Critiquing an Outfit

Most lolitas (especially lolitas on online communities) will come to the point where they have to critique another lolita's outfit. I will show you how to critique the right way.

  CnC(constructive criticism)101

First I will show you the worst lolita outfit I could find. I will critique it in three different ways and you can decide which way is best.

  



Ok this is a lace monster dress from visible and I think it looks totally awful. These are three different was to critique it. Only one of the ways are good.

1st way: Oh God, where do I start? First of all that lace is horrid and it's so stiff that it looks like paper. That dress has way to much lace and the sheer fabric makes it look trashy. Those are the weirdest sleeves I've ever seen and the gloves don't help. Sheer socks should never be worn, especially those ones. Over all I don't know what you were thinking and you look like a clown fell into a lace factory.

2nd way: Wow that's a great try! It looks really original and it's great that your wearing accessories. It's also great that your skirt is the right shape. Your also wearing socks which a lot of new lolitas forget. 

3rd way: I looks like your wearing a petti under your skirt which is good because that's something a lot of newer lolita's forget. You also have they key accessories like the socks and head thing. Next time I would suggest wearing something with less lace. Try to avoid contrasting colors because they are really hard to pull off. I think you should try solid socks with less lace. Next time you pick out a blouse I think you should wear one with less frills and normal sleeves, a basic baby collared blouse is a good start. An Alice bow would be easier to pull off when your newer to lolita. Better luck next time!

So which way is the best? I think the 3rd way is obviously the best way to put everything. the first way was too harsh. If critique the 1st way the person you're CnCing could get offended or maybe even give up on lolita. The second way was too nice. If you are to nice and act like it was perfect when the outfit is far from it, it doesn't help anybody. If you only state positive factors of the outfit then whoever your CnCing will keep dressing like an ita and never learn anything. The reason why the 3rd way is the best is because it's stated the positive parts FIRST, then said the negative parts in a nice way. Remember, we were all beginners once and we still make mistakes today!

I hope you learned from this post. Oh, I forgot to tell you, happy holidays to my viewers! 

Convincing Your Parents to Let You Wear Lolita

One of the hardest things for a teenager wishing to wear lolita is getting your parents to let you wear it. I know you don't want to hear this, but with most parents it will take a lot of work to convince them to let you wear lolita considering most people outside of Japan don't know anything about lolita fashion.

 

Getting past the word "lolita": We all know the word lolita has some "questionable" meanings most of them have nothing to do with an innocent, frilly, Japanese style. The word lolita might be a huge turn off before you even start explaining the style. When I told my parents about the style, I completely avoided calling it lolita because they read a lot and it would have been impossible for them not to know about the "other" lolita. The only problem with avoiding the word lolita is that most lolita fashion sites have the word in huge pink letters right at the top of the page. I solved that problem by getting a bunch of pictures off the Internet and made a slide show about the fashion. If that is too much work than you can tell them that the fashion is called lolita but explain how little the novel has to do with the style.  

 

The "shock strategy": If you know before you even show your parents about lolita that they won't particularly "like" the idea of you wearing it than the shock strategy is the way to go! The first thing you need to do is figure out what style your parents hate the most. Once you figure out that style, pretend that you want to wear it. Make it really obvious so your parents think that it's what you want to wear (even though it isn't) Your parents will be in panic after that! After about a mouth of "shocking" them act like you just found lolita and tell them about the style. They will be so relieved that you want to wear something different than that style they hate that they would let you wear almost anything! This strategy might not work for everyone and it is hard to pull off, so you shouldn't try it unless your sure that nothing else will work.

 

The direct strategy: This is the most common way of convincing your parents where all you have to do is be direct about what you want to say. Just tell your parents that you want you want to talk to them about wearing a different style and explain it to them. 

 

Explaining the style: So you got to the point in whichever strategy you chose to use (weather it's one of these or something you made up) where you explain lolita fashion to your parents. Now you have to figure out how to explain it to them. the tips below will help you explain the style to your parents and get them to let you wear lolita!

