CLAM Christmas Dinner/Late Winter International Lolita Day

Today was the Christmas dinner for the CLAM lolita and jfashion community! We went to a place called Annie's in Manchester, and I had turkey. It was a day of firsts for me, not only because this was my first lolita Christmas event, but also because it was my first time eating a Christmas dinner that wasn't cooked by my family.

I was particularly excited to go to a Christmas dinner with a lolita community because I first started to wear lolita fashion in December 2022, but I was too late to receive any of my first items to be able to take part in any Christmas events - so I just browsed various aesthetic lolita Christmas pictures while not being able to take part myself. If I'd bought from Atelier Pierrot for my first pieces, it would definitely have arrived with plenty of time to spare.

I enjoyed the food a lot, although I missed having mashed potato with my dinner. I also forgot to take a picture of the starter, which was a soup. Well, soup is just a dip for bread anyway. The dessert was really delicious, it was a chocolate orange tart with ice cream and a little strawberry. I thought it was really sweet but the chocolate was very rich. After finishing the turkey dinner, I was already feeling quite full, I got a peppermint tea because this helps my stomach to settle, and I ended the meal feeling full but not uncomfortably so. It was a satisfying meal.

Here is a picture of my coordinate from today but in better lighting. I had been collecting pieces for this outfit all year. My headdress was from Triple Fortune. It has gold flowers embroidered onto it. The Adenophora OP and Shirring Princess Sleeve Blouse were both from Atelier Pierrot. I love velveteen textures so much, but I hadn't had much opportunity to wear it since the time I got it, since I needed the weather to be a bit cooler than it was throughout the rest of the year - it's definitely more of a winter dress. I found the elasticated sleeves on the Adenophora OP a little uncomfortable at first but after a short amount of time I got used to them, and it became a very comfortable outfit. The socks were from Metamorphose, and the shoes were from Unif. I have worn items like these quite a lot so they aren't that surprising additions.

More interesting perhaps were my choices of accessories. I believe the corsage was from Physical Drop, though I can't be sure, I got it from a bundle of Physical Drop corsages & brooches that I found on Mercari. It has a teddy bear, a bell, and a gold-dusted acorn on it, and the back of the corsage has a lovely Christmassy ribbon on it. You can see a picture of it on my Wardrobe's accessories section, but I would like to update the picture soon as it doesn't really reflect the brooch that well. I wore two necklaces, though only one of them is really visible in the pictures - a necklace with a black and gold carousel horse against a red background. This necklace was from BooDo, an indie jewellery maker who is oftentimes stocked at Atelier Pierrot. Their Instagram can be found here for anyone interested. The other necklace was from a brand called RegalRose, and had a few layers of chains. I liked it in pictures online, but it didn't really stand out much when I actually wore it, so I was a little disappointed.

Finally, the belt. This is something that caught the eye of a few people today, as the tassels made for a really unique texture on the outfit, giving it a sort-of Christmas living room vibe. This belt idea was suggested by a good friend of mine, and it was actually made from the tassels that are used to tie back curtains. I tied two together, and they made for an interesting textural addition when put in a bow at the front.

More Coordinate Updates

2 Wolf Moon Coord

I was talking to a few friends recently about how it would be nice to have some more inspiration for casual and tshirt coordinates, and we were also discussing some of the more cringe and ironic memes around wolves. After I mentioned that I'd picked up this tshirt a few years ago secondhand, many people were adamant that I needed to create a coord with this, so this is what I came up with!

The T-Shirt is from the company The Mountain, who made the original 3 Wolf Moon T-shirt (this t-shirt only has 2 wolves, because I would be too powerful if I had 3 wolves). The skirt is from the Decay series from Atelier Pierrot, and the hat is from Uf. The collar was one of the collars from Atelier Pierrot that you can get separately. The arm warmers were from Moi Meme Moitie's somewhat controversial pleather series from last year. I mostly added them to balance my legs being quite covered, but I was quite happy that the lacing matched up with the lacing on the skirt, it felt like a cute added detail. My tights were from Snag, the legwarmers were unbranded and for added cosy since it is winter, and the boots were my favourite New Rock chunky short boots. And the necklace is one of my Neant Glass coffin rosaries. It was suggested to add a Chris-chan, for extra wolfy charm, but I sadly do not have him.

