Playing Alice with Cinnamoroll

I am having a Cinnamoroll moment. (When am I not having one?) Last week, I introduced the Cinnamoroll Café in Tokyo. This week I am going to show you another Cinnamoroll thing you can only find in Japan—a Cinnamoroll collaboration dress!

It’s been a while since my favorite brands have done a Cinnamoroll collaboration, with the LIZ LISA 2017 summer collaboration being the most recent one. As fate would have it, I happened to be in Tokyo when the fall Ank Rouge Cinnamoroll one-piece dropped. Unlike the LIZ LISA collaboration last year, the Ank Rouge one does not include a matching bag or bag charm. That’s not a big deal because this dress matches well with a lot of other accessories. I will show you how I did it in this post.

The official Cinnamoroll X Ank Rouge collaboration picture from ailand.jp.

 Since the main colors of Cinnamoroll are white, blue, and pink, I was surprised to see an autumn dress with a pattern of this character that’s made up of colors more often associated with summer. I was even more surprised by how well the dress works without compromising any elements of the character. The Cinnamorolls scattered throughout the dress are pretty small, and their colors appear more faded than normal. What ends up standing out from the pattern is mostly the white color of its body and just tiny accents from the brighter colors. The brand also added a clever touch to boost the fall factor of this dress: It gave our little puppy friend a red cherry.

The faded colors of Cinnamoroll blend in well with the two base colors this dress comes in—lavender beige and gray blue. Instead of the conventional brown and red glen check pattern of fall, this dress sports a check pattern made up of black and pink lines, making it fall-like and girly.

Precisely because so many colors are at play in this dress, you can create outfits by accentuating one or two of the colors. For my coordinate, I chose a black velvet headband from LODISPOTTO to bring out the black ribbon and grid lines and red sparkly mary jane shoes from ANK ROUGE (which I featured in a different outfit last year) to highlight the red cherries. To balance all the colors, I would recommend topping the outfit off with a neutral-colored bag like my white Kate Spade bunny handbag.

Dress: Ank Rouge; headband: LODISPOTTO; socks: tutuanna; shoes: ANK ROUGE; bag: Kate Spade.

Besides coordinating the colors, I chose these accessories because they complement the girlishness of the dress so well and bringing out that quality is very important to me. I have had experience with people who think kawaii clothes are antifeminist because they are too girlish. I could not disagree with that more.

I’ve said before that the way we dress tells the world about who we are, but appearance is only one part of us. Wearing pink florals and lace doesn’t say I believe women should stay at home and not work. (I am a working woman myself.) It simply means I think those things are pretty and they make me happy. Just like some people are born with a liking for apples, I was born with a liking for pink florals and lace. It’s as simple as that. As long as I’m not hurting anybody by embracing my inner girl with my fashion choices, I don’t see why anyone should have an issue with it.

Facing all the curious judgments and opinions, I sometimes feel like Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I still struggle with not caring about how others look at me, but I am getting better at being brave and tackling my fears head-on every day like Alice. Hopefully, one day I can push those fears aside, just like Alice pushing the menacing card guards aside and recognizing that they are nothing to be afraid of.

If you have had similar experiences like mine, you are definitely not alone and I’ll cheer you on in continuing to showcase your true self to the world!