I've always loved those "floating panels" in shoujo manga, where characters, after an outfit change, appear at full height (often surrounded by symbolic flowers, but not always!) so the audience can appreciate the full outfit, before carrying on with the story!
Shoujo anime also have a lot of lovely outfits (albeit simplified for easier animation!), the artists often take great care in lovingly depicting the outfits, and even in simpler styles, the colours and styles make them cute.
I thought it would be fun to share some of my favourite shoujo outfits, for inspiration or even just for fun! I'll also include some characters from other genres, since there can be cute characters with sweet outfits, even in works geared at boys or young children and general audiences too, like Lillie from Pokemon, who is portrayed as an elegant ojou (young lady) type of character.
Lillie (Pokemon Sun & Moon + Pokemon Journeys)
Moriya Ririka (Nurse Angel Ririka SOS)
Princess Luna (Angel's Hill by Osamu Tezuka): She has a LOT of outfits and also seems to reuse different articles of clothing to make different outfits (like people do in real life!), she was originally the inspiration for starting Shoujo Wardrobes! Unlike the others where I group pictures of the same outfits, here, I'll just keep them together when they're a similar size, since it's sometimes hard for me to tell if she's wearing the same outfit or not because she'll have very small additions or changes... many of these are Kusahara Akemi's clothes, as she spends a large portion of the story living in the Kusahara mansion and posing as Akemi. Akemi's school doesn't seem to have a school uniform, but she usually wears the plaid skirt to school. It's funny, Tezuka-sensei first noticed female readers complaining that poor Pinoko in Black Jack only seemed to have one dress, so he's been very particular after that to give her different outfits.
Licca (Wondrous Yunia Story):
Sprites above are from Cherish (now defunct) and the gingham background tile is by Rotferkel.