#rectangle headdress

[20dollarlolita]

One of my favorite bizarre lolita accessories:

I bought this at an anime convention in about 2011, from someone who was not exclusively making lolita fashion items. She offered a lot of anime and Japan-inspired items, and her collection of lolita items was really made with an outsider's viewpoint.

This resulted in an item that's very inventive and unusual. It's also something that's got its own flaws, but I still love the idea.

The item is this rectangular headdress.

The item is also these wrist cuffs.

It's a headdress that comes apart to be wrist cuffs. I'm going to tell you that barely-months-into-lolita me in 2011 thought this was going to be a groundchanging addition to my wardrobe. I believe I paid $30-$35 for it, and I remember barely having enough money for it.

In reality, I haven't gotten too much use out of it, mostly because the styling is a little bit tricky. In recent years, I also haven't gotten much use out of it because I lost one half of the pair/headdress until like last week. As it is, I've lost one of the four ribbons necessary to make this work, but I've replaced that with a new one that's completely the wrong color.

The process of converting this between its two forms is long and not particularly fun. The other problem with this is that it's not really great wrist cuffs, and it's not a super great headdress. It's too short to be a normal headdress, and sits awkwardly like a hat instead of wrapping the top of my head to be an actual headdress. If it was a little bit longer, it'd make a pretty okay headdress, but then the wrist cuffs would be too long for my wrist. I love the concept, but I have doubts that it could be executed in a way more effective than this.

I usually keep it in headdress form, because it's a better headdress than it is wrist cuffs. I've found that using little bow clips, I can visually extend the length of the headdress, and make it look a little bit more normal. These little bow clips are available in a lot of places in the children's section, and probably wouldn't be too hard to DIY. As a bonus, they keep the headdress in place, so I don't worry about sliding.

The artist who made this has since taken all her public shops down, and doesn't have any public social media I can link to. Mutual facebook friends have confirmed that she's doing okay, but unfortunately I do not have a way of contacting her to let her know that her cool little invention is still being used 11 years later without being, like, really creepy. So, instead, I guess I'll just share it with y'all. I think handmade lolita fashion really needs more people coming up with unconventional ways to construct conventional things. It has its flaws, but more importantly, it has its bright spots.

So, for fun, let's coord it with the only lolita dress that I still have that I also had at the time I bought this. Anyway, here's my best attempt at Momoko, about to step in cow shit.

Sadly, we're just going to do this picture in my kitchen, because I don't own a tripod for my camera, so I had to use a pan to hold my phone up.

Anyway, thank you for letting me share this weird thing that I like. If you want more of me just talking about things that I like, here's 14 minutes of me talking about the Bontempi Chord Organs.

[ki0ku]

Rectangle black roses headdress

labdemerveilles.etsy.com

[to-boldly-goth]

Coordinates from a Japanese tea party in December 2003.

[st-owly]

One of the lolita goals for the year achieved. All black old school burando headdress by Baby the Stars Shine Bright. Other one by Atelier Boz.

[20dollarlolita]

that coord is really fun, I love circus-y themes! I just have a possibly silly question: do you have any advice for tying headdresses behind the head when your hair is down? whenever I try my hair gets caught in the ties and I give up :(

My answer is not what you're going to be looking for. I intentionally knot a bit of my hair into the knot, because it stops it from sliding around and falling off.

My advice when I'm trying to be reasonable is to tie a small ponytail at the nape of your neck, tie the bow, and then take out the ponytail. I cut my bangs really heavily and so to hide that, I pull my hair up into a pony, comb out as much of my bangs as I want to use, slap on my hair accessories, and then take my hair down. I assume the same strat would work for the back of your head.

[20dollarlolita]

How to avoid making Satan’s Rectangle.

I’m not going to post pictures of another seamstress’ art here to be mocked, but I will link to an episode of I’m Telling Tyler. 

Rectangle headdresses are easy to make, and they’re easy to get wrong. I’ve gotten them wrong on this blog.

So, let’s look at some and see what we’ve got in common.

You know how we do this by now. For modern styles, I check out what’s for sale at DevilInspired, and for historical reference, we use Lolibrary. The lolita community is SO, SO lucky to have Lolibrary available to us.

Maiden Cross Hairband by Unideer Sweet Charlie Hairband by Elpress L Serenade Hairband by TUYE Magic Lesson of Professor Cat KC by Dear Celine Flower Of Little Ada Overlays and KC by Magic Tea Party

Take a look at these and keep what you see in mind.

Here’s a bad collage with some years attached to it.

So, from this, let us create some theorems about rectangle headdresses. These might not all be true. As you can tell if you go back into this blog’s history, sometimes I’m wrong. However, I think my casual research of shooping a bunch of pics together into an ugly collage backs up my new and improved Rectangle Headdress Theory.

Part 1, a rectangle headdress should go down on the sides of your head, at least a little. It shouldn’t sit entirely on the top of your head. It can easily go down far enough to touch your ears.

