AYWi30C #11 - Inspired by a Character

Character coords are not my forte. Although I love looking at people’s Disneybounding outfits, as well as enjoy a well put-together character-inspired coordinate, it’s not something that I have a particular urge to do. To put it in a Venn diagram, the overlap between characters I like and those whose look I could replicate or even emulate is quite small. So for this prompt I decided to make life a bit easier for myself and stick with what my wardrobe could accommodate, not what my heart might want.

| BtSSB Secret AIR MAIL from Sweet Kitty JSK | Axes Femme blouse | Deichmann flats | MuFish tights | Angelic Pretty Twinkle Sky headbow | Metamorphose Double Pockets 3-way bag | Metamorphose Rose Letter necklace | Twinkle Kitty Boutique bow ring | offbrand letter brooch | navy bracelets |

I present to you a coordinate inspired by Kiki from Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service. Rather than try to recreate her outfit using lolita clothes (and with the popularity of sack dresses, this would be entirely possible), I went down the more Disneybounding-style route, which works better with preserving the lolita aesthetic. This actually resulted in an outfit that’s much busier than what Kiki wore or even would wear. Having said this, given her struggle of wearing the black witch’s dress when other girls her age dressed in cute clothes, I feel like it’s still something that she would have liked to wear.

I'm so glad that I was able to buy this blouse from Axes Femme Paris before they closed.

The film explicitly states that Kiki’s dress was black, although the way it was drawn looks more navy. This much black on screen for an otherwise very colourful film would’ve created an unnecessary emptiness, not to mention that Kiki and Jiji would blend into one. This pointed me in the direction of doing a navy coordinate myself, and to create an impression that this was an OP, I went with a navy blouse. Not an exact colour match, but I’m happy with the result.

Versatile tights don't have to be completely plain. A subtle pattern like this can help keep an outfit balanced and interesting.

Kiki doesn’t seem to wear any socks or tights (lucky her for living in a place warm enough? Though surely she’d still get cold flying as fast as she does). And while I contemplated doing a coord without any legwear, in the end I decided that this was not the outfit for that and that it really wouldn’t be practical. I’d love to have some letter themed legwear (and if anyone ever spots the matching socks for this dress, let me know, please), but in the absence of those I went with simple tights. Enough to add a bit of interest for a lolita coordinate and not too much so as to distract from its other parts.

I do apologise for how battered these look. Although given how much wear they get and how old they are, they really don't look quite as bad as they probably should.

These character-inspired coords are just full of choices you have to consciously make! Shoes were the same, although this time I stuck closer to the original. My natural instinct would be to go for the red Bodyline heels. However, Kiki wears flats, which are both more practical and more age-appropriate for a thirteen-year-old girl. So I went with flats too, my trusty Graceland ones which you’ve also seen featured in the Something Casual prompt post.

A few carefully selected pieces: enough to make a difference without overcrowding the coord.

Accessories is where I went a bit more lolita again. Since Kiki doesn’t wear anything besides her giant headbow, doing the same with a lolita outfit would’ve looked really bare. Not only that, since my take is less ‘character’s outfit using lolita pieces’ and more ‘channelling the character through a coordinate’, I needed a few bits to pull the theme in.

Probably one of my favourite headbows in general. Although I feel like that about a lot of them to be honest.

Of course, I couldn’t miss out on the red headbow! This one sits on the side, however, it goes straight up, which is just perfect for this coordinate. Having said this, even if I had a red headeating bow that sits at the centre, I probably still would’ve picked this one, it’s just much more my style.

If ever there was a dream piece of jewellery, this is it. (And the Fancy Crepe necklace, but shhh!)

Such a lucky find! I wonder whether this is based on a real letter someone found in an archive. It looks like something from the early XXth century.

Simple accessories are just important as the fancier ones.

My jewellery choices can be divided into two categories: pulling in the theme and balancing out the colours. The ring and bracelets are from the latter category, literally there to add a bit of interest, colour and keep my hands from looking too naked. The necklace is one of my favourite pieces and I’d love to find the matching ring and bracelet from this series to have this cute jewellery set. It’s just the right size and thankfully, whilst it is on the longer side, it can be done up via the links between the pearls to make it shorter. And the brooch is my lucky find from Mercari, which carries that letter theme further.

Including its country of origin, this bag has been to at least five countries now. And still only a few minor scratches.

It wouldn’t be a proper Kiki coordinate without a massive bag, not really. Hers is drawn kind of orange, probably to show that it’s light tan leather, but I don’t have anything like that. I prioritised bag size over colour and couldn’t not use my trusty, well-travelled Meta 3-way bag. It’s big enough to fit pretty much any delivery that Kiki might have to make.

JUST LOOK AT THAT BELLY! I can't even!

Accidental ink spill from a plush bear?

This bird reminds me that I still need to coordinate this dress with sax.

Doing this post has really reminded me how adorable this print is and why I’ve fallen in love with it in the first place. The way this kitty sits and how it makes its belly look all round and soft is too adorable to put into words. Although this isn’t necessarily the busiest print, in the sense that the illustration repeats itself fairly quickly, it is large and detailed. There are no sudden bits of empty space or elements that seem to be shoehorned in just to fill in the gaps. Everything is exactly by design and each element of the print has been drawn with love and attention, to make sure that wherever you look, there’s something catching your eye.

Finally a true 5-minute makeup and 5-minute hairstyle. It really put into perspective
how much time I spend blending eyeshadows.

Yes, I know that Kiki had short hair that she mostly just left be. That’s simply not my style and I don’t think that it could’ve been the most practical thing when flying around. I was also trying to keep this coordinate character-inspired, not a recreation of the character in lolita. A ponytail gives enough height to balance the headbow, while the fringe is a nod to Kiki’s actual hairstyle. This seems like a good blend between the character and my own style, and again, I feel that if Kiki did have longer hair, she’d probably wear it in something simple like this too. Makeup is very bare, only enough for the camera, really. Whilst I contemplated doing my blush in actual circles, like Kiki’s is drawn, that felt too cosplay-ish and instead I kept it similarly high and centre, but more blended instead. As a side note, this may have been the quickest makeup I’ve ever done, literally taking me five minutes. This just goes to show how much time I usually spend, especially on eyeshadows.

From left to right these are from: December 2017, February 2018 and March 2019.
Click to enlarge.

When looking for past outfits with this dress, I was surprised to find that I’ve only worn it three times so far. I’ve had it for so long now that I thought I wore it more. That and that I’ve worn it in very, very similar ways each time. It’s nice to see that despite there being some common themes and items, I have in fact worn it differently each time. I feel like I still have some unexplored options with it, even when looking just at my ‘typical’ or ‘go to’ items, which is nice to know. There was a moment when I thought that maybe I should sell this dress, however, I see clearly now that its time is not up yet.

If there’s one thing I regret, then it’s not filming this prompt in advance, before I moved out. Although he probably wouldn’t be keen on it, I would’ve loved to include Spy in this video as the real-life Jiji. Getting that interaction, even if it was just him trying to escape my love, would’ve been cute for the lookbook video. So enjoy me shoehorning past clips of Spy into this instead. Because even a shoehorned cat is better than no cat at all, and we all know that cats make any and every video on the internet infinitely better.