We all have those coords we put on only to wear at home, or just to experiment with the few items we had. Maybe even mixing in a lot of non-lolita items just to feel like we had an outfit. But then there’s your first “real” coord. The one you put together and actually wore somewhere for the public to see you. The one you agonized over and waited months to collect all the pieces. Today, I wanna reflect on my very first “real” coord.
My first real lolita coordinate was worn to an anime convention in early 2013. At this time, I had one dress. Bodyline’s Squirrel Party pink JSK. I bought it from a friend for $15. I knew that’s what I was going to wear and meticulously picked out other pieces to wear with it over the months before the con. I already had a Classical Puppets Bell Shaped Petti but I did not have shoes, socks, a blouse, or any accessories. I remember scouring the Bodyline website for some of the things I needed. Here is my coord collage from my Tumblr at the time.
On that Tumblr post I wrote:
“Guys I’m a nervous wreck! Does this look ok? It’s the blouse I really want but it’s not like the right color pink for the dress but the stock photos of the shoes and blouse appear to be the same color and I thought with the bow in my hair it will look more even? And if I wore like off white socks it would be ok right? Like that is if the blouse really is off white it’s Bodyline don’t forget lol. I’m really nervous cause I have to order this stuff tonight for my first ever coord and I don’t wanna look like a train wreck?
p.s. I already own the dress so I cant change that…”
As you can see here, I was very anxious about matching pinks LOL. I also completely forgot about the horrors of bodyline’s white VS off white. There were entire blogs dedicated to documenting the actual white tone of Bodyline pieces. I did end up getting all those pieces mentioned though and the coloring was not an issue at all.
Here was the final look. As you can see, all the pinks look fine! The JSK is overly cool toned in it’s stock photo. But let’s look at the coord breakdown.
JSK: Bodyline Squirrel Party L391
Blouse: Bodyline Humming Cutsew Blouse L114
Shoes: Bodyline Cecilia Ribbon Frill Tea Parties Shoes256
Socks: Sock Dreams Off-White OTKs
Headbow: Bodyline Squirrel Party Waist Bow
Everything else: Offbrand or Handmade
I remember specifically that the top part of my hair is pined back with a barrette that I decorated with pink rose and pearl cabochons. I am also wearing pink rose earrings I made from cabochons and a pink bow ring from Claires. I am wearing a pearl headband to adorn my make shift headbow and I believe I am wearing a pearl necklace as well. A surprisingly decent amount of accessories.
Concrit time:
I wore a yellow bag because I didn’t have anything else. I justified this by the small amount of yellow in the print. This would have been fine honestly if I had put yellow ANYWHERE else in the coord.
I was playing up the roses in the print as well as the pearl accents on the dress so the yellow bag makes even less sense overall.
So many beginner lolitas do this with their waist bow. I don’t think it looks great. I think it would have been better to wear a beret and pin the bow on the back of the beret. It would have been cheap and seasonally appropriate. Otherwise, honestly this coord is fine. I think it’s well balanced and with a few minor tweaks this could have been perfect.
I still own the shoes, blouse, and socks from this coordinate. I have since sold the dress because I ran out of ways to coordinate it.
What I can’t forget to mention is the other facet of drama that came with this coord. About a month before the convention, I fell at work and suffered a severe, stage three ankle sprain that put me on crutches for weeks. I was very upset about the prospect of not being able to wear my lolita shoes! The swelling and bruising were significant. But by the time of the con, the swelling was down so I could put on my shoe. Should I have tromped around a college campus all weekend on my weak, bruised foot/ankle without a support? Absolutely not! But I was 19 so I didn’t care about that kind of thing back then. I only cared about getting to wear my first lolita coordinate!
All in all, I remember being really excited and feeling REALLY good about my first coord. I finally felt like I looked like all the pictures I would see on Tumblr and Live Journal. It was a great moment for me. This coord was surprisingly good but I had also spent about a year researching the fashion by this point. My only regret is not buying that blouse in every color because I still adore it.
Mahou Queen 