Bibliotheca: Fall and Deciduousness

This month's Bibliotheca theme is Fall! It can also be autumn, if you prefer. Fall doesn't happen everywhere, but in temperate forested climates (like my area), it's very literal: one by one, all the leaves of certain trees shed, not in death, but just discarded for the season.

Many people think of these trees as dead; instead, they're hibernating, subsisting off stored sugars until new leaves spring up at the end of winter. These trees are called deciduous trees, and the phenomenon is called deciduousness. Humans have some deciduous parts too, namely our milk teeth, which last only a few years. Even though the parts do get use and are needed for their time, when that time ends, so does the connection to the whole. 

I think that this idea of deciduousness has a place in lolita, funnily enough. Lolitas are somewhat infamous for having large wardrobes and buying items constantly, but we just as often sell items. There are even lolitas who have 'left lolita' entirely multiple times, selling their entire wardrobes only to buy them new mere years later. There are lolitas who maintain a full wardrobe with a stable style (like yours truly) and lolitas who buy a piece only to sell it after a few wears. 

Neither of these patterns is better than the other, and both deserve a place in the lolita ecosystem, like white oaks and live oaks. In fact, I think everyone, regardless of consistency of style or how often they wear lolita, should be a little deciduous, ready to let go of their pieces when the connection is lost. I'm learning to let go myself, but it's a hard-fought battle to stop clinging to old memories and older dreams. 

A lot of emphasis is placed in lolita spaces on wardrobe building, but I really don't see much about wardrobe reduction. Maybe this is because resources are really seen as a beginner thing: people with enough maturity in the fashion to pare things down don't seem to need as as much guidance. But that assumption of experience may no longer hold. With increased availability, it's easier than ever to accumulate items in lolita, and just as hard as it's ever been to let go. 

There's also external nudging to keep a larger-than-needed wardrobe, namely yearly wardrobe posts, that tacit competition to see who has the biggest, gaudiest, best-curated collection of frills. It takes a certain self-control to pare down the wardrobe, one which I'm still trying to cultivate and may never have.

Fall is a time of perceived decay, but it's also a very real time of plenty and harvest. As we say farewell to summer and the pieces that we're splitting with, there's now room to notice other things, even non-lolita things like certain mushroom seasons or the annual Fat Bear Week (starting September 29). In the end, lolitas and our wardrobes are constantly changing, and isn't that what fall is all about?