Hello darlings :3
I noticed there haven't been a lot of fashion posts lately, so I thought I'd make a small presentation of a the Japanese fashion style Lolita, which is related to the Kawaii style I described earlier ^^
Even though I'm mostly running my own style now, called: "Norwegian Kawaii - trying to wear cute clothes and catching a cold for doing so", I'm quite fond of the Lolita style too.
I really want to wear an all-out Lolita outfit once, but here in Norway you gotta have a special occasion first.
Well, let me try to explain just what Lolita is! ^^
The Lolita style is a very doll-like look, and pretty much as feminine as you can get it. It puts focus on modesty and elegance, and the clothes should have a high quality in both materials and manufacturing.
It became popular in Japan in 1990's, as an protest against the growing body and skin exposure in modern society. A lot of fashion styles today put a lot of focus on the body and sexiness, so I think it's great with a style that doesn't go with the flow!
The Lolita style has been accused for "being an appeal to some men's fantasies of women being innocent or childish", but that's not the case at all.
"We certainly do not do this for the attention of men. Frequently, female sexuality is portrayed in a way that is palatable and accessible to men, and anything outside of that is intimidating. Something so unabashedly female is ultimately kind of scary – in fact, I consider it to be pretty confrontational. Dressing this way takes a certain kind of ownership of one's own sexuality that wearing expected or regular things just does not. It doesn't take a lot of moxie to put on a pencil skirt and flats. It's not, as some commentators have suggested, some sort of appeal to men's expectation that women should be childlike, or an attempt to pander to pedophiles. Pedophiles like little girls. They don't like grown women who happen to like dresses with cakes on them. I've never been hit on by a pedophile while in Lolita. We don't get into it because it is some sort of misplaced pedo complex or anything, and the objective isn't simply to emulate little girls, despite the name Lolita." - Follower of the Gothic Lolita fashion
There are many subcultures of Lolita fashion, and it would take some time to explain them all. I'll just take the most popular under-styles for now ^^
Sweet Lolita
This is the super girly, bright colored style. It is as cute as utterly possible, and the dresses often have colorful and funny prints of cakes, muffins, cherries, strawberries, flowers, and cute animals like puppies, kittens and bunnies. There are a lot of details, such as bows, frills and laces, and often jewelry.
The make-up shades are mostly pink, peach, pearl and other bright pastels. The hair is often decorated with headdresses and bonnets.
Punk Lolita
This is the punk rock inspired style. I guess you can call a Punk Lolita a more feminine punker. The colors are mostly black, red and similar, and the patterns are plaids and stripes. This style also has a lot of details like safety pins and chains.
Gothic Lolita
Gothic Lolita is a combination of the Lolita and Goth styles. Though some like to use colors like dark purple, dark blue, and dark red, the color palette is usually just black and white.
The make-up focuses on defining the eyes and lips: smokey eyes and dark red lips are popular.
Favorable design items are coffins, bats and some religious symbols like crucifix.
Classic and Causal Lolita
These style variations are a bit more toned down than the others. When I try the Lolita style in the future, it will be something like this ^^
The Classic Lolita is quite similar to the Gothic, just more simple and less decorated. It can also be worn in brighter colors, and then the style turns into Causal Lolita, which is pretty much plain, girly dresses. What separates it from normal dresses is the knee length skirt's shape (think cupcake upside down), and what you might choose to add yourself.
You can wear kneesocks, put a bow in your hair, and use iconic Lolita platform shoes to discreetly show off your Lolita style in a more everyday outfit. Some Lolita fans wear blouses under their dresses for a more modest look. Classic and Causal is quite similar to each other, so I put them together here. The biggest difference is the color palette.
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| Ooh... this one is just too lovely. Want it. Really bad. |
There are still many, many other variations of Lolita! I'll add an illustration to give you an idea of some of the others. Just like the Kawaii style, you can change it a lot like you want to, and combine some of the subcategories. For example, you can be Sweet Gothic by adding light pink bows to a black dress and wear jewelry shaped like fruit!
I like this style because it's unique, feminine and playful. Luckily this fashion is spreading quickly outside Japan too, so maybe it will be easier for non-Japanese Lolita fans to show off their style soon? ^^
Note: I'm not any expert on Lolita fashion, I'm just fond of the style. So if anyone has something to add, or noticed some wrong information, don't hesitate to let me know! :)
What do
you think of this fashion? Is it too extreme, childish or just lovely?
Talk to you soon <3
