I bought my first lolita dress in November of 2015- Bodyline's Agnes Strawberry Gingham JSK. However, I didn't have anything to wear with it for my first meet. Instead I wore this Dorothy Perkins skirt I got from a charity shop in 2010 and cobbled together an outfit based around it from various goth clothes I already had, including an awful black wig and a rectangle of lace pinned to it like a veil.

Despite my terrible coord, everyone was so kind to me at my first meet. I'm so glad they were, as it really gave me the confidence to keep socialising and growing my wardrobe and style. I joined the comm because I had no local friends and was hoping to make some, and I definitely got that wish.

When I first started wearing lolita, I intended to wear only gothic. As you can see, that idea didn't last long, as less than a year later I'm already wearing sweet! This Emily Temple Cute skirt was my second ever item from a lolita brand and is still one of my favourite prints.

I wore it to my first lolita picnic, which sparked my love for picnic meets. I was wearing white socks with this coord, but it was so warm I took them off half way through the meet, so this is the only photo I have of this coord.

By 2017 I had dyed my hair green, and I love it so much that I still haven't stopped! I used to dye only small sections of it, afraid to dye it all over, but I'm glad I finally worked up the courage.

Inspired by my love of green, I wore this Long Ears Sharp Ears JSK to my comm's Christmas tea party. I loved this coord, although I have since sold the dress as it's sweet / classic style no longer fits in with my wardrobe. In fact, the only thing I still have from this coord is the crown.

OTT classic was the trend at the time and, as I was still new to lolita and finding my own style, I tried some looks in that style for myself, but ultimately decided that wasn't what I most enjoyed in lolita.

In 2018 I started wearing old school in earnest. Because OTT classic, sweet classic and wearing an underskirt with everything was on trend, old school was still considered quite ugly by most lolitas. It was so cheap and easy to buy old school, I was able to build my wardrobe pretty quickly.

I especially loved black x white colour ways and my boyfriend (just a friend at the time) gave me this BTSSB heart apron as a gift. He bought it from a swap meet the year before, but later found his preferred sax colourway for sale. He thought I would enjoy the black more than he would, so gave it to me - I was so happy! It's still one of my favourite things in my wardrobe, so beautiful and special to me.

I also started experimenting with band tees and cutsews in my coords and I bought these chunky Demonia Mary Janes, which I wore with almost everything!

Sweet classic, or 'swassic' and OTT classic was still quite popular at this time, and that inspired this Castle Mirage coord. I have since realised that 'swassic' isn't really for me, but I do still love this coord, as it's a bit more toned down than the OTT classic that was on trend. Also, the colour scheme of pink and sax is one of my favourites.

Aside from this one outlier, I wore old school all the rest of the time, both darker coords and sweeter, lighter ones. In this coord I am wearing my favourite Meta crown lace bloomers and a plush bag made by my friend. I still really love plush bags with lolita. This bunny bag was actually the first plush bag in my wardrobe - I bought it from my very first swap meet in 2017.

In 2020 I spent a lot of lockdown dressing up in my room and shopping for cheap second hand old school online. I wore old school exclusively, both gothic and sweet but very little classic.

I love goth outfits that use white as the main colour, and since wearing this coord have worn various different versions of it, as I loved it so much.

A dream item of mine for a long time had been the BTSSB Gloomy apron, so I was inspired to wear the Gloomy pouch from the AatP skirt as a chest piece for the other coord pictured here.

All the coords I wore this year, I would still wear now. The main difference being, I have probably gotten more colourful and strange since then, as I was mostly wearing black, white and pink and only just begining to add some sax to my wardrobe. Up until 2020, for some reason I had decided that I didn't like sax in old school, despite blue being one of my favourite colours! So, this was also the year I started wearing sax.

My style in 2021 didn't really change very much from 2020, except I was staring to introduce more colours into my old school and accquired a few more 2010s era sweet prints. I didn't really do a good job of showing this with the coords I chose here though!

Overall, these two coords are pretty good representations of my general style at this time though. The black and white maid OP in the first image was one of my most worn pieces that year.

In 2022 I accquired the sewing pattern for my dream Gloomy apron, so I was able to sew it myself! By this time I was feeling very comfortable wearing pink and started to add more and more colours into my coords. I was still enjoying wearing black and white, but I think around this time I started wearing colours more often that I wear black and white.

A few years earlier, I would never have dreamed of wearing this much pink!

In 2023, almost everything I wore was colourful! I also started to enjoy classic more, probably a lot to do with this beautiful gobelin JSK made by my friend. It pretty much has not left my 'most worn' since I got it the year before. It's so comfortable and the bird design is so pretty.

This Mareep inspired coord for a Pokemon meet is still one of my favourites. I love blue and yellow together and this vintage sheep pattered jumper is one of my favourite items in my wardrobe. A totally different colour scheme than I ever would have worn when I first started in lolita.

2024 is more of the same- colours and more colours! And just having fun with coording things in unexpected ways. The more I have worn lolita, the more experimental I think I have gotten. Moving away from simple colour coordination and just getting sillier and more playful with it.

Even something as simple as wearing a cutsew over a JSK, to give the illusion of wearing a skirt, like in this pink and sax coord. It's much comfier than wearing a skirt and gives multiple ways to style the same piece.

In 2024 I also found myself starting to wear hats more and more as my chosen head wear - like in this sax and pink coord.

And that brings us up to today! I am still wearing lots of colours, but this autumn have been missing my black and white, so have been wearing a little more of that again this year, as the weather cools.

Recently the thing that has changed most about my style is that I have really been prioritising comfort over everything else, as some things have been causing pain flare and sensory issues. Not everything in my wardrobe still fits the way it did ten years ago. I don't want to be uncomfortable, fashion is supposed to be fun! So, I am really working hard to make sure everything fits comfortably, by clearing out a lot of things that don't fit anymore, altering what I can and continuing to find fun and comfy ways to wear things I love. For example, wearing the new trainers I bought this year or coording cosy, oversized jumpers.

Despite my love of rectangle headdresses, I've also found myself wearing them less, and often wearing no head wear at all, aside from a couple of cute hairclips to hold my hair out of my face.