• Explain the good parts of the style first like the innocence, cuteness, and how much you love it. Doing it this way make the bad stuff seem less "bad"
• Sugar coat the bad stuff, explain that not all styles are perfect. The only bad stuff i can think of about lolita right now are the weird stares you get and pricey cost.
• What ever you do DO NOT show them pictures of anime/manga characters wearing lolita because they might think your trying to dress like a cartoon character and not understand that some cartoons are influenced by real life.
• Explain the different styles, tell them about the style you want to wear but tell them about the other style too so if they don't like the style you want to wear they still know the other options. 
• show show your parents how happy the clothes make you, i would recommend going somewhere with them you could try on lolita clothes then they will see how happy you are in lolita and buy something for you (hopefully)
• Save up for your clothes and buy them yourself, maybe the reason why your parents don't want you to wear lolita is because it's too expensive. If you save up and buy with your OWN money they might be ok with it.
• Show them bodyline, although I have mentioned that bodyline sells a few bad quality items it is the cheapest lolita brand out there. Remember that if your buying from bodyline you showed know what makes a dress good quality or bad quality so I would suggest reading my ovoid being an ita post.
• learn to sew, if the bodyline prices still aren't good enough for your parents sew your own lolita clothes.
• do good in school, it's more likely that your parents would let you wear lolita (or any style) if you have good grades and a responsible attitude. They won't think your responsible enough to wear lolita if your failing out of school and have a sour-puss attitude all the time. If you get straight A's your parents might even buy you a brand dress!
• ask about Christmas/birthdays, They might not buy you a lolita dress any old day, but they might buy you something for Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) or your birthday.

Qutie Land review!

I recently bought Quite Land's Merry-Go-Round One piece in pink x silver and I love it! it's really cute, the fabric is good quality, and it's only 100 dollars but it also has shipping cost which differs depending on where you live. The shipping is slow, mostly because everything is made after you order, but the quality of the dress makes up for it. It has a fair amount of puff already in it so it could look okay with a petti under it but a petti makes it a lot better. I also bought this Petti from the same site and it gave a perfect bell shape to my skirt :) The last thing I bought was this cutsew in blue. It's really pretty but still comfortable and easy to co-ordinate into a more casual outfit.         

lolita undergarments

So, today I'm going to talk about lolita undergarments. To achieve the perfect poof you need the proper undergarments.

Petticoats: The most important part to achieving the ideal poof is a cupcake shaped petti. It has to be the write shape and length for the outfit to work. It should have a bell shape to it NOT a square dance petti because square dances pettis have an out word flare to them and don't look right. The proper length should be a little be shorter than your skirt. Any longer and it shows under your skirt and looks sloppy, any shorter and it can cave in around the bottom of your skirt and look awkward. Sometimes you might have to war more than one petti, it depends on the quality of the ones you own.

Bloomers: Bloomers also add to that extra poof to your skirt. The only way you can really go wrong with bloomers is to buy a pair that are to long and show under your skirt which, again, can look sloppy. Think about it this way: when you bend over in bell shaped skirts it can show you panties, bloomers also add extra modesty so that doesn't happen.

Corsets: I'm not going to spend to much time talking about corsets because they are optional. If you want to look thinner they are the way to go, but they can also be uncopmterabe (sorry about my spelling) and restraining. If you do choose to wear corsets, than make sure to wear them UNDER your outfit, unless your going for a gothic or erololi look.  

Angelic Pretty? Classic?

this post may be really upsetting to sweet lolitas all over the world.

I was on the Hello Lace lolita website today to see if the brands have put up any new designs and I found something you might find interesting. I might just be jumping to conclusions here but Angelic Pretty's designs are becoming less "sweet" the newest designs are not available in very many pastels and they are starting in look more "mature"
ex. 1:  button down blouse as you can see, this blouse is only available in ONE pastel color and has a lot less lace and bows as some of there other blouses. even by looking at the shape of the blouse, you can tell it's going to more of the classic side of lolita. 

ex. 2. making party Bow Tie blouse  again, it is available in only one pastel color and only has a little bit of lace. there isn't even the signature lolita baby collar, just a stand up collar and a crappy Bow Tie that can barely pass as sweet lolita.

ex. 3: Holy Night Story OP  this is where I really started to get suspicious, the color of the print is more muted and the colors of the dress itself are pretty dull. Seriously AP, this dress isn't available in any pastel colors the only thing close to a pastel that you can buy this dress in, is a peach pink. if there wasn't all the cake on the print I wouldn't even know that it's AP.

