The weather has been pretty intense lately, not just for my area but for all sorts of areas of the United States. In the Midwest, we’ve suffered through a few heat waves. I don’t have air conditioning, and when the heat is so high and there’s no coolness at home, I really don’t want to do much of anything–especially dress up. I really love all of my beautiful frilly clothing, but I can’t feel happy and pretty and fluffy if I’m hot and sticky and sweaty. It’s gross!

My husband and I have been trying to escape to places with air conditioning as much as we can when the weather gets too unbearable in our own home, but when I’m traveling and it’s hot I don’t want a heavy bag. I’m not all that willing to bring my lolita clothing with me if that means I have more things to carry and worry about bringing back with me when the weekend is over. As a result, I haven’t done much of anything. I’ve regretted that I can’t take part in something I really enjoy, but at the same time it just doesn’t seem reasonable. Being uncomfortable just makes me grumpy, after all–I don’t want to voluntarily make myself irritable~

This weekend was the “Mega Meet,” one of the larger lolita fashion gatherings in my area. Lolita come into Chicago from suburbs and even other states. It’s generally a lot of fun, and I get to see friends that I otherwise don’t see. I was dreading the weather report, afraid that the temperature would spike again, but thankfully it was a pretty mild day! ♥ It was so nice to dress up again~!

I don’t really plan my outfits too far in advance, for the most part, and this was no exception. I decided to wear the polka-dot dress because I thought it wouldn’t be too heavy and I wouldn’t need a blouse. I own several polka-dot accessories because I have another dress with the same polka-dot fabric, so I added the polka-dot choker that original came with the other dress. The dress has sewn-in straps that typically criss-cross in the front and tie behind the neck, but it was too much with the choker, so I tucked them down the front of the dress instead. X3

The socks were also polka dotted, and so is the parasol. I like the contrast of having the parasol and socks be white with pink polka dots, as opposed to the dress’s pink with white polka dots, just so that the same pattern wasn’t too overwhelming. If my dress and socks were the exact same colour and pattern I don’t think I’d be satisfied.

This dress is actually very short, so I wore an underskirt with it to add some length. One of these days I intend to have a white ruffle added to the bottom of the dress itself, but until that happens this is the best solution I’ve come up with. I don’t generally mind the shorter dresses, but this dress is very, very short–when I compare it to my other dresses, even though known for being less-than-lengthy, it’s always at least a few inches shorter. I don’t want to give it up just because of the length (or lack thereof), though~ I really like the design.

I opted for a white side-positioned hairbow for a little bit of contrast. I tried to pin my pigtails up a bit around the hair elastics. I wanted to mimic the volume of clip-on pigtails, without having to actually wear clip-ons. It wasn’t very successful, but it’s something I’d like to try again sometime. I probably should have worn a style that kept my hair off my neck entirely–it wasn’t blazing hot, but it wasn’t cool either! Thank goodness there was a nice breeze when we were near the lake~

Overall, I was really happy to wear lolita again~ Whenever the weather cools down and stays that way, I know I’ll be dressing up more frequently. It’s just too much fun!