Things I Love: Strawberries

By {-Maria-}

Spring is here, the wisteria is flowering outside my window, the fruit garden is blossoming, and I am once again reminded of something I love: strawberries! As a Spring baby, it’s always my favourite time of the year, and I’ve been longing to wear a strawberry-filled Country Lolita coordinate!

Strawberries are such wonderful little things, don’t you think? From the tiny, bittersweet ones that grow alongside wild country paths to the big, sweet imported ones—with ice-cream, with soya yoghurt, in sorbets or in smoothies, they’re just too cute. No wonder Sweet Lolita thrives on strawberries!

Vintage Strawberry Shortcake merchandise is just the thing for this year’s Spring and Summer. With the rise of floral prints and what seems like a return to old-school Sweet on its way, who knows: maybe there will be lots of strawberry prints to coordinate it with! Or why not even take cues from the lovable character herself in a red, white and sage coordinate? A plain red onepiece with a pretty white apron would be gorgeous for a warm April day, paired with a straw hat decorated with lace and fake strawberries.

I’ve been offered the wonderful chance of a Lolita birthday present from my family, and I’ve been eyeing up the chance to ask for Angelic Pretty’s Ichigo Millefleur onepiece. I really hope I get it!

What are your favourite motifs for the Spring?

Angelic Pretty's Statement Blouses

I admit: up until fairly recently, I never really understood why anyone would love blouses.

Obviously, it wasn’t as though I’d skip them. It was just that to me, a blouse was a thing on your top half, not a beautiful piece in its own right. I would browse through the blouse section of Baby and the then-limited stock on the English-language Angelic Pretty website (I didn’t know where to find the Japanese one!), not quite understanding why anyone liked them. White or black blouses with some lace on—well, I thought to myself, see one and you’ve seen them all.

This, though, all changed: one day, browsing through the list of blogs I follow, I came across a girl in an absolutely fantastic blouse. I was amazed; did blouses that cute really exist after all? Searching desperately, I found that this was by Angelic Pretty: the Jewellery Beads blouse in pink. I was in love!

Since then, I have always felt that when it comes to blouses, Angelic Pretty just does them best! I think I would credit it, personally, to their being the forefront brand during the OTT Sweet craze. When everything else was a signature piece, why could you stop at your blouse? Up until then, blouses had all been fairly similar, maybe this one had a high collar and this one had detachable sleeves, but I think Angelic Pretty was the one to pioneer the idea of interesting, amazing signature piece blouses.

In particular, I love the detail and thought that Angelic Pretty’s designers put into them. From little tulle lace jabots to giant pussy-bows to designs that look like they’re just spawning random bows, even faux-bustiers and sheer blouses made entirely of chiffon, in every colour you could imagine to coordinate with your outfit—in my mind, nothing beats them!

Here's a few of my favourites! All images are courtesy of hellolace.net.

It’s my dream to own a pastel rainbow of these! Admittedly I have magnificent dreams, but I’m hoping I will have some pocket-money soon to be able to buy my first ever Angelic Pretty blouse. ♥

Do you also have some dream blouses?