[fashion] Gargoyles of Notre Dame coord

This weekend I went to Austin with my friends for a road trip just to hang out before spooky season got too busy and we miss the chance to see each other until December for Christmas/New Year holidays. I’m just going to note the highlights and then post my coord photos. The main point of the trip was to visit a spooky shop with the resident goth friend and then check out a newish bar with religious decor nearby downtown. My intent was not to wear a full lolita coord especially as the temperatures rose from kinda of autumnal to return to the depths of summery hell from which we just emerged. But at the very last minute,  I decided I might never get the chance to wear lolita to these places again and who knows how long before I am unable to fit my dresses, so I better woman-up and suffer for fashion with my bff.

Pics of the spooky vampire oddities shop and the consignment bar, with the most gothic of decor and merchandise and art and taxidermy. I feel like we should have a place like this in Dallas since the goth scene exists here, but knowing Dallas, it probably closed.  We didn’t take our pictures here because obviously we were masked and the lighting was not photo-friendly.

Then we went to Higher Grounds in downtown, which is a bar with religious (Catholic) decorations and a beautiful second floor outdoor area with hanging fake flowers. The sun was shining with the strength of several hellfires so the lighting was a bit harsh but maybe that matched the moodiness of the photos. The second floor was half unfinished with no bar furniture inside (certainly no air conditioning) and empty of patrons, so we were maskless, but the small sitting area by the balcony was fully decorated along with the bathroom, perfect for some quick photos.

Here is my bff’s tumblr post (that I reblogged lol) of their magnificent Daredevil inspired cosplay coord. Honestly, I don’t think I could have done better, I don’t think any other lolita could have done better, and I’m not saying this with best friend bias lol.

Now here is my coord, wearing Innocent World Notre Dame jumperskirt, and coordinating shoes and socks. I was there to take photos and be moral support, so I was trying to be comfortable yet on theme. I wore almost this exact coord before minus the wig and different shoes and accessories, it’s simply one of my favorite older dresses even though I can barely squeeze into the partial shirring now. The other dress I had in mind, the stained glass window OP from Dear Celine no longer fits me as it has no shirring, and is also long-sleeved and black polyester, I’ll probably need to sell that, very sad.

[Dress, socks, shoes: Innocent World; blouse: off-brand; headdress: Baby the Stars Shine Bright; jewelry: TinyPasserine on Etsy, Metamorphose Temps de Filles, off-brand]

These photos were clearly run through several beauty filters because I was sweating buckets and my blouse (cotton) still looks wrinkly. I will assert that in real life my makeup was pretty good before it melted off as soon as I stepped outside, so this is what my makeup looked like in my mind immediately after I finished putting it on. As for the coord, I thought it was perfectly fine for what I wanted that day. In a more leisurely and air-conditioned situation, I would have remembered to take off my smartwatch and maybe do a better job on my manicure and found a matching rosary necklace, but for this dress in particular, rosaries would have covered the bodice details. 9/10, I did the best I could with what I already had.

Now a pic of the too-dramatic bathroom or rather, the communal sink area with the bathrooms are on either side. I didn’t go inside the bathroom but the sinks were like mini waterfalls.