Greetings, Frillies and non-Frillies, alike! My name is Caroline (I also go by Poodins on multiple other sites and web communities), and this is the beginning of my Lolita blog. I, like so many others, decided to start it to chronicle my thoughts and ravings about the fashion, and pass on any kind of knowledge or experiences I might have to offer. There are most definitely a ton of resources out there, but one more person's thoughts certainly don't hurt the community. I guess a good place to start this blog off is a brief history of my interest in Lolita.
It's hard for me to recollect in what order everything happened, but I first became aware of Lolita a couple years after the Fruits compilation books were published here in the U.S., around my 3rd or 4th year of high school I think (in 2005 or 2006; by this time, I was already pretty immersed in anime culture, and wanted to read all I could find about Japan). I soon came to own both of them (and eventually the Gothic & Lolita book by the same publisher), but I wasn't really aware of what the style was called. A year or two later, I discovered Kamikaze Girls, and then around the same time, I think I got a hold of a Jaoanese issue of the Gothic & Lolita Bible. Pretty soon afterward, Tokyopop published their first English compilation of the GLB's, and I subsequently collected the four other issues they published after it (although there are some translations of the Japanese version's articles out there online, I'm still rather disappointed the english version never became a long-term publication). I admired the clothes in my issues and from afar for a few years ,and occasionally lurked the EGL community. I even attended a meetup 4 or 5 years ago (in a pretty ita coord, to be honest; but I'll make a more extensive post about that later). Later, I got a Tumblr account and realized how many more images of the style I could access, and the rest is history up to now.
Essentially, I drooled for years over the style, and aside from a couple of lackluster tries, never really tried to break into the community. I was intrigued when I finally began reading about the general guidelines to wearing the fashion well, but I felt the clothes were rather inaccessible and out of my financial capabilities. On and off, I'd become interested in Lolita again, lurk and learn, but never really move toward building a wardrobe.
But in September, I attended a local anime convention, where a favorite local Japanese pop culture store of mine had a dealers booth. They had mostly some off-brand pieces for sale, one of which I was able to afford with the money I had saved for the con. It was the last day of it, so they had some good deals going on, and the piece I picked out also needed a zipper repair. Being relatively good at sewing, I snatched it up, and decided to fix it and finally have at least one piece of wearable Lolita. Further more, I brushed up on tutorials, techniques, and indie brands and offbrands, and in the past month or so I decided to go all out and finally build a wardrobe.
So there you have it. If you've read this far, I appreciate it. I plan to chronicle my adventures delving into the fashion headfirst, including deconstructions, meet ups, wishlists, musings, possibly participate in subjects from the Lolita Blog Carnival, and the like. I hope those of you that stick around will find at least something interesting or useful here. I hope I can become good friends with some of you, too!
