What Are 5 Things You Would Tell A Beginner Not To Do Or Avoid?
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| Hold on, there's advice in here somewhere under all my bad decisions... |
Don't - buy a main piece (by itself) as your first purchase.
Do - budget to purchase 1 main piece, 1 blouse, 1 petticoat, 1 pair of shoes, appropriate legwear, and a headdress.
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| Left: Goofus rushed into purchasing a JSK, and only a JSK, and shoehorned it into a normie coord. Right: Gallant waited until he could also add shoes, socks, blouse, petticoat, and headdress to his cart. |
Whether you buy less expensive items, or you save up longer, start with this beginner's kit and then you can start adding other main pieces and accessories to it one at a time. Don't blow it all on one fancy JSK in the beginning that you now have to shoehorn with a standard work blouse and tennis shoes until you are ready to purchase more.
Don't - skip the details of the aesthetic.
Do - begin building basic beautifying habits and good garment care routines.
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| Taking care of your nails, hair, skin, and clothes - so rori!!! |
The little things. Groom your nails, style your hair, practice good posture. Iron or steam wrinkled items and get familiar with garment care now, before you buy a dream dress and it becomes intimidating. Wear a bit of gloss or blush, paying attention to the differences between the lolita and typical western makeup aesthetic (no tightlining!) Nailing these details now is far more important than whether or not you only own one JSK so far.
Don't - start with multiple colorways.
Do - stick to one, maybe two, tops, until you really know what you are doing.
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| How many colors do you see shared between these two dresses? Even the "navy"s are different! The left needs navy shoes, the right, aubergine. Those shoes don't match any other dresses I have. |
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| Now look at these - they share black, warm ivory, gold tones, and dark red. I could literally wear the same pair of shoes, blouse, and legwear with each of these. |
This one is kind of a given, but I wish someone had told me. It's not a total disaster, but do the math; you will eventually need to purchase more items overall to match with each of the colorways. While you're still beginning, and figuring out what hues, cuts, styles, and sizes even work for you, it's best to only have to trial and error with one colorway, rather than several.
Don't - invest in "only goes with this dress" wigs, accessories, or bags.
Do - put your money towards more important staple items,
like proper shoes, versatile legwear, and well fitting blouses.
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| Don't start with these!!! Themed purses, printed and otherwise dress-specific accessories, and colorful wigs are not vital items! |
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| Start with these!!! These items are simple, and may not seem as exciting, but they are far more versatile. |
You should be able to coordinate a main piece at least three different ways before you even think about buying a matching wig or purse for it, especially one that won't really go with anything else. Building a foundation of versatile staples, like a few blouses in different sleeve lengths and a couple of pairs of shoes (formal, and for walking) is more important in the beginning. And investing in versatile accessories (like solid color headdresses and purses), instead of specifically matching ones (like some printed items) means they can be reused with other main pieces for more coordination possibilities from the start.
Don't - start with highly fancy and formal pieces.
Do - start with items that could easily be dressed down or up.
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| Left: JSK can be dressed way up or way down, petticoat or not, with a simple headdress. Right: JSK requires full petticoat, and the hat is pretty much formal only. |
OTT can be so much more exciting than casual, so it's easy to want to begin with extravagant and fancy pieces. But you'll get a lot more use and practice out of a more simple JSK that can be dressed up for ILD or dressed down for a casual tea, than that super chiffon ruffle-train astrology kitten print extravaganza that you would never feel comfortable wearing out for a simple swap meet in a city park.
Along with practical advice like "positive reactions tend to curb negative ones", "this fashion is way too expensive and unpopular to waste money on dresses other girls may covet, but you may not necessarily love", and "try to sift the concrete critique from snarky comments and ignore the rest", these are the things I would say to someone who is just about to dive in. They are based off of my own goofs when I was beginning, things that caused me to take a lot longer to get to the wardrobe I wanted to have, so I hope it's helpful to someone else.
This was a fun topic, and I'm really looking forward to reading what others in the Lolita Blog Carnival would advise. Check out who else blogged about this topic:
Take care and see you next time!
I love your approach here and there's tonnes of useful advice here! Reading this I was thinking back to my beginnings and realised that I did some of the things I shouldn't have and agree with your advice. Especially I wouldn't have thought of learning stuff like garment care before getting cherished delicate Lolita pieces. "Luckily" I learnt this the hard way, but on normie clothes (still miss that sweater though ;_;). :P
ReplyDeleteThank you! Oh nooo, poor sweater! I definitely learned that lesson the hard way, myself, although it was with a lolita blouse and an OP (I didn't realize the damage I was doing to the blouse by putting it into the dryer, and the OP was my first trial with detachable parts... that I forgot to detach. RIP pointy gold stars at the end of my neck ties!).
ReplyDeleteThis was a great read, I loved the pictures you used for each point, especially that gorgeous black JSK! Also you are right, getting multiple colorways is one of the fastest ways to accumulate things in your wardrobe. Even going up or down a shade means it no longer matches your go-to staples, and so you'll need to buy more!...
ReplyDeleteOne of the girls in my comm does wonderful coordinates reusing the same two bags and pair of shoes. Because they go with so many things in her wardrobe, it still looks 'fresh' every time, and perfectly put together.
Thank you! Oh man, I remember when I needed to have a warm pink and a cool pink version of everything, it was so much!
ReplyDeleteI wish I had done that in the beginning, put more stock in the versatility of items like shoes. I was too focused on having a pair that was champagne gold and a pair that was yellow gold, etc, and not focused enough on what style of shoe was flattering and comfortable and actually went with my coords in terms of shape and style, even if they were just solid black.