(In Lieu Of A) Wardrobe Post 2022: Celebrating Items I No Longer Own

Happy 2022! Time is only as real as you make it, so I'm making this my first foray into the wild world of posting in 2022. For this year, I can't be bothered to do a full wardrobe post, so it's going to be a series of short updates. This is somewhat in keeping of the traditional theme of wardrobe posts.

I sold a few of my main pieces last year, finally! I keep them memorialized in a desktop folder called "Gone But Not Forgotten". Without further ado, here are the important pieces I no longer own (and why). 

Last Minute Lolita Gifts

It's almost the New Year, which means it's time for friends and family to gather 'round and give each other things probably. I don't know; my Christmas ritual has been disrupted by all the Chinese restaurants in the area getting overbooked and the movies requiring human contact. Anyway, although it can be sweet of people to attempt relevant gifts for lolitas, trying to look into a fashion you know nothing about in order to give gifts is a challenge at best; my mother, for example, wouldn't know Kuma Kumya if it came up to her and bit her.

Magicalgirlme and Wunderwelt both have gift recommendations, but those require a certain knowledge of the lolita's taste. These recommendations, simply put, just require a vague knowledge of what the lolita has already.

Bibliotheca: (Ignoring) the Future

That's right, it's most of the way through the month and I haven't been hit with the metaphorical paintball gun of inspiration, so it's time for the Bibliotheca theme: the future.

Bibliotheca: Being Grateful

Land Acknowledgement: This blog is written on the traditional lands of the Doeg people, who were exterminated after years of sustained genocidal endeavors by colonizers of European descent.

Scary Post: Am I a Perma-Ita?

Ita, for lolitas, is a word laden with fear, making it perfect for the spooky season! As most lolitas know, ita comes from both the second half of the word lolita and the Japanese exclamation "itai", meaning "ouch"! Accordingly, lolitas use the term ita to describe coordinates so ugly that they find them painful; it's generally expected that a new lolita will have a brief ita phase before they grow into their coordination skills. The idea of being bad at a fashion is a complex topic, so I will probably expand on the idea of ita-ness through more posts.

Several mutations of this term have developed in the English-speaking community, including perma-ita, or permanent ita. As the name implies, a perma-ita begins with an ita phase but never grows out of it. I don't claim to be perfect, despite my comedic self-aggrandizement. But, horror of horrors, am I stuck being an ita? I can't really judge my own bad taste, but I will definitely try.

Bibliotheca: HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!

It's almost Halloween! Halloween is my favorite secular holiday, so I was feral levels of excited to learn that it was the October Bibliotheca theme!

I'm going to keep things light; this post is just a short list of five spooky reasons why Halloween and lolitas are perfect for each other.

My Kuma Kumya Jack-O-Lantern from last year

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.

Old School For Newbies Panel Links

Here's the links for the resources I mention in my panel for J-Fashion University. When the Old School for Newbies panel goes up on the Bay Area Kei Youtube, I'll link that, too!

Old School for Newbies: Supplemental Reading 3: Size Inclusivity in Old School

Congratulations, students! This is my last post before Bay Area Kei's J-Fashion University, and my panel there on old school. In this reading, I present lists of brands alongside a little bit of explanation about size inclusivity, then and now. For inclusion in these lists, a brand has to regularly produce items with a bust above 98 cm and/or waist above 80 cm. I also included closed brands that might have plus-size options secondhand. This isn't to say that other brands don't carry plus sizes, just that these are a few of the more reliable choices edited from the other posts, with a couple addenda. All lists are numbered and alphabetized for convenience.

Old School for Newbies: Supplemental Reading 2: Buying Old School New

As a follow-up to my post about Chinese indie brands that sell old school lolita, and preceding my panel at J-Fashion University, I decided to create a list of every brand outside of Taobao that I could find that sells old school lolita on a semi-consistent basis. This was not a trivial undertaking, but I hope the results are useful.

I've already laid out my criteria previously. For this post, though, I was a little more stringent-- brands had to sell old school suitable garments semi-consistently, not just as one item among many. This list includes a lot of gothic and classic brands; brands that don't fit into the picturesque old school sweet image, but nonetheless maintain the same look and feel as gothic and classic lolita did around the year 2004. New items in old school style are essential; we can't make more old pieces, but we can keep expanding design accessibility through new pieces!

Old School for Newbies: Core Reading 1: My Old School Criteria

Old school lolita is difficult to pin down stylistically because it isn't a substyle. Age is, of course, the primary factor here: if it was made between 1997 and around 2005, it'll probably look old school. But there's more elements, tangible and intangible, that make a piece old school-able. The materials, construction, accessories, styling, and overall mood of the coordinate all play a key role.

As the presenter for Old School for Newbies at Bay Area Kei's J-Fashion University, I have a duty to share exactly what qualifies as 'old school', at least for my panel's purposes. By no means am I saying I'm a real authority; I've only been wearing lolita for seven years. However, I think developing some clear(ish) guidelines can help people new to old school adopt an eye for the style. Some of this post is adapted from the LiveJournal Lolita Handbook: give it a look if you're unfamiliar or nostalgic.

In other words, I have crowned myself the arbiter of style and taste, and with this post, so can you!

Old School for Newbies: Supplemental Reading 1: Old School on Taobao

Old school is a passion of mine. I'm lucky enough to be hosting a panel on Old School for Newbies at Bay Area Kei's upcoming J-Fashion University, so I decided to compile lists of stores that sell old school-styled lolita clothing and supplies. Since this is a university theme, each post related to my "class" will be framed as a course component.

Old school is difficult to find on Taobao, so I went through more than 300 stores in order to find all of the stores that had at least one piece that looks reasonably old school. I've also included a few sellers of sewing supplies. 

I followed strict criteria for these selections, which can be found in Core Reading 1.