Lolita 30 Day Challenge ♡ 01: 10 things about your Lolita bubble

OKAY OKAY I know I haven’t been keeping up with the 52 Challenge but I will soon, I promise. It’s just that my friends on Facebook have all started to do the 30 Day Challenge and I once started it but never finished… so I thought, if I post here, maybe I’ll make myself finish it! Here goes!

I did the first few days on my livejournal back in July 2011 – let’s see how much has changed!

un ❤ old text: It was a very conscious decision to start wearing Lolita – but then again, it must have been like that for everyone?
I got into Lolita through the FRUiTS book, and I got into that through my friend Tadhg, back in high school. My interest for Lolita was definitely sparked, in 2007 I made the conscious decision to stop looking and lurking and just go at it – I haven’t looked back since. ✔ This is all still true!

dau ❤old text: I always feel like “the outsider”. Not that I don’t feel integrated or loved within a group. It’s my own fault for moving around so much and wanting to be part of everything, then I end up not feeling like a real part of anything. ^_~ ✘ I don’t actually feel this way anymore?

new text: I am super thankful for all my friendships I’ve made through Lolita and I believe I would have been a very different person if I had never started partaking in Lolita and everything that comes with it! I have met so many awesome people, all amazing and diverse, unique individuals and I’m so happy! So happy that at the end of the day, even if I don’t always easily make friends in other things that I do, I know there’s a bit community of lovely people out there that are my friends and I’d never known them if it wasn’t for this…

tri ❤ old text: I’ve done some pretty ‘bad’ buys in the past, only recently have I done really good deals, now I feel stupid buying things I never wear anymore at such high prices – it makes me wish I’d thought about some things instead of impulse buying. Lolita is not a good fashion for impulse buys. ✔ This is still true!

I make bad money decisions, but I’ve learned a LOT, haha. Sometimes people get into it and are very sensible and make good decisions and I’m just there “How do you do it and why did I not get such a flawless start?!” I think most of it is because I had to do a lot by myself because it took me a while to find a community of close [by] friends, and it was harder to come by things when I started out! But I guess everything is a valuable experience so I’m happy to think I’ve gotten wiser. If anything, Lolita has taught me so much about online shopping, feedback, scamming, tracking, shipping options, customs, reservations and most importantly: keeping up with currencies and supply and demand :P

pedwar ❤old text: Very vital point of my Lolita life: I go through bursts of obsession and activity. Sometimes I get spurs of being very active and I can’t imagine anything else in the world. I have never fallen out of love with Lolita yet! ✔ This is still true!

This is mostly to do with my general personality though. I have the ability to obsess over things, start projects and never finish them. I also have some very deep lows sometimes. Luckily with Lolita there’s always an event or something to pick me back up. So in real life, it’s easy to get back “into it”. The online activity… not as easy.

pump ❤old text: I’m going to miss my Belgian loli family a lot after I move. That’s for sure.  (╥_╥) ✔ This is true!

I do miss my life in Belgium, living in a house with a lolita friend is ♡ – one of the best things ever. But on the bright side: I’m now closer to my UK friends and I’ve even made many new ones since coming here! And the Leeds lolita community is seriously one of the most amazing groups of people ever ~♡ love ♡ for ♡ everyone!

chwech ❤ old text: Even though I may be a total shopaholic and be useless with money… There is only one item I would pay more than 500 euros for – given I have the money – as a single item. Guess which one? ✔ This is true!

THE FUNNY THING IS THAT a liiittle bit after I wrote that, somehow, fate was like: here it is. Here is your number one dream dress. And I bought it. *smug face*

And I, indeed, paid a lot of money for it.

The reality is that I’m not done now that I’ve got it, though, because this thing exists in many more things that I would love to own as well – OP, skirt, different colourway – but it still remains the only print that I would pay this much for. I am confident that a lot of things on my wishlist [and I do realise I have an obscenely large wishlist] can be bought for very reasonable prices. So I’m crazy, but I’m only just that crazy. :P Also, realistically, I’m not too confident I will find the pieces that I want, so my wallet is pretty safe. :P

saith. ❤ old text: I’m in a constant battle with my hair and Loli is not at all helping. Haha.  ✔ This is still true!

Yep. So I finally grew out my hair, that took forever… and now I just cut it again because I go through these phases… SIGH. It never ends. (っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ

wyth.❤ old text: My biggest wish for the Lolita community is for everyone to co-exist in happiness. Everyone doesn’t have to be friends, just tolerant co-existence is enough. [A girl can dream… ;) ] ✔ This is still true! Simple but true!

naw. ❤ old text: Lolita is a really, really big part of my life and I have no regrets. I do however feel ashamed sometimes if I think about the big picture and the materialistic side of it all. Honestly, I sometimes feel overdressed when hanging with my ‘childhood’ friends, and wonder if they find it annoying that I dress in Loli. ✔ This is partly still true…

The one thing I do know is that my childhood friends don’t actually find it annoying that I dress up. I think by now they’ve accepted it and most of them like it anyway! But the part about feeling very materialistic is still true, there is a lot of stuff that I probably really don’t need and sometimes feels frivolous or over the top… but I love it too much!

deg. ❤ old text: Just one smile or compliment can make my day and confirm that I’m not only wearing Lolita for myself, but that [street]fashion and self-expression are vital parts of human life! This has always been the reason for me to do the things I do in the way I do them, and I hope I’ll continue doing that for quite a little while. ✔ Still totally true!

Going out in Lolita can be scary sometimes. And if it isn’t scary, then it can be tedious… it sometimes takes quite a lot of work for me to feel happy and confident about the way I look. Not because of society’s standards and me having to conform – because I’ve obviously actively chosen to not do that, a lot of the times – but because of my own stupid standards! Over the years I’ve gotten better at this, though. But style is a dynamic thing, fashion changes, people change, times change, circumstances change, bla, bla, bla. So sometimes, even if you’ve grown older and more confident and more accustomed, it can still feel a bit challenging. But to get a compliment, or to just know that someone likes seeing a bit of colour in their grey day… it makes all of those challenges so worth it! I dress like this for me, but if my dressing like this cheers you up as well: double win!

—

If I were to make this list again, I would probably leave out the bit about my hair woes and add this in its place: I BASICALLY LOVE HOW LOLITA HAS BRIGHTENED MY LIFE, in so many ways! There are so many things in my life I would never have gotten to do without it. And I also really love how Lolita has given me an outlet for things. I used to say the number one thing I felt when I found Lolita is that all my previous weird styles and dabbles in Goth, Punk and Decora now suddenly had one big home. It’s still true, under the big umbrella of Lolita I can still unleash all my creative ideas. I now dress mostly Sweet Lolita, so I think it literally brightens up my life with all the pastel and neon prints… but there are things that I wouldn’t have done, fashion wise, if I didn’t know about Lolita in the first place.

I can basically add this to the list because I pretty much said ♡ I love my friends ♡ twice.  (︶ω︶)