Easter Coord

For as long as this blog has been active (which coincides with my own being the most active in lolita fashion) I have worn something frilly for Easter. Even when I wasn't at home to celebrate Easter with my family. This year lockdown means that I can't be home for this (and if there was no COVID-19, I would've been in Moscow at the Gothic Lolita Festival anyway), but I can still wear frills.

I tried a new eyeshadow look, which I really liked, I'll try to do it more often.

Classic lolita and a brooch overload go together hand in hand, if you ask me.

To channel some of that spring that has finally started coming our way, I wanted to wear Innocent World's Georges Rose JSK. Whilst ironing it I was able to really appreciate that floral pattern again and wanted to wear something that would really compliment it. Coordinating this dress with greens was something I've wanted to do for a while and although it's not necessarily what I initially had in mind, it's what I could do at the moment and still thoroughly liked the result. If I were religious, this would totally be my church outfit and I'm loving my 50's model housewife goes to mass vibe that this coord has, particularly thanks to the gloves. I'm once again obsessed with vintage gloves (let me out again, world, I want to go to vintage fairs and get more gloves!) and in the future I'd love to wear this with a classy hat to hone in on that vibe.

As I already hinted, this wasn't my first Easter away from home. There were some when I travelled, as well as two whole Easters in Japan, where it's not celebrated at all. Without my Moscow trip I thought that I would've gone home, but in the spirit of looking at the bright side of life, not being able to do that was an opportunity to start something new. My family isn't religious, but since Poland is a Catholic country, Easter is an important holiday and part of our culture. This means that while my family doesn't necessarily have any special traditions, we always do something and eat certain things. Now that I've moved out of my parents' place, this was my chance to forge some new Easter traditions, ones that are my own and that I can carry forward through my adult life. And that was quite an exciting thing, really.

My planning new traditions started out with food. It kind of had to, every important holiday is focused on food. Particularly during lockdown, where doing as few grocery shopping trips as possible is the preferred modus operandi, I had to plan it as much in advance as possible. For such an important holiday, even when I googled traditional Polish recipes for Easter, there was way too much variety. I thought it was just my non-religious family taking some liberties, but truth is, it really is all about just a couple of things. So I decided to keep my Easter breakfast more Polish and then do something more English for dinner, opting for a roast. Had I been hosting, this probably would be a proper roast, but I'm on my own, so it was just one chicken thigh. Yet between that, simple breakfast things (ham, cheese, eggs) upgraded with a savoury scone, and some sweets, that felt festive enough. It's probably more to do with my having to put more effort into presenting it nicely and making it feel festive, but it still counts.

My modest (though still pretty plentiful) breakfast for one. I did not actually end up eating all of that, once I had one scone, it filled me up too much. Though I can confirm that plain scones do go nicely with cream cheese.

My rustic roast dinner. I need to do more roasts, roasted things are tasty!

I talked to my parents on Skype, which gave a bit of an illusion of us sharing that breakfast together. Although by the time I sat down to eat and call them, they were just finishing theirs. It was still nice though to keep this up, talk to them and enjoy a family moment.

The second part of my newly forged Easter traditions was to spend the day as Internet-less as possible. I figured that without this that day would've been the same as pretty much every other day spent at home, and I really wanted Easter to feel special. With other people around, I probably would've turned this into board games day, had we not been in lockdown (and if the weather was a bit warmer), I may have gone for a walk. As it was, I ended up spending the day in a pretty lifestyle lolita way: dressed in a lovely outfit, making a homely meal and watching the 1980's TV version of Anne of Green Gables (the only one that matters, if you ask me). One day I probably will give Anne with an E a go, though revisiting a classic that I grew up watching on television (including a Polish voiceover, since that's the version I had downloaded years back) was not only nostalgic, but reminded me why it was such a great film. In the same spirit that many Studio Ghibli films have, Anne of Green Gables really taps in to the nostalgia factor that makes us yearn for simpler times. There is no unnecessary drama, no additional thriller plots or deeper meaning, which every film or TV show these days seems to have. Kind of like what made Gilmore Girls appealing then, but why it wouldn't become as popular now, it's all a bit too cutesy and sweet to be completely realistic (in Anne of Green Gables we sort of accept that because of the historical setting and because it's aimed at a younger audience), none of the truly horrible and cruel things about the real world make it on screen and if they do, they are either downplayed or quickly softened with something appropriately cuddly and sweet and charming. I hope you get what I mean. Needless to say, I have enjoyed shedding tonnes of emotional tears and getting overwhelmed with that nostalgia, even if at times it made me feel quite sad over the things that will no longer be.

Such an iconic moment in film (or more like what followed). Photo taken from a ScreenRant article, I do not own.

For a first Easter that was completely my own, this was an absolutely lovely one. It was modest because it sort of had to be, but actually ended up being precisely what I needed. There are things that I would like to do differently or better next time – hey, no tradition was born overnight – and I'm sure that I'll get to do that next year. Unless I end up catching up on all those missed travels, of course! But if I'm in, I'd love to actually host Easter for my family. By that point I will be living with my boyfriend, so he will inevitably get dragged into this and with his family, if accept the invitation.

Now, I was going to take this opportunity to add a quick outfit roundup to the end of this post. However, lockdown proves to be fruitful not only in outfits, but with things to blog about (it's actually mad!). Even just the outfits I wore since the previous outfit roundup post would make this too long, so I won't. Instead, I'll write about all of the coords I wore at the end of the month in its own dedicated post. For as long as my streak of wearing lolita often continues, this will be more sustainable than doing more frequent posts. Otherwise I'd have to up the number of blog posts per week to get through everything and that's way too much work.

Hope that all of you who celebrate had a lovely Easter and those who don't – that you had a lovely weekend!