My Lolita Life Part 2: The Beginning

 Hello again! So here's the point where I talk about my Ita phase... These days it seems that people don't really go through an Ita phase in lolita fashion, but back in the early-mid 2010's, that simply wasn't the case... Basically 'Ita' means your co-ord is painful to look at... Back in the early days of lolita fashion in the west, everyone was pretty much 'ita' as it was harder to get clothes from Japan back then so people just made do with what they had. Some lolitas went down the route of hand-making their own lolita clothes, with various degrees of quality and accuracy... At least, this is how I believe it was back in the 2000's...

Getting into the 2010's and whilst it was a bit easier to get hold of actual lolita clothes, it wasn't anywhere near as easy as it is now... Also, the fashion had become more stricter, at least in the west, with what was and wasn't lolita... The early-mid 2010's was also the peak of places like Behind the Bows, where more horrible lolitas would post 'secrets' and create 'Ita' threads... As you can guess, I feel this was the WORST time to get into the fashion in the west and, well, I'm going to get more salty about this in my next post... (Foreshadowing...) Here, however, I'm going to talk about my earlier stuff, the first couple of years in the fashion, which went surprisingly well really, at least in regards to the online community... Not to say that the IRL community was awful, because it wasn't, but compared to the couple of years after, things seemed great... But as I said, that's something to vent about in the next part...

Anyway, I can laugh about things in hindsight, but back then I thought my co-ords were fine, even if they weren't... My first meet was in January 2012 with the local comm in my nearest large city as the one in my nearest city didn't exist yet (though I later found out there had been one previously back in the late 2000's...), and, from what I remember involved going to a sushi restaurant and then to a café... In my previous post I mentioned that a few people from the local cosplay group got into lolita fashion at the same time as me, and indeed a few of us were at this meet... In fact, the cosplay group had had a meet the day before, and during that me and another new lolita had just gone and bought petticoats... So I already had a petticoat for my first meet, my first co-ord can't be THAT bad, surely...

I don't think anyone could make a first co-ord worse than this...

Yes, this monstrosity is what I count as my first 'co-ord'... Whilst it is arguably more 'lolita' than that goth outfit from 2 months earlier, it honestly is much more painful to look at! I really was mostly using things I already had, so the skirt and bow are the same ones I was wearing in that outfit... The bow's upside down, I'm wearing a regular white shirt (which I actually later added lace to, but that was a few years after this!) and the top I'm wearing doesn't even go all the way down to the skirt! I actually wore shoes at the meet, but they were just normie smart shoes that I had, I took this pic in my bedroom after the meet, though I think I got changed before coming home and then changed back for these pics...

But the worst thing has to be the fact I reversed the typical Ita staple of not wearing a petticoat by wearing a petticoat and then wearing a skirt that only covers half of it! Or course, wearing a black and white co-ord was also an ita staple back then, since the easiest 'lolita' to get hold of back then were Milanoo scams with knock-off 'old-school' dresses, often in that colour combination... Whilst I managed to avoid those, I still looked awful... Thing is, old-school lolita is much more popular now, and I'm so happy it is! At the time I wanted to start off with a lolita style that was close to what I was already wearing at the time and that iconic black and white old-school look was pretty much the nearest thing... At the time I intended to branch out more towards the OTT sweet look that was popular at the time, as well as classic, but in the end I largely stayed more gothic...

Anyway, a few months later the lolita comm in question held a bring and buy at the cosplay group I menioned before's meet... I don't have any pics from that meet and I can't remember what I wore... But a couple of months after that I went to a convention which, admittedly, had the best lolita fashion stuff at any convention I've ever been to! (Though admittedly I've never actually attended an actual lolita fashion con before...) I attended the tea party held at this convention where they had a kawaii Youtuber known for her dance videos at the time who never actually wore lolita but did dress in kawaii Harajuku-inspired fashion and a very well-known lolita in the UK community who is also well-known for her manga artwork as guests... Just one catch for this tea party- You had to take part in the fashion show beforehand and, erm...

