between oldschool and the iconic 2010s ott era is often left out in conversations about Lolita history despite it really having its own interesting trends.

In general this era was very glamorous in its trends- gyaru was a huge influence on the trends and you can absolutely see that influence.

This is the period where balancing colors and having elaborately themed coords started. Brands really started to have their own styles and identities.

As a sort of in between of heavy prints and solids appliqué prints and screen prints were very popular at the time. Brands put a lot out and the community caught onto this trend very quickly

I also often see coords from the early part of this era mislabeled as oldschool despite them already being quite modern. I do think there’s overlap, especially around 2005-2006 but familiarizing yourself with the styling differences makes it pretty easy to see the differences. The “new” way of coording at the time was far more sweet, more elaborate, more detailed, and more accessorized. THIS is the period where tea parties, modern usakumya designs, baby’s heart bags, and many other iconic designs that are often labeled as oldschool were made. Mislabeling them as oldschool both harms the ability to properly emulate oldschool and erases the history of the transitional period between then and the ott era. Wrist cuffs were also becoming common place at this point.

Printed socks started to become both more elaborate and more popular though lace topped otks stayed pretty common and popular in this period.

Jewelry got more detailed and cutesy. Plastic jewelry started to become more common, however more detailed metal jewelry was the majority of what you’ll see. Jewelry and socks that matched the motifs of dresses started to become the standard at this point.

Other accessories were very varied though mini Alice bows were really the most popular and common. A lot of fun and experimental headpieces like plastic headbands, mini hats, and the always iconic napayoshi bunny bonnet were made in this time.

Novelty bags and heavily printed totes also started to become more common and popular. Strangely it seems that plush animal bags fell out of popularity until the tail end of this era moving into the ott craze. Printed hand bags were the most popular, but some shaped novelty bags were still made- especially towards the end of this period.

This is one of the first Lolita eras where hair and makeup became a big part of styling a coord. With the popularization of gyaru you could see many influences in how Lolita’s did their hair and makeup both in this period and in the 2010s. Though the makeup was simpler and typically didn’t veer into full gyaru territory until the later part into the 2010s

More accessories like wrist cuffs, faux collars, brooches, gloves and little chains that clipped from one jsk strap to the other were seen at this time too. Faux fur in details was extremely popular with some brands even including fur trims on their mainpieces. Pearls, polkadots, charms, and florals were all also rampant.

Motifs were all over the place at the time but some of the most popular / common were: poodles, cakes / sweets, polkadots, Alice / card / trumps, berries, crowns, cats, houndstooth, florals, and crowns!

Thanks so much for reading, if you’re interested in reading more see: part 1 part 3

zAkro wears A+Lidel’s cross bondage shirt op (not its official name) in black x red print.

Example image via this y! Auctions listing.