Ask Miss Caro-chan: Purple Lolita

In today's Ask Miss Caro-chan, we're going to take a little peek at a color that is often considered unusual within the Lolita fashion! I recently found the following question on my formspring:

Do you have an example of a lolita wearing purple coloured coordinates? And I mean dark, jewel tone purple, not pastels which are easy to find for sweet and classic styles.

Even when you're talking about pastel lavender, purple is a sometimes hard to find color within Lolita, with even Sweet Lolita brands making a rare lavender colorway option. But, there are still a few pieces that are indeed made in darker purples. Your best bet, if you're looking for purple in your Lolita wardrobe, is to try to expand your idea of what range of colors purple encompasses, or to wear it as an accent color because purple, in the world of designer Lolita clothes, is not always the same color as the crayola crayon! It's usually quite a bit less saturated and is either a bit more on the red or blue side, instead of sitting comfortably in the middle.

Finding coordinates that feature bolder and more jewel-toned outfits in the Bibles, Keras, and various other Lolita mooks is actually really difficult! You can find a lot of J-Punk coordinates featuring purple tartan, but when it comes to Lolita, all I managed to find were these three coordinates!

Purple dresses for sale, on the other hand, are a little easier to find! It's a rare color for a brand to release, but not unheard of! It seems like, more and more, purple is becoming a more common colorway to find Lolita dresses in.

 Top row: Emily Temple Cute, Metamorphose. Middle row: Baby, Atelier Pierrot. Bottom: Innocent World, Juliette et Justine.

If you want to add some purple to your wardrobe, but don't mind making it an accent color instead of the main color, there are a growing number of pieces that use purple as an accent color! Very recently it seems like purple has become to favored accent color of black colorways.

 

 

   

Top row: Baby, Putumayo. Middle row: Angelic Pretty, Putumayo. Bottom row: Baby, Metamorphose.

Bold purples do tend to get sort of a bad rap in the world of Lolita, and that's probably because they are often one of the favorite color choices of generic anime "Lolita" cosplays and questionable online shop alike. So, very often, when you come across a purple dress in Lolita, it's usually similar to one of the below dresses.

 

Not exactly the first thing you want to think of when you think "Purple Lolita"! But, of course, these kinds of dresses are more and more becoming an exception, and not the rule. As you can see at the top of this post, purple is sort of an underrated color in the world of Lolita but there are really a whole bunch of, somewhat hidden, gorgeous pieces that feature this color.

Coordinating purple

Purple can be coordinated just as easily as any other color in Lolita, my favorite color to combine with purple is good old fashioned black, as it usually really makes the purple pop and stand out more. If your purple is of one of the more desaturated varieties, then consider trying to coordinate it with cream. Personally, I am not a fan of purple and white coordinates, as I feel the colors look too primary together and sort of flat, especially if the purple is closer to a bright, jewel toned purple. Because of all the different shades of purple found within Lolita, I feel like purple is not meant for just one style of Lolita, I think it works very well with just about any of them! From the common purple tartan for punk, to deep jewel toned purples and blacks for Gothic, to a dusty amethyst and cream combo for Classic, and a bright magenta toned purple and black for Sweet Lolita.


Purple, as well as it's sister color, lavender, are relatively recent additions to the Lolita color spectrum (I remember when even a green dress would pop up it would make me do a double-take!) so who knows what future releases will bring in this sometimes odd color.

What are your favorite "odd" Lolita colors? Ones that aren't commonly fond in coordinates on in brand catalogs but you just can't help but fall in love with whenever you happen to see something made in it? I am a big fan of really deep forest green, but very few brands ever release anything in this color! I know that Baby has released a few gorgeous deep forest green velvet dresses in the past, but really, that's about the only brand I can think of off the top of my head that has even tried to give deep forest green a chance!