Hi there. This is my first ever post on a blog... ever. So welcome to the beginnings. This blog will not be professionally done, or have prestine grammar. It is merely here for me to unleash the passion I have for stuff most people could care less about. I mean, besides you and myself of course.
I will mainly be focusing on alternative fashions - specifically egl, or, "elegant gothic lolita fashion". Like the title of my blog states, I'm not actually all that elegant of a person. I dress in these nice elegant clothing but franky my vocabulary is quite vulgar and the topics of my conversations can sometimes be disturbing. Like it or not, that's just how I am. Whether that is a result of enviornment, life experiences, or whatever have you - that's me. And therefore, my blog may emit that type of energy.
Why I am giving this long in depth intro into how my blog will be is purely to be a big disclaimer. The things I state here will not always be the right way. What I really really mean is... don't take the stuff I say too harshly. I am a capricorn in almost all of my natal chart- so the stuff I spew out will probably sound cold at times. And if I feel that way, I might overcompensate by trying to be extra nice and polite with whatever I say. This is a result of me being annoyingly overly anxious about being a jerk.
Anyways, since I will be talking about mainly lolita fashion on here - I might as well mention my background in it.
I first started lolita when I was rougly 14. Unlike most lolitas, I cannot recall how in the hell I came accross the fashion. I truly believe it must have just popped up on a recommendation online or something. It had to be something casual or else I would have remembered it... right? Anyways, I was a huge weeb at this time, and had been for a bit - so stumbling upon a Japanese fashion doesn't surprise me all that much. I entered it in the year 2013. This was the time where OTT sweet was really hitting off - and I loved it.
OTT sweet in the early 2010s was way different from what it is now, at least imo.
As you can see, the OTT sweet of this time was very fun and eccentric. It is very remenisct of decora fashion- which is another alternative J-fashion that incorprates many accesories and rainbow colors (as seen in figure 1). However, there is a pastel flood of color washing over it. It can almost be considered the love child of decora, fairy kei (seen in figure 2) and sweet lolita (figure 3).
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| Figure 1: decora fashion |
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| Figure 2: fairy kei |
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| Figure 3: Sweet lolita- circa. early 2000s |
I loved the pastels in sweet lolita - and the fun accesories with big poof in hair and skirt. It amazed me as a new teen and I immediately wanted to participate within it. I quickly immersed myself within the online community. Unlike everyone else, I never got into the blogging asepects, or online forums. Most of my lolita activitiy was through conventions and youtube. At this time on youtube, we didn't have anyone who was insanely big (in lolita community terms) like Lor or Tyler. We had people like PrincessPeachy who were quite popular in that space, but it was a different vibe because it still was very much more of an inside look into somone else just showing their hobby off.
Speaking of Peachy- I'm very glad I found her. Not because she was a very sweet and comforting channel to watch- but because she exposed Bodyline to me. As most people know, Peachy was the Bodyline queen. As funny as it sounds, there were "brand whores" at this time. Not in a derogatory- but there was definietly a difference in if you were wearing Bodyline versus Baby. I mean.. people did not associate you in the same way. Most people (in my own experience, of course) did not wear bodyline proudly.
Bodyline when I got into the fashion was still kind of controversal. Not really as much for the replicas (at this point it was seen as bad to wear replicas- however it was still somewhat acceptable. You'd probably only get scowled at behind your back but upfront most people just accepted that you didn't want to spend money on brand and/or could not fit well into it.) - but for the "cheap quality".
Basically, if you wore Bodyline you were kinda off-brand. And as I was only 14- that was my only option. The second hand market was not nearly as accessible. Sure there were forum sales- but like I said, I wasn't active there nor did I really know much about them (people didn't really speak much about how to get lolita- especially brand- second hand, thru youtube). Therefore, Bodyline it was!
My first coord wasnt completed until the very beginning of 2014. I wore the Fairy From Froest JSK in the pink colorway. I had managed to get a second hand bodyline blouse from a FB group I stumbled upon- and I homemade a terrible petticoat. I also ordered a bear skirt in sax and had that as a skirt coord. Lastly, I bought a sweets OP in a black colorway - I was very into the idea of bittersweet lolita. I bold this because its a controversy nowadays on what exactly IS bittersweet- maybe I'll make a seperate blog on this someday.
