Auris Lothol Historical costuming, Japanese Lolita fashion and Cosplay.

Hello lovelies,

just popping it to tell you that the newest video is out now!

I already put the Mädchenband making in writing and you can now also watch it here:

Thanks for watching!

Auris Lothol

Hello lovelies,

usually I do a kind of j-fashion review each month but in 2024 I kind of forgot about it. My mind is much too occupied with other things and I am super lazy to write anything regularly on this blog anymore. Too busy or too lazy. There is no inbetween.. The next problem is that I rarely wore my lolita outfits as I stopped going to our monthly teekränzchen for various reasons.

So instead of doing a monthly review of my dresses, I am just making a yearly one as it won't be that picture heavy. Due to me not attending the Viennese lolita events anymore, I don't really have a reason to doll up that often anymore. :(

January

This was the last Teekränzchen I attended. We were a lot of people and the waiter remembered all of our orders. It was brilliant. I wore my red Souffle Song youth in a mirror OP. It was super cold, snowing and freezing that day and we drove there by car because I was really worried about my shoes. They are so thin and more summer than winter shoes.

February

My outfit for Slay market, the baby the stars shine bright floral tree OP. It's a super comfy dress (mostly because the elastics already crumbled away) and I like to wear it for conventions.

And another outfit for Lupins Market in my Lemonade float OP from Angelic pretty.

March

In March I celebrated my birthday with this catkins dress I got for it. It was super warm on my birthday and I could spend a few minutes in the cold without freezing.

And here is the start from the pictures taken in Japan. Some of them I already uploaded but not all.

This dress is from Leur getter - Fruit plate JSK. It barely closes but it fits.

April

Hello April! And here we start with an emily temple cute patisserie print sleeveless OP. I wore it at the universal studios osaka.

Another dress I bought at closet child- And here I met the owner of fluffy tory and lollipop lullaby. They had a pop up store in Tokyo.

Comfy outfit because it was cold when we went on a mt fuji tour.

Of course I had to wear a sailor dress for a naniwar of steel concert. It fits the song "Kaptän Iglo" perfectly (and if you don't know the band or the song - watch it!) I met dear D. at the concert and we had a blast.

It was just a simple office and travel look. This was the look for travel to Comic Con Austria in Wels.

Finally a real lolita fashion picture. I am wearing my secret daisy garden JSK, which I had bought on my Japan trip in March. It's so cute!

Another simple office look with items I bought in Japan, except for the bolero. I had this piece of clothing since the late 2000s and it still looks good, except for a pen mark on one of the sleeves.

This is an Amavel dress I also bought in Japan.

May

A rare full coord. I can't remember for what occasion I wore it though. It's from classtyle and is called angels coming. Quite fitting.

This was actually also from Comic Con Austria as it took place on the first May weekend. But we still arrived in April Except the shoes and the blouse I bought everything in Japan.

June

All three outfits are from the tea party. This is the one I wore for the pre-teaparty dinner with Haenuli and RinRin Doll. The dress itself is from Haenuli and is called Librarian Lady. The headpiece is from Angelic pretty.

This is the outfit I wore to the teaparty but this time with a daisy flower crown. The dress is from Angelic pretty and is the secret daisy jsk, combined with Rosemarie seoir shoes, but the ribbon fell off at the end of the day.

First time wearing my Moitie dress. And it's also the only one I have, lol.

July

Just a quick work coord, as I wore this to the office. It's also way too hot for socks and closed shoes.

I have had this swankiss dress for ages. It's at least 10 years old? My sister took the pictures and she does not really know how I prefer my image details but she did ok :P.

This was taken in Stift Klosterneuburg and it was a very hot day. But the dress with the frescoes perfectly.

Another office look with my berry dress from Ank rouge, I think.

August

This was another weekend in Klosterneuburg and this time I am wearing a dress I bought second hand over willhaben. No idea which brand or the print name but it has strawberries on it!

If I remember correctly the dress is from Milk? The cherries are very cute but it's super tight in the chest area. Oh, the woes of having a big rack.

I bought this dress from Axes femme on my last Japan trip and it also has a strawberry theme. But it's not printed but embroidered this time.

And here we are with a Leur getter fruit plate print dress in the wilderniss of Lower Austria. We saw the place from the car and decided to stop and take pictures.

September

This is the last collectif dress I bought...It's a shame they had to close.

Cold and rainy? Sure, I'm ready with my axes femme jacket.

I was visiting a friend in Berlin and got a lemon soda float with a cherry. It did fit my amavel dress perfectly.

October

It was already colder and I was ready to unpack all of my cute long sleeved liz lisa dresses.

But first, a coord from the lace exhibition we attended in stift st. florian. The weather was sunny but it was pretty chilly.

All in white coord with an old Ank rouge/or liz lisa skirt. The top is from noemie.

November

This Rosemarie seoir cat print dress is so comfy but it also feels a bit unflattering lol. Nevermind, I like it.

super casual office day look with an Axes femme dress.

For my partner's birthday party I wore the pyshkin pyshkin strawberry dress. It's so cute! And comfy.

And another look of the Emily temple cute patisserie jsk. I had found the brown version at a bring and buy and almost bought the dress in another colour. lol.

December

Last look of the year! We were at Weiberei, a market from SPÖ Vienna. I wore my grumpy cat dress and had a lot of fun.

