Old School Staples Part 1: The Main Piece
Reposted from my serious blog [HERE]
Old School Lolita as a Time Period
Old School Lolita as a period in lolita history runs from the 1990s to about 2006 at the earliest and 2008 at the latest. Old School during this period is not a substyle as it is now, but just how people wore and styled lolita and encompassed all the substyles. 2006-2009 is a transitional period between the old way of styling lolita and the mergence of the 2010’s sweet style that was often much more OTT and print focused.
Here are examples of coords from this period ranging from what we think of as “Old School” style to sweet!
Old School Lolita as a Lolita Substyle
Old School Lolita as a substyle has become really popular over the past couple years. This substyle seeks to recreate the feel and look of early lolita. It is not the same as classic lolita or styling Old School pieces in modern ways. There are some very distinctive traits to the substyle based on trying to recreate the look based on trends of the 1990s to mid 2000s. For some Old School purists, the Old School substyle should seek to emulate this time period as accurately as possible down to make up and using primarily vintage pieces. For me, Old School Lolita, doesn’t have to be constrained by using pieces from that time frame. Finding those pieces can be rather expensive, time consuming, and often they are not as size inclusive. Luckily there are more recent pieces and rereleases of older pieces that work for Old School which are more inclusive and cost friendly.
Now let’s break down an Old School coord into it’s pieces through a series looking in depth at each element used in lolita coords. In part one we’ll be looking at main pieces such as OP, JSK, and skirts.
The Main Piece
Old School Lolita is not constrained to a limited color palette of black and white. It includes florals, tartans, pastels, solids, simple prints. The important thing with your main piece is to make sure it fits the general silhouette or motifs of early lolita. The material of your main piece is important since chiffon and polyester were not commonly used until the 2010s. Most of the material for main pieces were made out of cotton, velveteen, or gobelin. The most commonly used laces weren’t net laces like we see on 2010s releases but rather torchon, cluny, and occasionally raschel. Dresses were lower poof than giant cupcake silhouette. Full shirring, partial shirring in the front of the bodice, elasticated long sleeves, detachable sleeves, and corset lacing were much more common. The complexity of the dresses come from primarily details like pintucks, ruffles, lace, scalloped hems and other construction techniques.
These are dresses and skirts that are modern and/or rereleases of Older Pieces that would work for old school styling:
And these are that don’t really quite work.
Bodyline Glossy dress jumper skirt (L330)
This bodyline jsk would be very tempting to use as a main piece due the face it’s only about $50, but I personally would avoid using this for Old School coords since it’s made from a glossy polyester which wasn’t really a common choice of material during the old school time period. The giant bow at the waist also reads more late 2000s to me but if you removed it, it would have been an good option if it were made from a cotton.
Rose Milk Candy Old School Lolita Dress
Devilinspired sponsered ads on my instragram keeps shoving this in my face and I don’t even know where to begin. How about here:
Old School… more like old school milanooo. While it does have some features that are shared with old school lolita appropriate dresses like ladder lace and ruffles, the silhouette isn’t really there and there’s elements you really wouldn’t have seen during the Old School period. Granted there are a bunch of weird releases from that period, but nothing looks like this. First off the bodice just screams maid costume. In the old school street snaps and ads, there are corsets and waist cinchers but you typically saw them more commonly in Elegant Gothic Aristocratic coords. They also didn’t super accentuate the waist to get the cupcake silhouette that this dress has. They were there as decoration or in the case of Vivienne Westwood style bustiers, cool pieces that were also status symbols. Aprons wore worn in lolita more commonly tended to wrap around the body or be straight up pinafores like with the BTSSB heart apron instead of just being a panel in the front.
Lolita ops still today very rarely have low cut or open backs which also is another reason why I would personally steer clear of this OP for anything but a maid costume. The BTSSB heart apron has had a ton of rereleases including one this year! If you’re looking for a cute apron themed dress or skirt I would look for that one instead of whatever this monstrosity is. If you just chopped off the bodice… it could have been a decent skirt for old school… but the bodice just ruins everything.
Speaking of heart aprons, here’s a few Taobao releases that have the heart bodice which are super cute but I wouldn’t style in an old school manner.
Complex Printed or embroidered designs beyond a simple logo on the heart part of a heart apron/pinafore started to appear in the 2010s and is a more sweet motif. Detaching the Heart from the Big Cherry JSK does result in a jsk that can be used in Old School cords if worn with a smaller petticoat so it’s a very versatile piece! Eyelet lace wasn’t as commonly seen, but it was sometimes used in older pieces as trim. I have a Heart E skirt that has eyelet lace as the trim of the hem.
The Bowknot Mori Scotland Yard JSK is another one that might seem tempting to use in Old School because it is a tartan. However this one reads much more punk with the lace up heart, buttons, and large side bows. The heart is detachable but even detaching the heart, the resulting JSK is not something I’d personally us for Old School because the bows are just so large compared to similar releases with side bows from 1990s to 2000s.
And one final example of a JSK that I would not use in a Old School coord.
Angelic Pretty Flower Vacation JSK
This jsk has some things that we see in Old School, lower poof with more of an a-line silhouette, the lace that appears to be either chemical or torchon, ladder lace, and a simple print. However, this dress compared to other florals seen in the Old School time period has a major difference — the use of net lace and voile as trims. Moving some of the bows to be more situated around the skirt instead of up and down the dress would also give it more of an old school look. But overall, this really isn’t one that could be salvaged to work in an Old School coord because of the use of modern materials with out taking the scissors to the dress.
Summary
Things you want to look for in a main piece for Old School coords:
Low poof silhouette that is more a-line than cupcake
Fabrics: cottons (including twill), gobelin, or velveteen
Laces: Cluny, Torchon, ladder lace, and Raschel
Prints/Patterns: Solid colors, florals, very simple prints, tartans, and/or plaids
Detailing: Pintucks, ruffles, shirring, corset lacing, smaller bows, and/or scalloped hems
Things to avoid:
High poof silhouette that is very cupcake
Fabrics: shiny/glossy polyesters and chiffons
Laces: Net laces and anything that seems really crunchy or cheap
Prints/Patterns: Highly detailed prints (i.e. things like sugary carnival, cherry berry bunny, kumya’s marine island)
I recommend flipping through some old street snaps on Lolita History Gallery to see the wide range of styles that existed in the Old School Era and for ideas about what you’d like your main pieces to look like.
