How I Got Started In Alt Fashion

I never really thought too hard about fashion until pretty late in my high school years, despite my mom being a goth and my stepmom being punk, and me liking both of their styles. I was lucky enought to get some hand-me-downs from my mom that resulted in me dressing somewhat goth-adjacent, but there wasn't a whole lot of thought or intentionality to it. On some level, I think I associated fashion as a whole with femininity and femininity with restrictions, which had me avoiding anything pink and frilly and involving skirts like it was the plague for a while, I didn't want gender to determine what I was allowed to do or how people treated me. My parents didn't inflict any beliefs about gendered interests, aesthetics, or behaviors upon me, but practically every other adult and child (whether they were boys or girls) that I met outside of my family the second I started preschool insisted upon it, so it was something that I can remember being pissed off about from a very young age. Eventually though, I came to the realization that avoiding things simply because they were deemed feminine by society (including the entire concept of giving a damn about fashion) was just putting myself in a different box that was still ruled entirely by social perceptions of gender. So I let go of that attitude altogether.

It was the early 2010's around that time, and I spent the vast majority of my free time on tumblr. Lolita fashion and pastel goth were both in my orbit for quite some time, though by the time I graduated and had disposable income to throw at clothing, the heyday of pastel goth had already passed, and it wasn't quite so easy to find anything even remotely similar to what I wanted to wear. I gravitated towards sweet, particularly anything vaguely Alice in Wonderland inspired, then eventually (mostly celestial themed) classic lolita and nu goth. Still, the pastel goth aesthetic must have been permanantly seared into my brain because it never left, and if anything it's only become a stronger and stronger part of my fashion sense over time.

I do remember the very first dress that got me to take the leap into alternative fashion though - BTSSB's Star Millefeuille JSK. At the time, prom was upcoming, and I had already decided not to go, as it was seniors only and all of my friends were either in other years or were straight up too poor to afford the ticket price. I would've been standing around kicking my feet watching a bunch of people I didn't know spin around and make out, or whatever the hell people do at proms. No thanks, not really my idea of fun. My mom was trying to bribe me to go - and I in turn tried to bribe her by saying I'd go if she bought me this one specific dress to wear. I got shot down, though I'm not sure why. A prom dress would've been just as expensive, I just would've only worn it once and would've gotten rid of it afterwards. I don't care how special the occasion is supposed to be, I really don't like the idea of one-use fashion. Some time later, my first dress ended up being this Classical Puppets Alice OP instead. Still, I never let my quest for that dress go, and several years of hunting later, I did finally acquire my Star Millefeuille JSK!

Some of my favorite dresses that I've acquired! You can tell I really like blue...

My Favorite Styles

Overall, my fashion sense tends to flop between and often blends three different aesthetic categories:

Gothic themes, especially elements of horror or things generally deemed "creepy" or "spooky", such as bones, blood, eyeballs, and other body parts, medical instruments, monsters, and witchcraft.
Sugary sweet pastels, frills and ruffles, flowy chiffon and lace, bows, toys that look like candy.
Dark jewel tones and especially the color blue, celestial and spacey themes such as the night sky, stars, the moon and galaxies, gold and silver metallic details.

The end result is that I love lolita, goth, punk, pastel goth/creepy cute, gurokawa, yamikawa, cult party kei, morute, whimsigoth, fairy kei, uchuu kei, retro and Y2K futurism, and probably even more that don't fit into those categories or that I just can't think of the names for off the top of my head.

Collage slapped together with images from my personal style inspo board on Pinterest

Lolita Dream Dresses

Angelic Pretty Magical Milk Cats - Skirt or JSK, in pink or lavender
Angelic Pretty Little Witch - Any cut, in pink or lavender
Angelic Pretty Dreamy Planetarium - Skirt or JSK, any colorway
Angelic Pretty Dream Sky - OP or JSK, in pink, lavender, or sax

Angelic Wrapping Ribbon Salopette or Skirt - Mint and black colorway
BtSSB Soirée Au Chat Noir Star JSK - Any colorway
Gloomth "Bruise" Spiked Lavender Shirred JSK