Part 2, there should be texture  or some form of visual interest along the forward edge. The headdress frames your face. Give it some kind of power to do the framing with. If it’s suctioned flat on your head, it can’t frame.

It doesn’t necessarily need a ruffle. This IW headdress uses flat lace, but look at the shape and texture of the lace. It is attached on the flat, but it has the scalloped edge to still provide some kind of visual interest.

The fastest way to get your rectangle headdress into “wait what’s happening here” territory is to have nothing interesting about the long forward edge. If someone’s wearing your headdress, you should be able to see it if you’re looking at them from the front at eye level. You shouldn’t need to down to someone’s head to see that they have a headdress on.

Part 3, yeah, having patterned fabric for your headdress is fine, but having proper details and trims is absolutely crucial. Your headdress needs texture. It should not be flat, and it should not be boring. Good detailing, applying the right trims and bows and accessories, can fix a boring fabric. Good fabric, without any trim and bows and detailing, will still make a bad headdress.

Here is an example of a premade headdress that has very few trims and relies mostly on the print of the fabric for the detailing.

I’m so-so on my opinions of this headdress (I own the JSK but elected not to get the matching headdress, FWIW), but let’s talk about what works in it. It’s absolutely a wearable lolita headdress and is definintely not a Satan’s Rectangle.

First of all, size. This is a wide headband, to show off the large scale print on the fabric. It’s long, and goes down at least to the model’s ears, maybe lower.

The lace is detailed lace with a dagged edge, and it’s very densely gathered. This makes that lace edging stick up almost a full inch off the top of the model’s head. The lace is soft and drapes. This kind of look wouldn’t work as well with an eyelet lace that has body (too bouncy) and it wouldn’t work as well with a plain ruffle (not enough detail).

Finally, the accessorization on the sides is a large and attention-catching bow. This tries to make up for the fact that the headdress isn’t too interesting up close by making sure it is interesting from a distance. It also stops the edges of the headdress from just ending without any punctuation. It’s the basic lolita guideline of if you have an edge where nothing interesting is happening, you should probably put a bow or some lace on it.

Now, I want to make it clear that this is not the headdress you should be striving to make. This is a headdress that got a c+ in headdress class. This is the headdress that you turn in when you remembered, 11 hours before it was due, that you hadn’t started working on it. This headdress is the bare minimum. If your headdress doesn’t have everything this headdress has, you’re probably not putting enough on it.

Here’s Innocent World pulling off the minimalist headdress with more class than Neverland Lolita did up there. They swap the patterned fabric with a line of beading lace (note the detail of that lace) and add details onto the bow, but still rely on heavily detailed lace and a headdress that goes lower on the ears to get the detail to frame the face.

Here’s Baby the Stars Shine Bright’s 2006 Spin Doll headdress. Lace on lace. Bows on bows. Lacing through lace. D e t a i l s.

(Atelier Pierrot, 2018) The more you research rectangle headdresses, the more you start seeing that the level of detail does not change very much between the different substyles. What changes, however, is the proportions. While you always have to balance the individual parts (wider lace might mean a thinner band, etc), there’s also trends of things like older school and more OTT sweet styles using wider bands, while classic uses narrower bands and narrower lace, with gothic often using narrower bands and wider laces. There’s 30+ years of lolita history out there, however, and trends move and change. I can’t cover all of that in a post like this; you have to go check it out on your own.

But, in summary of how to not make a Satan Rectangle:

The individual components must be suitable for lolita. Appropriate prints and colors, nice lace, etc.

Make it wide enough that it doesn’t just sit on the top of the head.

Stick some kind of lace or ruffle or something to make the forward edge interesting and make it frame your face.

Stick something big and textured like a bow on each short end.

Don’t forget that the back end needs to have something (though it doesn’t need to exactly match the front end).

Make sure the band isn’t flat and untextured and boring.

If it doesn’t work, research and fix it until you think it does work.

And be honest with yourself and with your friends.

[to-boldly-goth]

“ ■おまけ。2000年10月/福岡。 コスじゃないんだけど、はじめてライブ会場でロリした記念！ この日はテルの目の前３列目だったので気分的に可愛い格好で行きたかったのだ。（乙女ですから！笑） このBPNのセットアップはかなりお気にいりでした”

[to-boldly-goth]

31st May 2018 ~ Pollok Country Park

Brought out Georges Rose again for a hot day visiting a stately home and country park. I tried to dress for the weather in the one dedicated short-sleeved blouse I own but ended up slightly dishevelled anyway. Not sure if the best unexpected surprise of the day was seeing a baby highland cow for the first time or these shoes still being comfy after five miles walking.

⚜ headdress, JSK and tights ~ Innocent World ⚜ necklace ~ My Inspiration ⚜ blouse & wristcuffs ~ Baby the Stars Shine Bright ⚜ crochet gloves ~ vintage ⚜ shoes ~ Lizjill ⚜ bag ~ Jane Marple ⚜ pass case I forgot to remove ~ Trooms ⚜