My Lolita Life Part 4: Being a Con-Lolita

 So, 2015 was a disastrous year for me! Especially in the case of lolita fashion where I ended up considering leaving it, selling up and moving on... And yes, maybe I was a 'tag-along-loser-at-the-cool-kids-table', to steal a quote from a popular lolita blogger, but I enjoyed going to meets and the IRL comms I was part of (except one which ended up being too good to be true...) seemed to be fine with putting up with me... During 2014 and 2015 I had expanded my wardrobe and my co-ords were starting to see improvement... If I hadn't quit the community or had even gone to more meets during 2015, then maybe the lolita fashion community would have seen my improvement quicker and maybe I wouldn't have quit the community... And maybe I would've bought more clothes, as my wardrobe hasn't changed much in the years since... And I wouldn't have lost some good friends, though as there were some lolitas I thought I was good friends with who didn't re-add me after deleting everyone, maybe we weren't such good friends after all... This, sadly, included the local lolita I mentioned before who had sort-of left the fashion at this point and was more into the mori kei, dolly kei and cult party kei styles that were popular in the mid 2010's western J-Fashion scene... In fact, I have less lolita friends now than I did in 2016...

But as it was, I ended 2015 feeling like lolita fashion had been a comedy of errors for me... There was rushing into the community when I was far from ready to even really buy any lolita and then ordering a load of stuff to be made by one person when I was... There was starting a comm when I was in no position to run one and was still very much an ita, and then dumping it on somebody else... There was me then joining a comm that I felt was so much better than my own and deciding that was better and then members of that comm basically turning against me... There was becoming friends with a french ouji who I annoyed so much that I stopped really interacting with her and then a few months later when I sent a photo of me in ouji at a convention tea party she blocked me... There was my whole lolita music idea where I wanted to form a lolita band, which only about one person was even supportive of and then I was basically dragged through the mud with it... And after that I still stayed around in the community for over a year before basically calling out a friend only to be dragged through the mud again... No wonder I had wanted to quit!

As I've said before, 2015 was a disastrous year for me, not just with lolita fashion, though that was most of it... Going to conventions didn't seem to go so well with some being a bit of a disaster for me too, and others just being disastrous in general... I decided I needed to take a break from them... However, I did still sometimes wear lolita or ouji at home...

This was me in April 2016, unfortunately it was a bit dark...

After 2015 I didn't get many pics of me in lolita or ouji as I was a bit too scared to post them online through fear of being ridiculed for bad co-ords... Sadly this means I haven't got many more pics to share, though I do have a few... This was basically me trying to get a better pic of the co-ord I was wearing in that pic from the previous December... I particularly love that hat! It will be appearing a bit more later...

It wasn't until the summer that I wanted to go to a convention again and I didn't go to one until September that year... After that I didn't attend another con until June 2017... Sometime in 2016 I decided that I should wear lolita at conventions, since that would at least give me a place to actually wear the fashion and show off my co-ords! So basically, I decided to become a Con-Lolita... 

The first convention I went to in 2017 was actually on ILD weekend, so I wore lolita on the Saturday... Sadly I never got a pic of my co-ord, something that would become a regular occurence, though it was effectively an update of the one I wore a bit in Summer 2014... Little did I know that there was actually an ILD tea party in my nearest city that day, but I only found out years later...

The next convention was only a couple of weeks later and I wore an update of my attempted pirate lolita co-ord, now using the same tricorn hat as in the ouji co-ord above... It had stopped looking like a costume at this point and who was at this con but the 'queen' of my nearest big comm that I've mentioned previously! And she told me that I'd improved! I was taken back a bit, admittedly, but this did make me start to think that maybe the lolita community didn't hate me like I thought it did...

I didn't attend another con until September 2017, when I wore a more gothic kuro co-ord... Again, I never got a pic of it, well not at the time, but I'll get onto that on my next post... I attended one more convention in 2017, in November that year and actually got a pic-

How was this the only photo I got of me in lolita during 2017?