Anyways- I made my first coord- with decent success. I posted on closet of frills and didn't face too much criticism, However, I was DEF afraid of being called an ITA. Which I will go off on on another post sometime soon I assure you. My fear of being an ITA was so strong it honestly destoryed a lot of passion I had for the fashion. And, in about 2015 I eventually stopped wearing and partaking in lolita. It wasn't just for the fear of not doing it justice - but also because I had no friends in my small town who liked it. I didn't know about my comm at the time- but as an extremely socially anxious teen, it probably wouldn't have saved me. The few friends I did make online were destroyed off of the lolita platform. I will speak on this too in another blog. There were actually a few blogs I found in regards to one of my friends disappearance. It was a very sad event to look back on as I was unaware of some of the really brtual comments made.
In the end though - after a 5 year hiatus, I re-entered the fashion in 2020 like most people did. I was happy to find how easy it was to access lolita second hand. I never imagined as a teen that I'd ever own brand - like ever. I thought I'd have to buy it all brand new at hundreds of dollars. So, younger me would be delighted to find out that it isn't true! I have plenty of brand now it's funny to me that I used to find it unattainable at one time.
Also lolita has changed so much from then. Especially sweet and OTT anything. Like I mentioned above, OTT was much different then. And I feel out of place now within lolita as I do not partake in OTT styles and no longer associate with sweet substyle. Which, feels like it was taken over haha. I don't mind sweet - but it's for sure the most popular of all the styles. Things like sheer blouses being accepted now amazes me because back when I entered I woulnd't have dared to wear any frilly sheer blouse I found. No hate on it - it's just crazy how much it's all changed.
Also hime is like taking over its crazy.
Lolita now feels almost like historical costume inspired and it feels a little disconnected for me from what I'm into and grew up with.
What do you guys think? Can you relate to any of this?
Thanks for reading this long post.
Have a nice day!
I found this blog through your channel and wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your content and insights! I think you’re well-spoken and your ideas are fleshed out.
ReplyDeleteIt’s fun to hear experiences from veterans in the fashion! I’d heard of the infamous Mr. Yan body pillow, the kinda brutal livejournal days and it always amazes me to hear how much the community and fashion has grown.
I learned about the fashion during the Chinese indie brand boom (2016ish?) and at the time there seemed to be an OTT classic boom? It reminds me of the dark academia aesthetic now: muted colors, Victorian dresses, knee length boots. But when I came back to the fashion last year, OTT sweet and old school were having a revival. I myself got into the fashion because of classic but find myself wearing casual sweet (I don’t have the confidence or energy to pull off OTT sweet as much as I love it).
But I’ve been reading papers about the history of the fashion and getting more experience, and I agree that modern Lolita looks a bit more costumey than in the past. I think that may just be a side effect of a growing fashion though. What strikes people when they see snapshots are the most OTT lolitas of the time, and those are the ones that remain in the memory and they start associating the fashion with that. Over time, I think Lolita fashion has engulfed some of the anime fan crowd (I hear Rozen Maiden was a big influence in Japan), the cosplay crowd (Japanese lolitas like to tweet that lolita isn’t cosplay), and more, and each crowd interprets the fashion in a different light.
It reminds me a bit of the techwear scene where there are roughly two factions: ideological purists who got into the fashion because it was functional, and those who got into the fashion because of the aesthetic. But neither side is ever completely right: everything functional isn’t necessarily techwear, but everything that looks like techwear isn’t necessarily what the originators intended (they’re not functional). I kinda see those factions when people ask “what constitutes lolita.” Not everything with a petticoat is lolita, but neither is every whimsical Victorian looking dress.
That’s a lot of rambling to say: I agree! I think lolita fashion has become more flamboyant over time. It’s become separated from its street fashion origins, but I think it’s a natural progression of a fashion as it gets bigger. I’m excited to see where it goes! Maybe we’ll have a day where those Japanese sweet lolitas who post coords of themselves in sneakers will be normalized (I saw some on Twitter and they were adorable!)