I originally wanted to wear this with my Marble fishtail skirt after being inspired by Satsuki from Atelier Pierrot's more casual Marble fishtail skirt coordinates, but when I remembered I also had this fishtail skirt, and I thought about matching the textures with the hat, it felt like fate to match a wolfy aesthetic. Overall I think the punky aesthetic for this works really well, and I enjoyed putting this together, but I don't think I'd be very likely to wear this to a meet for example. However I'm really enjoying experimenting with tshirt coordinates right now, and I feel like I'm making steps towards better understanding more loose and punk styles of lolita, and I also feel like this sort of coordinate is really helpful to try to incorporate lolita more into casual and everyday styling.

Decay Coord

I put this coordinate together after demonstrating to a friend why I prefer not to wear the Atelier Pierrot blouses in this cut without a corset or other layer which covers the waist. The reason for this is simply because I find that the shirring does not sit in a very flattering way when uncovered, I find that it looks a little scruffy and unfinished. Afterwards since I'd already gone to the trouble of mostly putting a coord together, I decided to try the set out fully coorded. The blouse, corset and skirt are all from the Atelier Pierrot Decay series, and the hat is again from Uf. I think the texture of this hat just goes really well with this series. I added my biggest New Rock boots, to give the coordinate a really powerfully gothic feel.

This outfit was a little bit inspired by my love for Strega Gothic fashion. As a teenager and young adult I always admired the outfits of people like Psychara, where natural fabrics combine with tough features. I love these boots a lot, so I'm looking forward to wearing them more as I explore more punky gothic aesthetics through lolita fashion.

Winter International Lolita Day Coord

This was the coordinate I wore on International Lolita Day yesterday! I spent the day lazing around and only went out in the evening, to go and have a takeaway for a birthday in the family. I wanted to put together a few more casual items that I don't usually wear that often, and settled on putting together this black-based t-shirt coordinate with bordeaux and pink accents.

The t-shirt used in this coordinate was from GoMuffyGo. I love this tshirt! It makes me laugh a lot because it reminds me of the meme tshirt from years ago. The cardigan and skirt are from Atelier Pierrot. I got both of these items secondhand for a really good price, but I don't wear them as much as I could, so I enjoyed wearing them. The tights are from Snag again (they just make really comfortable tights!), and I believe the socks are from New Look. And the New Rock boots of course.

The bag is from Embercraft Creations. I bought it around 1.5-2 years ago when I first became interested again in more gothic fashion, and I really love it. It is made from recycled leather, and the maple leaf is marked with a rune that I chose, so it is totally unique to me. The person who makes the bags for Embercraft Creations has been one of my favourite creators for a long time, and I have a few of her leather goods, from the wallet for my Passport, to leather masks with designs of different creatures. But this bag definitely has gotten the most use.

It was really cold on this day, so as the evening went on I regretted a little bit that I didn't wear something more like my short black Ugg boots to keep my feet super warm.

Purchase from H.Naoto

This week I made my first ever purchase from H.Naoto! I saw this dress which was created for the Laforet event with a "Pink" theme, and I fell in love with it. I love the contrast of the almost trashy, very "scene" hot pink and very textured lace on the oversized heart, with the delicate aspects from the rose lace on the birdcage shape. The heart can be removed to wear it in a different way, but particularly I really love the oversized heart.

I was a little unsure whether to go for this purchase, since I knew it would mean that I wouldn't be able to purchase the bustle corset OP dresses that I had been looking at from Atelier Pierrot. But I weighed up the pros and cons quite heavily. I think that I already have quite a few bustle corset OP dresses, and I don't think that new dresses would get more wear than my existing ones.

Whereas this is a completely different style to existing pieces that I own, yet I feel it would still work well with many things that I have, especially as I have experimented more with more punk styling. Just thinking about combining this with my biggest New Rock boots makes me feel so happy and excited.

Following this purchase I have decided that I would also like one of the cat-ear parkas from Antigones Majoh, which I believe is one of the branched off companies from H.Naoto. I've been talking to their customer services about reserving one with a fishtail from the upcoming release, and I am hoping this will work out. I was inspired a lot by how they styled the JSK for the shop pictures, I think it looks super cute combined like this.

I'm not sure whether the two stores share a customer services team, but I have found them to be really kind and helpful so far, as well as being really good at interacting in English which is super useful for me who is unable to comfortably interact in Japanese. And they have also shown quite a solid initiative especially on the Majoh side, with letting me know the day after we finished speaking about whether the parka would be available on the web store, that it would be possible to reserve the cat ear parka, since there is the possibility that there would not be enough stock to go onto the website. So I am very happy with this.

This is not the only thing that I've purchased recently that will be taking me out of my comfort zone, but as for the other thing I have ordered, you will simply have to wait and see. It is something from my secret wishlist, that I never added onto the website.