Another kuro co-ord, being my attempt at witch lolita... (I think that's a real sub-style...) That hat was one of my few post-2015 purchases and was actually from the same indie brand that most of my stuff was from... I think the blouse might be another of my few post-2015 purchases too, though if it's the blouse I think it is, that was bought from another, now-defunct indie brand... It's worth mentioning that at this convention there was a lolita area and a certain now-popular lolita was there, though I'll get onto her in a minute...

Early 2018 was an interesting time... One of my few still-remaining lolita friends effectively invited me to a meet in my local city (even though this lolita actually lives in my nearest large city and the meet was actually ran by that city's comm...) and so that April I actually attended a meet again! Only thing is, I was basically this friend's +1 and, well...

I actually attended this meet in ouji, in a similar co-ord to the one from 2 years earlier... Only the waistcoat (that I bought shortly before the meet) and the jabot (that I actually ordered with the blouse above) were different... At this point there was maybe only one or two oujis at most in the large comm, though 5 years on and it seems, from what I can see at least, that there's now many more... And you know the now-popular lolita I mentioned before? She was also at this meet! Sadly I didn't really speak to her back then when she was much less well-known as I only really spoke to people I knew from before... In fact I didn't get much time to speak to people in general as my friend had to leave early, and therefore, so did I...

I actually did re-join the local large comm's Facebook group again, but not my local comm's one and I only lurked around for a bit, possibly as long as a year later, before leaving... At this point I was actually a NEET so couldn't really invest in my wardrobe or even go to meets away from my local city... There were a few meets there during this time, as I later found out, but those were from my local comm rather than this comm... In fact, I only went to 2 conventions during 2018 and I didn't even wear lolita at either of them! 2018 was, in fact, another disastrous year for me...

So that brings us to 2019, which was, at least, a better year for me... Even though I didn't do any more lolita meets, I did go to more conventions, though I decided to do more cosplay again, as I hadn't really cosplayed since 2015... This doesn't mean I didn't wear lolita at conventions too though! I actually wore my attempted pirate lolita co-ord, now with new boots, at two conventions that year, one in May and another in August...

This pic was taken in January 2019, just after I got those boots!

In June 2019 I actually commited the most embarrasing of behaviour and did a closet cosplay using some lolita clothes... Well, closet cosplay is still a valid form of cosplay, and I'd used alternative clothing for cosplays before, so why wouldn't I be allowed to use my lolita clothes in a cosplay? Maybe I should attempt a Misa Amane closet cosplay some day...

The last convention I went to was in September last year... Sadly all I have is a very low-res pic of myself in what's basically an update of that co-ord I originally created in the middle of 2014 (again!) and has basically become my signature co-ord or something... And that was the last con I attended... Not just in 2019, I really haven't attended a convention since then...

And as I'd left the lolita fashion community after lurking around for a bit, this meant that I missed a very famous meet in my nearest city... A meet which was attended by both the now-popular lolita I mentioned above and the local lolita friend I've now mentioned a few times... The worst thing is, I was still friends with the organiser of this meet at the time, though I'm not now... I'm sure I don't remember this friend ever mentioning it to me, though this friend was someone I met through the too-good-to-be-true comm anyway... In fact, the now-popular lolita actually organised a tea party in my local city a few months later too, but as that was OTT-themed, there was no way I'd be able to do a good-enough co-ord for that...

And that's the perils of following a popular lolita that just so happens to be part of your own local comm, when you're not... From what I can gather she joined the larger comm around the time I left and is now the 'queen' of that comm... I also know she likes reading lolita blogs, so if she's reading this, 'Hi! We sort-of met at a convention in November 2017 and a meet in April 2018 and I feel very comm-sick these days!' As for the previous 'queen' of the large comm, she was also present at that April 2018 meet, and I believe she actually quit the fashion the following year, so that one meet was basically all I got to see of the changeover...

And I mention I'm comm-sick, but how did I get that way in the last few years? How did I discover this popular lolita from my local comm? Well, I'll bring things up to date in the next post...