My super lovely White Moon "Sakura Pintuck OP" was my first real piece of lolita. It is also my favorite, even above my Sleipnir JSK, just because of how pretty I feel in it, and I feel like it's the most "me" thing in my wardrobe.
To put this in perspective, when my mom and I got a lot of my new clothes was in my freshman year of high school. I don't usually get a lot of new clothes at once, unless we're going to a thrift store, so getting a lot of new clothes at once was a big thing. Unfortunately at the time I was going through my "pseudo emo phase" meaning that all my friends were into dark clothes, Evanescence, and pretty much anything angsty. At one point all I listened to was Evanescence, the Sweeney Todd soundtrack, and a Finnish metal band whose name I can't spell anymore. It was that phase at the start of high school that isn't the same for everyone, as far as aesthetics go, but everyone has some phase that more than likely embarrasses them immediately the second they get past it. I got out of it like halfway through my sophomore year, but unfortunately, my wardrobe did not get out of it for a while. I spent the rest of high school and freshman year of college (although that was a whole different animal altogether... I wore a fleece fox ear hat and a jingle collar without knowing anything looked odd...) trying to help my wardrobe recover from the massive amount of black. Now in the year 2014, I can finally say with all confidence that my wardrobe is as it should be. Actually, it was probably back to normal in 2013, but that's not the point of this.
I got into lolita around the time that my wardrobe had nearly recovered, and I got my first lolita piece at the end of the first semester of my Sophomore year. I was terrified to try it on. I had lost a TON of weight over the summer, due to strict dieting and figuring out that I was actually lactose intolerant and gluten intolerant (two of my favorite things were milk and bread products: I'm sure you can imagine how chubby of a child I was due to swelling.) But this wasn't mom and dad's house with the ability to cook my own food or have the person cooking my food know exactly what I could and couldn't eat; this was college with limited dining options, and I wasn't sure if I had gained some of it back or not, and so even though it was custom made, I was scared to find out. My parents brought down my Qutieland package (which had been mailed to my house) with them when they visited for Dickens on the Strand, and several days had passed after they'd left, and I still hadn't tried it on.
And so, one evening, while my roommate was out at dinner, I tried it on. And it fit perfectly. And wearing that dress, I felt like for once my outside matched my inside. This was what I had always dreamed of wearing. This was absolutely, without a doubt, me.
And I've been fixated on being cute ever since.
