Nothing scares a Gothic Lolita more than the words spring or summer. The spring reacquaints us with the sunlight left behind during daylight savings and the summer brings us sweltering heat (like really, I just want to wear my black velvet). And lets not forget the most common threat both creates- cutesy wootsy themes that designers can't help but to design for. So what's a Gothic Lolita to do? How can we survive all of the floral and fruit prints?
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| JSK: Innocent World Blouse and shoes: Bodyline Parasol: Alice and the Pirates Accessories: Handmade Psst, this is the first outfit I wore that made my friends say, "You look a bit... Old School." Or should I say the first time they noticed! |
"Where are the florals? You were talking about forals, but this JSK has bows on them?!"
You got me. There's no floral print. Instead, I let my bouquet of flowers take the place of an actual printed floral pattern on the JSK.
For this Lolita Blog Carnival topic, I felt that an older outfit of mine was quite fitting. I wore this at the tail end of spring last year, but haven't posted the picture on an open platform until now (So I can get away with posting it now with a new topic, right?). At the time, I was just identifying myself as a Gothic Lolita, and not specifically as an Old School one. But either way, I was going for a more Classic look to fit the theme of the meetup I was attending. Even though there are different styles present in this look, (a little bit if Sweet with a pinch of Classic wrapped in an Old School silhouette, but somehow Gothic), I like how each style element can read as its own while still being cohesive as one outfit.
"Girl, how is this Gothic? I think you're stretching that one."
Asides from the constant presence of the color black throughout the outfit and my black lipstick, there are a few Gothic motifs sprinkled among everything else: bat charms on my hair bows, a badge that has the word "SPOOKY" on it written in Gothic font with a spider attached to it, and the black scenery of a haunted house on my purse.
It should be already known that Gothic Lolitas can wear florals, especially with all of those Moi-meme-Moitie dresses with floral designs created over the years, but you'll be surprised how many people get stirred up when I mention it. Adding florals to an outfit used to be really popular with all three of the main styles, Sweet, Classic and Gothic, but it seems as if there are those who have forgotten this or just don't know. I attribute most of the confusion with the lack of different representations or renderings of the style from the majority of our fashion resources and participants. Gathering information solely from these sources would make it seem like Gothic Lolitas always have to be mature and elegant while wearing only black or jewel tones. But no so, we can be cute and wear florals too.
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| Can you imagine a time when Classic Lolita looked like this? But it looks Gothic-y, doesn't it? Innocent World ad in The Gothic & Lolita Bible Vol. 2 Source: Hello Lace under their Classic Lolita style list |
"Yeah, but that's obviously old. You can't possibly expect a Gothic Lolita to wear that now."
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| Atelier Boz ラゼンシアミニ Skirt (2015) Source: Atelier Boz's blog |
Florals in Gothic Lolita designs have been around for years and they are still being produced. Though, for some reason, they don't seem to be a popular look for Gothic Lolitas in the west, which is fine. You can't expect all of us to look the same. Just know that there are more options out there for us (with budding pink roses, or in my case, a cream and lilac bouquet, being one of them)!
Make sure to check out Lolita Blog Carnival!
Lolita Blog Carnival is an online Lolita community of Lolita bloggers who come together to blog about certain topics each week to stimulate further ideas for great blog posts!
If you want to see more spring coordinates, take a look at these other Lolita blogs:
I just wear black all year round, but it does get super hot. You've reminded me of a cute blackxfloral jsk from IW that I'd been eyeing...
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I actually like Innocent World and wish I had more pieces from them. I only have this one JSK. Hopefully that'll change in the future. Maybe I should be looking out for black x floral pieces from them too!
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