Alternately, this post could be called "2010's sweet and its consequences."
I wear (primarily) Old School Lolita, but I didn't always. When I started buying and wearing lolita for myself, I kind of felt like you absolutely had to buy printed dresses and build your coords with colors pulled from prints, which was... not true, very silly, and ended with me feeling uncomfortable and stepping away from the fashion for a bit. Those pieces are now sold, but the coord photos in my phone haunt me.
I got into Old School mostly because I was influenced by a friend (whose site I will link here) who was also effectively starting over in EGL at the time. I think it's a style that's a lot more comfortable for daily wear, and also is more in line with what made me fall in love with the fashion over a decade ago: black and white, simple patterns, clunky shoes, too much lace, and a general sort of frumpy/disheveled look. I'm extremely interested in fashion history and print media, so I was already collecting old GLBs and street snap magazines. It felt like a very natural transition!
"Old School" in lolita fashion typically refers to the time period between 2000 and 2008 (roughly), with a lot of coords from the 90's being referred to as "proto lolita." Cynical Neo Princessism (Ophelia, every Old Schooler's idol) has an incredible and well-researched timeline of lolita fashion, linked here, that gives a more complete idea of this time period. But this all brings me to what I wanted to talk about today: 2010's sweet lolita, and how it basically ruined concrit culture.
Old School coords from the Phaidon book Fresh Fruits (photo originally in Fruits magazine by Shoichi Aoki)
2010's sweet refers to the era when brands started releasing printed dresses, specifically dresses with original art as border prints. Angelic Pretty, a brand that pre-2010 was often doing a lot of the same florals and solid colored pieces as Baby or Meta, became the "pastel unicorn explosion" brand. Prints like Sugary Carnival and Milky Planet are synonymous with this era, and also helped brands effectively copyright their designs (something very tricky to do in fashion). You can't slap a copyright on a dress cut, but you can pretty reliably copyright art prints in a fabric (though unfortunately, I feel like replicas were even more common during this era).
This was also when the "rules" in the Western lolita comm were more firmly cemented (not to say they didn't exist before): your coord needed to consist of wrist cuffs, a printed JSK, a blouse that matches a color in the print, a headpiece, matching OTKs, the biggest petticoat you can find, at least one piece of matching jewelry, and tea party shoes. If you didn't have all of those elements, whoops, go back and try again, do not pass go, do not collect $200. These "rules" were disseminated mostly to stop EGL from getting lost in the melting pot of Hot Topic-driven subcultural soup that was 2000's alt fashion, and to help newer people learn to coordinate as lolita became more popular, but they persist today (sometimes to the detriment of the community).
Because the pendulum always swings back eventually, we're definitely seeing Old School styling have its "boom" again (or at least becoming more popular). However, I think this is leading to a weird issue: concrit given on Old School coordinates is just not helpful or effective. Our community got so used to the 2010's coord building "rules" that when an Old School coord is posted in spaces that offer concrit, the poster gets 2010's sweet-centric advice. Those suggestions might be great for someone who is actively wearing 2010's sweet, but a lot of them just don't hold water for Old School coords.
The most common one I see is shoe-based; a lot of 2010's sweet coords emphasized owning tea parties in every color way, usually contrasting the socks but matching with a color in the dress. Old School styling definitely has a more "make do" attitude towards shoes, and a lot of the time, shoes will blend in with the color of the legwear!
Sometimes, though, shoes will contrast with the legwear in a way that isn't cohesive with the rest of the coord, like brown or black shoes in a sweet coord with no other browns or blacks.
I also see concrit given based on accessories, mostly wrist cuffs. While they did absolutely exist, wrist cuffs weren't as ''mandatory" as they are now, and could easily be swapped for a bracelet (as opposed to worn WITH multiple bracelets). Accessorizing was usually simpler, and sometimes headdresses were even forsaken in favor of a simple hairstyle.
Overall, this wasn't a bad coord at all, and I do like it. I just wore it to a wrestling show, so it's not like I was going to a lolita-centric event. Looking back on it, however, I have some things I'd want to change. If I were to give Old School-centric concrit to myself on this coord (assuming I was talking to someone else and this wasn't a photo of me haha) I would say:
"I like the blouse and headpiece with the JSK, but the socks and wrist cuffs feel out of place. I would swap the striped socks for something like Meta's black and white raschel lace OTKs, because the stripes make the coord feel very sweet. You could try white peeking bloomers with this too, since the black blends in to your JSK. I might also switch out the tulle Moitie wrist cuffs for plain black or plain white, maybe in a cotton lace? The boots are cute, but I'd also like to see this coord with black mary janes or RHS too!"
I typically do the compliment sandwich method, or at least begin with a compliment and then a nicely worded suggestion, which is what I learned to do in college writing classes.
The goal of concrit should not be to insult someone, tear them down, or totally remake their coord; you're simply making suggestions on how they could style differently or change an aspect of their coordinate to better achieve THEIR desired look. You're not giving concrit based on your style, you're giving concrit to help them achieve the best version of their style, which I personally believe makes "rules"-centered concrit ineffective. It can also stifle creativity and discourage experimentation if everyone gives the exact same advice. The best way to find your style within lolita is to mess around with your wardrobe and figure out what makes you feel comfortable, and it's hard to do that when you feel like every outfit has to check boxes!
These are your clothes, and not every outfit you wear is going to be the most groundbreaking and perfect lolita coordinate ever. Just like any other style, you're going to have days where you can't make it work, and times when you wear something questionable and wonder what the hell you were thinking when you see photos of yourself later. For example: it was summer, but WHY did I wear UTKs with such a short skirt? It just looks so odd! Put those knees away! (No, I still haven't repaired the worn-out back elastics in that dress, I've just been lacing it tighter to prevent The Wrinkles that you see in this pic).
Your clothes are meant to be worn, and you should wear them how you feel comfortable. You can 100% wear lolita clothes without trying to build a lolita coord or calling it lolita fashion, which can be a very fun and freeing way to experiment with your style. You don't have to put yourself into the lolita box all the time, you are not the sole representative of how to wear EGL and you don't owe anyone a perfect representation 24/7. Have fun expressing yourself, don't be afraid to ask for concrit and advice, and be respectful when you give said concrit.
Also, most importantly: don't ever show your kneecaps. Ever.
