Coord Lolita

[Verona Garrott]

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One of the things that's really cool about lolita fashion is the way that it's structured, and the "rules" of lolita outfits. A lot of mainstream fashion tends to have a sort of general look that you're trying to reach, lolita fashion has some very specific requirements for what should be present in a lolita look. It's a little bit less like how we think of punk fashion, and a bit more about how we think of white tie attire.

Before you bitch about the rules, I just want to say that, once you start following the rules, you'll learn how to effectively break the rules. But you want to start out by using the rules to help you make a look. You can think of it like training wheels on your bicycle when you learned how to ride it. It's also like how the first thing you ever cooked was probably Top Ramen or mac and cheese, and probably wasn't traditional chocolate eclairs or egg yolk ravioli. I want to be nice and welcoming to new people in the fashion, but I also want to be really honest here, because lying to new people doesn't help them. So here is my first piece of tough love: Don't bitch about the rules. Just learn to follow them.

And remember the other rule, and keep this very close to your heart. You're allowed to love looks that you make that aren't lolita. Even if you attempted lolita, and it didn't make the mark, if you love that look, then you love that look. You can be proud of it, and you can wear it, and you can love it. All the love in the world won't make it lolita, but that doesn't mean it can't be loved.

This is not about how to make sure that the elements of your coordinate go together, or how to dress certain ways for certain styles. This is just identifying the components of the lolita coordinate.

This is also a good thing to run past when you're building a coord and think it's almost done. Did you have items 1-7 on it? Can you add them, or at least a thing to indicate that you understand you should have something?

You will want to include all seven of those components, even if you know that what you're putting in that category isn't all that perfect. If you don't have a good headpiece, it will look better to have a less-than-ideal one than it will be to go without one.

Why? Well, let's talk about my shellfish allergy. I can't eat it. At all, period. End of story. My friends and I invite each other over to dinner pretty frequently. One time, I had a friend who had carefully prepared a dinner that she thought was safe for me, but that had scallops in it. She didn't realize that scallops were shellfish, having never seen them not frozen in a bag or prepared on a plate. She was very apologetic, and offered me the other food in her house. Best Ling Ling potstickers and fried Spam I've ever had, btw. I had another friend who cooked shrimp tacos and told me I could just pick out the shrimp (not how food allergies work, btw) because she wanted shrimp tacos. The short version of a long story is that I still eat at friend #1's house, and don't eat at friend #2's house, or really hang out with them anymore. I couldn't eat either meal, but the fact that friend #1 put effort into keeping the food accessible for me means that they earned the right for me to give them a second chance.

Or, if you want a shorter version, putting something IN the checkbox for your coord, even if it's not perfect, tells people who want to help you that you know something should be in that check box. Trying and failing is better than no effort.

1] Skirt. The main lolita fashion look requires a skirt. Usually this is somewhere in the general area of your knee. You can go a little above or below that point, but knee-length is a good general idea. The skirt has to have enough volume to put your pettioat under, and it needs to start somewhere in the general area of your natural waist. These rules apply both to a standalone skirt, and to the skirt part of a dress.

The skirt is usually one of the parts that is hardest--bordering on impossible--to find in a normal, non-lolita store. If you're buying a premade skirt, it's very likely that you'll need to shop at a place selling skirts specifically for lolita.

2] Petticoat. The lolita silhouette requires the skirt to have a pretty specific shape, and that shape comes from the skirt being supported by a petticoat. Once you know that you want to wear lolita for more than just one coordinate, you will want to get a good petticoat that's made to be the proper shape for your looks. You'll wear a petticoat with all your lolita looks, so it might be worth it to buy a nice one.

However, when you're starting, it's a good idea to try to have SOME kind of petticoat. A small petticoat is going to look better than nothing, and it shows that you know what you need to do. I actually have a petticoat I got from Spirit Halloween at the end-of-season clearance, and I get a lot of use out of it. It's nice for wearing under other petticoats, for just a little bit of extra volume. I also wear it under my hooped petticoat, for just a little bit of extra modesty.

3] Not Shoulders. Blouse, cardigan, bolero, sleeves on your dress SOMETHING. It's really hard to pull off a lolita look with bare shoulders. You'll see coords from really hot locations where people go blouseless, but it's still tough to pull off. I'm in a location where it gets very hot, and I've found that sheer blouses are very nice, and allow me to have more flexibility in other areas of my look.

4] Headgear. Put something on your head. It can be a bow or it can be a hat, or it can be a lot of other things, but you want to put something on your head. If your coord's not yet complete and you're just trying it on to get some feedback, tie some ribbons in your hair or something else to indicate that you understand that this is a necessary part of the look. You want to incorporate your whole body into your coord, instead of having a coord that stops at your neck. Your face is important, and you want it to feel like it's part of the look, so continue the lolita details up into your head.

My favorite fast addition to a coord is to get little ribbon bows from the children's hair accessory sections of outlet stores. They come on clips, and you can easily slide them into your hair. I'll usually add them even if I already have a hair accessory.

Lolita theming is based a lot on the concept of modesty, and in the past that meant covering your entire legs. We've gotten more open about shorter socks in recent times, but you still want to have something to show that you recognize that element of your look.

6] Wrists. This is again about incorporating your entire body into your look. Having something that ties your hands back into your coord is important. We use our hands to communicate our feelings and interact with the world, so we want to incorporate them into our coordinate.

I used to be really bad about leaving wrists uncovered, because I have issues with jingling things or scratchy things on my hands. I recently found that I handle stretchy bracelets pretty well, so it only took me 11 years to figure out the best way to incorporate my wrists into my look. These are nice and really quite cheap, and the background image up there is my collection of non-jangly stretchy bracelets.

7] The rest. So, one of the most important things that builds the lolita look is that it's so much beyond what mainstream fashion is. Every detail in lolita has details in the details, so you don't want to just stop with checking the main 6 boxes. You want to find things to bring your look to be a little bit extra beyond the base expectations. Can you add some jewelry? Can you add some extravagant (but coordinating) makeup? What can you do to dress up your hair? What can you do to dress up your hands? What can you add to make this just a little bit more? Do you have a bag that matches? Do you want to do your nails to match? You don't always need to go 100% extra, but adding just a little additional thing every time you can is nice. Remember, it's a lot harder for a coord to have too many details, versus too few.

Okay but what about shoes? I'm assuming that, if you're going out, you're going to be wearing some shoes. Despite what Madison says, you shouldn't wear stiletto heels with lolita. You also shouldn't wear flip flops. But I assume you own shoes and this is a beginner guide, so just use your best judgement.

Something that I've been having fun with recently is building fake coords. I take an online photo collage generator (I've been using this one because it doesn't make you pay), take a theme, and then try to build a coord collage using that theme. I had my non-lolita friends suggest themes:

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