Crimson Reflections

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The Lolita Collective

52 Week Lolita Topic Challenge : Plan For a Trip! A Week’s Worth of Lolita Outfits I Can Fit in a Small Suitcase

Today’s post from the 52 Week Lolita Topic Challenge is 21. Plan for a trip! A week’s worth of Lolita outfits I can fit in a small suitcase. Wait, this is a joke right? No one actually expects me to be able to do this right? Right? No? You do?

Ok, so in all seriousness, I probably would never actually succeed at this in real life. When I went to AWA, I was over the weight limit on my (large) case and took a carry on that was 11lbs of deco jewelry. When I went to Otakon and wasn’t restricted by what you can take on a plane my luggage looked like this

In my defense, one pink tote has food and another has items I was giving away at my panels.
In my defense, one pink tote has food and another has items I was giving away at my panels. Another just has a box with large headpiece in it.

First rule of packing a weeks worth in one case: you aren’t wearing decololi every day (probably not any day). Rule number two, pick one or two main colors, and one pair of shoes and one bag that works with everything. Rule number three, if it has a built in petticoat it’s probably not the best dress / skirt to pick.

That said, I actually can’t make my wardrobe work with only one pair of shoes. So I picked a pair of pretty compact shoes that I have in two colors, and I am going have them in brown, and my purse (cream) be part of the coord I wear while traveling. I’d probably also have some pearl bracelets on which would go with all of these coords.

Coord for Travel

I’m taking a week to mean 7 full coords, and I assuming, with the exception of the bolero that is worn on the trip there and the last day, that tights and blouses can’t be re-worn. I left out bloomers, but you can just mentally add in bloomers. A single petticoat would be used for all outfits and it would be worn for traveling.

1 week of coordsFairly boring coordinates, but they all use very light weight dresses that don’t have built in petticoats, so they all can be compacted pretty small. Tights roll up smaller than socks, especially cheap plan ones, so here we have one pair of brown, two pairs of dusty pink and three pairs of cream, but they could just as easily be three pairs total if one would care to wash them in the sink while on the trip (which I have done before; tights dry pretty quick, just pack a tiny bit of woolite in a bottle, or if you really don’t care about the tights, you can just use shower gel in a pinch. It will clean them, and they won’t smell like feet, but I don’t know how long they will last if you do that to them regularly! Do plan to give them 48h to dry to be safe though). The blouses are all floaty, wrinkle resistant fabrics, so they can be folded up in a pretty tight space and still be ok.

So, is we assume that one washes nothing, here is what is actually in the suitcase (I’d take a photo of it all in a suitcase, but that requires going up into the attic which is the sort that requires a ladder and it’s really a pain for just a photo).

Cary On a Week of Lolita FashionI’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t pack these coords for a convention. Maybe, if I was going overseas or on a trip somewhere in the US just for fun, but really that’s about it. Personally, I’d usually rather pay for a checked bag or pack some non-lolita coords for some of the days. So, I guess, while I could probably pack a bag for a week like this, I just probably wouldn’t.

Another thing… I don’t think I could fit more than maybe four Angelic Pretty dresses or skirts in a small case. They take up so much space compared to Innocent World or Alice and the Pirates. With how much fabric is in the skirts, plus the built in petticoats, there is just a lot more there. It always makes me laugh when someone who only wears classic, or gothic sells me something and they are like “I’m sorry, I have to use this box/bag/whatever because it’s really big” when talking about an Alice and the Pirates or Innocent World dress, and I get the package and open it, and it’s just tiny compared to something from Angelic Pretty still. I filled a small case with two AP coords at Katsucon. It just takes up space. However, on the totally opposite side of the spectrum, I could easily do a week  of putumayo in one bag and have space left over. I just don’t actually own a week of putumayo, personally.

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