How was this even allowed in the fashion show?

Yes, this is largely the same co-ord as before, though in the 5 months that had passed I'd tried to make it a bit better... Sadly this is the only pic I have of it, but maybe that's for the best... I just wish I could've attended a convention with as much put into it for lolitas more recently, or worn a half-decent co-ord back then... Anyway, fast forward another 3 months and I attended my second actual lolita meet... All I remember was a whole bunch of us going around my nearest large city (again!) and stopping off at a café (that I can't even find on Streetview!) and later on having a meal in a Japanese restaurant... (I think...) It's worth mentioning that one of my favourite substyles was pirate lolita and, well...

September 2012 me with the worst pirate lolita costume ever... And there's not even a petticoat this time!

This has to be the worst attempt at pirate lolita ever, so bad I would consider this a costume rather than fashion... The worst thing is, at this meet there was a lolita who was wearing pirate lolita but actually properly, especially as that was actually the main style of lolita she wore! It's worth mentioning that I have attempted pirate lolita since but, you know, better! In fact, it seems to be the most classic I've ever really gone, even though my co-ords are still more gothic... Admittedly, it wasn't the only outfit from that month I'm not happy with, I was at a convention 2 weeks earlier where I wore an outfit that I feel could've been better... It's worth mentioning that back then I was friends with a then little-known cosplay Youtuber who would later become very well-known for her lolita content, but then became largely disliked over racism issues... This convention was the only time we ever actually met in person and I actually appeared in one of her videos in this outfit-

I honestly think I look like a clown...

Yes, it's not lolita, but it just shows that back then I was still wearing alternative fashion away from lolita, sometimes using wigs (that I bought from a company whose wigs seemed to be largely disliked in the lolita community and that was before the racism issues... Yes, racism again...) rather than my own hair, something that also carried over into lolita itself...

An example from July 2012, I realise this is very similar to my Mikuo cosplay from the previous year...

But as for 2012 that was it... It seems 2013 had less lolita in it though, with me only attending one meet, but it was definitely one of the most significant for me... For a start off, it was in my nearest city, the first lolita meet that I'd been to in my nearest city! All I remember is that there was a bunch of us just wandering around the city centre... It was mostly lolitas I already knew, with only two I hadn't met before, one of which actually lived in the city and became one of my best lolita friends for a time...

But my main memory of this meet is sat down in Caffé Nero (one of three in my nearest city centre, in fact...) chatting with the lolita who could be considered the queen of the comm, who not only was one of the main organisers for my nearest big lolita comm, but also helped organise lolita events too... I had decided I wanted to start a new comm for this city, since I felt it needed its own comm and this lolita was happy for me to do so! Effectively this comm was pretty much spun off from the big comm (and from what I can gather, still is...), but it was a new comm, it was MY comm... But, how was I dressed at that moment?

What do you mean this is the person that started the comm?

Yeah, my co-ords were still bad... Though at least I now had a skirt to put over my petticoat! Admittedly I had an idea, inspired by something that had happened a few months earlier, to attempt an 'emo lolita' co-ord, but this just looks terrible... I think the worst thing is the complete lack of balance in the co-ord, not to the mention the jumper that not only doesn't match the rest of what I'm wearing, but it was a bit too hot for it too! I honestly don't look like someone suitable to be starting a lolita fashion community and tbh, I wasn't... 6 months later I basically passed the running of the comm to someone else and that's when my local comm actually started doing meets...

However, this didn't really sour my relationship with the lolita fashion community, that was yet to come... And I did re-visit my pirate lolita co-ord with the skirt too-

October 2013 and it's starting to look slightly more like lolita...

So, after a couple of years of being an absolute ita, I was still in a good place with the community, sure, but I feel like I should've waiting a couple more years before joining... But at least my co-ords were about to start getting towards something half-decent, but my relationship with the community was about to start slipping away... Next time things are about to get salty...