I wonder what's up with Angelic Pretty's not-so-positive design changes. I wonder what it is. Maybe there is different designers (which would be awful because Maki is an amazing designer). If AP really is going to try to go classic than the store won't be so popular anymore.

Creating your lolita style

One of the hardest things about starting off with lolita is figuring out which style you want to wear. It might seem like a simple task but it requires a lot of thinking. The best thing to do, is take the lolita styles you like and mix them together, you can even add some influences from non-loli styles. There is no rule that says you have to change your style to fit into certain guidelines, that's why the title of this post is "creating" your style not "choosing" it. My personal lolita style is over the top sweet mixed with decora, fairy kei, and hime-loli styles. My combination turns into a turbo-cupcake puffed skirt with a cute print and lots of lace and bows. I add lots of accessories and I wear pastel colored wigs. 

If you can't decide between the styles you like but don't want to attempt mixing styles you could wear two different styles and keep them separate. This way it could cost double the price of one lolita style. If you want to wear two different styles than they should be similar like sweet lolita and country lolita instead of sweet lolita and gothic lolita. It will cost double the price of wearing one style if the two styles you choose are extremely different. I'll show you an example of what I mean.

In this example a newbie lolita is shopping at Baby, the Stars Shine Bright and can buy two blouses, two skirts, and one pair of shoes.

She chooses country lolita and sweet lolita, this is what she buys: blouse (in white),  blouse (in pink), skirt (in pink for country lolita), skirt (blue for sweet lolita), and shoes (in pink). She can make four outfits with that because both of those skirts can go with both of those two blouses and the shoes can complement any of those outfits. The prices for those five items add up to 894 dollars.

She chooses sweet lolita and gothic lolita, this is what she buys: blouse (in black for gothic lolita), blouse (in pink for sweet lolita), skirt (in black for gothic lolita), skirt (in blue for sweet lolita). She would have to buy two pairs of shoes which would bump up the price and could only make two outfits out of that. (one sweet one gothic) She would get two oufits for more a more expensive price then she would for four outfits!               

    

different styles

I'm really not going to spend time explaining every style, that's what lolitafashion.org is for. these are just tips on perfecting all the styles. 

For sweet: pastels are the way to go! Don't think your just limited to one pastel per outfit with white trim, mixing pastels can look ultra Kawaii. Cute prints with animals, sweets, fruit, dots, or hears look adorable. You can put multiple bows and clips in your hair and, lots of other cute accessories. Make sure to go for the turbo-cupcake puff in your skirts and wear bloomers underneath to keep your modesty! Mary Janes and patterned socks look great with a sweeter style. Teased-out pigtails or bouncy ringlets are the icing on the cake, you can even dye your hair pastel pink or pastel blue if your feeling daring. the perfect place to go for this style is angelic pretty 

For gothic: Your color scheme should be on the darker side. Wear black based clothes with prints in colors like white, blue, and grey. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT TRY BLACK WITH WHITE LACE! It just looks ita-ish and cheap, but like I said earlier, a darker influenced print in white looks good. Gothic lolita follows the basic guidelines so you should still wear cup cake skirts and bloomers. lace up boots are the best shoes in this style. You can dye your hair black and style it simply to top it off. The best place to buy gothic lolita is moi meme moitie 

For classic: Wear Muted pastels and darker colors for a more refined look that classic lolitas love. Ovoid "cute" prints and go for floral prints or solid colors. skirts should be a bi longer and less puffy in classic lolita. The main thing that separates classic from the rest of the lolita styles is the lack of frils. You can leave you hair in your natrual color and just style it simply to keep up with the sophisticated elegance theme.

These are the baasic styles of lolita and I might post more styles later on.