Wow, all in all I didn't dress up a lot but to post it in one entry is a lot. Maybe I'll split it for 2025. Who knows.

If you enjoy this blog and want to support it, consider leaving a small donation via PayPal. Every bit helps keep things running and lets me keep creating more content just for you. You can donate by clicking the link below:

Thank you so much!

All the best,

Auris Lothol

Hello lovelies,

The first two wonderful sunny April days I spent in Linz again, attending another Klosterarbeiten class by Birgit Aigner from Klosterarbeiten.at

Most of the other women were working on a paradise garden but I took one look at the Garden, saw all the flowers and just noped out. Flowers are a pain in the butt to make because they are not only small but have so many small elements and decoration, that one tiny flower can be such a time consuming work.

Taken from Instagram "WerkgruppeKlosterarbeiten"

Therefore, I needed another project. I liked "Mädchenbänder", which are girls version or smaller version of the Goldhauben. Wikipedia defines Goldhauben as "the umbrella term for various women's caps belonging to traditional costumes in southern Germany and Austria . They were worn by women in the cities from the 17th century onward , and later in the countryside as well. They are characterized by woven silk and gold threads, gold and sequin embroidery , and embellishments ." - Translation from the German "Goldhauben" site.

Photographer: Isiwal Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

I got a set from my instructor that included a woven gold band, a silk lining, a cotton lining, and a thicker, mesh-like material. It was already cut in the sizes I needed. That was perfect!

I covered the mesh with the lining and then folded the goldband around it.I thought that was a bit of a waste, since the silk is not visible from the outside, but I guess that’s just how it’s done? I pinned the silk in place and then stitched it on carefully, trying to keep my stitches tiny and neat so they wouldn't show through.

The next step was to attach the band to my embroidery frame. The frame is a super cheap one I bought on AliExpress years ago, but it still works surprisingly well. Though honestly, I should probably sand it soon—it’s still a bit rough in places. Find the one I bough here (affiliate link. If you buy from my link I will get a small commission)

Once the band was secure, I got to choose my embroidery motif. I went with a floral design but it was a real hard choice. All the options were lovely.

I didn’t want to draw my own motif because I know myself. I’d mess it up and be mad about it forever. So I traced the floral design onto silk paper, cut it, and sewed it onto the gold band. I wasn’t 100% sure I had it centered perfectly, and in the end it was a tiny bit off—but really, you can’t tell unless you're measuring my forehead. Please don’t.

Then came the materials: 1.5 mm gold beads, three sizes of gold sequins, and gilded foil pieces. All super shiny. All very tiny. All very expensive.

I started with the 4mm gold sequins and then added gold cord to fill out the design.

If you every want the gold sequins or gold spangles I used, go to my etsy shop: Goldwork Treasures

We had a short break for lunch with good food, then back to stitching. I forgot to take a picture but the food was always good....especially compared to Schloss Puchberg.And then… hours of embroidery. Just hours. My neck was stiff, my fingers were stiff. Everything was stiff.

I kept going until it was time for dinner. We got wraps and I made myself a cup of tea.

I was allowed to pet one of the few monastery cats that lived there but the other one did not go near me. Both were so cute and small - compared to my big fat cats at home (one is a Norwegian Forest cat, the other one is a maine coon)

Then, I went to my embroidery work again and even after everyone else had left, I was still sitting there, stitching away until 10pm. By that point, I had finished all the embroidery. In one day. I don’t recommend that unless you’re stubborn like me.

Look at that amazing embroidery I finished.

Exhausted, I went to bed around 11 and got up again at 8 the next morning.

And that’s when the real pain started—removing the silk paper from the embroidery. You have to carefully pull it out from under all the tiny stitches using tweezers. And it takes forever.I’m prone to tendonitis, so I had to take breaks every 10 minutes, stretch my hands, and do little exercises but that definitely helped.

Once that was done, I moved on to the velvet band. It’s sewn onto the back, and it’s there so you can slide a headband through and actually wear the piece. I originally just stitched it on quickly but that was a mistake. When I tried to slide the headband in, the velvet started popping out in some places. So I had to go back and sew over the whole velvet strip again to keep it stable. Lesson learned.

To give the band more structure, I also sewed in a wire along the back with an overcast stitch. It’s a bit fiddly but necessary.

On one side, I also added a strip of golden bobbin lace—complete with sequins—because why not be extra?

For lunch we had curry with noodles? Definitely a combination I hadn't seen but it was tasty.

And afterwards we got pastry. My brain was already so sugar depleted that I took two pieces of cake and washed it down with soda water and tea.

Lastly, I pinned the outer lining onto the inside of the band and sewed it in place.

Once the lining was done, I pushed the headband through, popped it on my head, and…

It looked wonderful. I really love how it turned out. It’s shiny, elegant, and surprisingly wearable.

So that’s it—my very first Mädchenband!

If you are interested in the materials I used, the gilt sequins and spangles, I am selling the ones I do not need anymore on my etsy store! Shop now!

I had such a good time making it, even with the sore hands and late-night embroidery marathon.

Let me know what you think in the comments—and feel free to guess how much this whole project cost me. Real gold isn’t cheap, I’ll just say that. Plus, maybe you can also guess the hours I worked on it?

Thank you so much for reading. A video will follow shortly, I just need to film the intro!

Thank you so much!

All the best,

Auris Lothol

Older
Stories