9th December 2024

Winter ILD 2024

At the weekend I went to an afternoon tea in York, for the Winter International Lolita Day. It was so much fun!

Headdress, blouse, JSK: Atelier Pierrot
Socks: Estrellas
Shoes: Steve Madden
Corsage: Morun X Muuna Stoik
Jewellery: Neant Glass, Regal Rose

The ILD afternoon tea was organised by some of the admins from the Leeds EGL Community. It was a really stormy day, and it was a bit scary travelling up because I kept almost getting blown over by the wind, especially in the big platform heels. It was a long way to travel, so I did a lot of my getting ready while on the train. I went for a somewhat different makeup style to usual, and when I look at pictures of myself, I feel as though I don't recognise myself... When he saw the pictures, my boyfriend asked me if I'd edited my eyes to look bigger. No!!! It's just a lot of eye makeup.

The food was not really to my taste, as there were far too many unexpected textures, but I appreciated the effort that the hotel had put into having really intricate and detailed desserts, and the scones were suuuper nice (they are wrapped in little blankets to keep them warm). The food looked very pretty, reminiscent of christmas tree ornaments. Ultimately however it's less about the food and more about getting to spend time with my lolita community, and I really love the Northern England lolita communities, the people are all so kind, friendly, and the atmosphere every time I go to one of the meets is just generally quite good.

The main planned activity was a bingo game, which had 2 prizes for a Captain Chris and a black Usakumya. They were both super cute. I think it's interesting that bingo has featured in quite a few of the ticketed lolita afternoon teas I've attended, I wonder whether this is the case in other countries too? It was super exciting and I got so close to winning, but the people who got the prizes were so happy that I wouldn't change the outcome at all.

My favourite activity was taking photos! I loved getting everyone in a large group to take a photo, it was great fun. One of the comm members was taking footage for a video and they videoed part of my coord, I'm hoping it came out okay and I don't look too awkward haha. Apparently the comedian Jimmy Carr walked through the hotel while some of the comm members were taking photos, so if he makes some joke featuring lolitas, I guess he would be talking about us. Actually I've never been to a hotel that had so many people walking around the hotel in bathrobes, that was quite strange.

I was super excited to find the large penguin plushie on the landing below, so I asked someone to take a few pictures of me with him. He's wearing a suit so it's very appropriate. My favourite picture is the one where I'm on the stairs holding onto the bannister, I think that one came out really well. But the one where I'm sat next to the penguin is a close second. I didn't post the group photo because I wanted to respect the privacy of my comm members.

At the end of the meet, everyone got dressed down as much as they could, to be safe and comfortable to travel home in the storm. Some people had completely different outfits for the journey home! For me, other than wearing a big coat, I just packed my petticoats into a bag and swapped my platform heels for some mary jane crocs, haha. The crocs were a terrible shoe choice for heading home in a storm, but they were incredibly comfortable for travelling, and I managed to avoid stepping in any puddles, so I'm glad I picked them.