What exactly is “lolita”? What is it trying to achieve? It is an alternative fashion, obviously. So, then, doesn’t that imply that you dress in lolita as a way of rebelling against some sort of mainstream ideology? Clearly, lolita has counterculture elements. You’re dressing in unusual ways and joining communities for those who share your style. But why? Who are you trying to rebel against? What “culture” does lolita have, and how does your outfit emulate it? Does lolita even really have a culture? Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. For all too many girls who dress in lolita, it’s just clothes. This, in my opinion, is horribly disappointing, especially considering how lolita rebels against the mainstream in ways most subcultures do not. How does one get famous as a lolita? Lolitas achieve fame by buying the most popular prints from the most popular brands. Girls will go to great lengths and pay large sums of money for these dresses, up to thousands and thousands of dollars for a single dress. What makes these dresses so special? Cat Tea Party is pretty, but there are plenty of other dresses that are just as pretty. I find it hard to believe that so many different girls have the same favorite dress. Clearly, it’s all about the status. And now you know what lolita is all about! Despite being an alternative fashion, lolita is just as vapid and superficial as the mainstream culture they’re supposedly rebelling against. A dress gets popular and everyone rushes to get their hands on it so they can shamelessly promote themselves on their Tumblr blog and get popular. I know I probably sound like an outsider attacking a fashion I don’t understand, but the reason I made this post is actually because I really care about lolita and I’m disappointed to see the road it’s taken.
As lolita is a sub fashion where girls gain reputation and fame by buying expensive things and posting pictures online, it’s not surprising that it tends to attract some bland people. I click the link to a lolitas Tumblr and, about 90% of the time, it’s content is indistinguishable from any other lolitas. Heck, I’m not even going to restrict it to lolita, they look just like most Tumblr pages I’ve seen. I don’t see many girls who make lolita into their main “thing”. For the vast majority of girls within lolita, it’s a side thing. Much of the online comm is made up of casuals who wear lolita one day and some other tumblrcore fashion the next. What made them decide to be a lolita? They saw someone reblog it on Tumblr and though “I’ve got to get in on that”. And that is why lolita fails to be a fashion with any kind of substance. You are a bunch of women and young girls, and you’re wearing outlandish, yet modest clothing with throwbacks to the past. That’s awfully provocative, any curious onlooker is going to want to know why you’re doing it. Unfortunately, most of these girls couldn’t tell you themselves.
Ask yourself this, why are you a lolita? Would you call yourself a lolita, or do you adapt many different substyles for their aesthetic without consideration for the meaning behind it? Are you a lolita because your friends are doing it? Because popular Tumblr girls are doing it? Because it’s an easy sub fashion to gain fame within if you have enough money? It’s almost as if you’re doing this for attention! Hmmm……
When I go to sites that are supposed to be hotspots for lolita elitism, I see a lot of girls shitting on one another for wearing cheap brands or not having the latest prints.
Tryhard edgy kawaii humor that fails to be edgy, some sex positive feminism, pastel hair,
I’m not saying that all lolitas are like this, there are some who are genuinely interesting.
I remember going to meets back before lolita started to gain popularity in the west and the reasons that it appealed to me. Brand clothing from Japan was expensive and rare, many girls made their own clothing. Most of the girls that I met were interested in the sort of things that you would expect from someone who wears a fashion that’s reminiscent of Victorian childrens clothes. So, what was it that changed?
>>8962295
you spent more time pissing about online communities and not any time actually hanging out with people with passable social skills?
>>8962286
I don't know about anybody else, man, but I just like the way it looks.
I feel like I've seen this as a copy paste somewhere. If it's not, why did you just type up a blog post on 4chan?
OP, just how new are you?
Nobody got time for your youtube script girl
>>8962295
I think you sort of answered your own question there. Back before lolita was as popular as it is now, it was way less accessible to western consumers. Compared to the early 2000s, its now extremely easy to buy brand, and with sites like lacemarket, even easier to purchase secondhand items at more reasonable prices.
You don't have girls spending hours a day pouring over brand websites, and studying the small stock photos to try and figure out how they could find or make something similar to what brands were selling. Instead, they're memorizing all the latest prints and jumping on board with the latest trend, trying to be the one with the best coord.
I don't think accessibility to brands and their clothing has taken away the creativity behind the style, but I think its made lolita more about trends and who has what rather then enjoying an obscure fashion and trying to make it your own.
>>8962286
> Starting a thread with a pic of Charms, of all people
Eugh...
I like wearing lolita because every time I put it on, I feel like I'm "me" finally. I no longer put on this facade that I have for my normal routine. I always look forward to the weekend because of that.
Sometimes I post pictures of my outfits online because I feel proud of the real "me". I like collecting more dresses because my mood changes. Sometimes a particular dress is more "me" than another one on a particular day.
>>8962286
Wow, this sounds like the rants someone used to go off on at EGL, that chick who lived in Tokyo, hates Bodyline and wore a pancake headdress . Dare I hope she's found her way back? Too funny!
>>8962286
I'm really glad you thought enough to type this all out. It's really meaningful to me because I had insomnia tonight and reading this has helped me so much. Totally sleepy now.
>>8962286
Is it wrong to like wearing clothes just because you think they look nice? I agree with a lot of what you said about the comm, but you don't need a deep reason to wear lolita beyond just liking the aesthetic? I had always been drawn to Victorian fashion and extravagant frilly clothes, so I naturally admired lolita.
>>8962295
Many girls have the same favorite dress because, surprise, limited pool of prints to choose from if you are into new releases of brand.
Idk where these elitism hotspots are, they must be a secret.
There has never been a time in lolita when 'many girls made their own clothing'.
The lifestyle or 'main thing' lolita has always been a myth barring a couple of people and even they blogged about it more than lived it.
>>8962341
So they're just spamming this lmao
Lolita could be more than clothes, but the problem is that it would take effort. People who don't follow the lifestyle don't want to feel like they're any less of a lolita for not following the lifestyle, so they push back whenever lolita starts to get more of a traditional subculture feel. At least, this is what happened in the mid 00's.
>>8962401
>There has never been a time in lolita when 'many girls made their own clothing'.
Uhh. I was on livejournal back in the day and I think they're right, that was definitely a thing. Not only that but what about our frequent handmade threads?
Pretty sure it's still a thing.
>>8962438
Have you seen the FB handmade groups? Barely anyone completes anything, much less anything nice. And were you there for the LJ posts? No more than a handful of girls ever made more than a few main pieces or blouses and it was very rare for anyone to have 4+ things they made outside of accessories.
Many? Never.
I'm a lolita because I don't have kids and enjoy spending my hard earned money on myself.
I also hate normie fashion, the dresses suit my body type, and now that I'm older I'm more comfortable embracing my femininity.
>>8962420
Nah. Almost all of the pushback is thanks to Princess Skye and her followers, who started trying to join egl being "lolita at heart" despite not owning anything lolita, have no intention of actually wearing lolita, and basically started treating lolita like some kind of friends club for special snowflakes. Those of us who lived through that era shudder at the thought of lolita being once again some kind of snowflake magnet for awkward teens (not that it isn't already, but at least it's more obvious when you tell them to get some proper lolita clothes or gtfo).
To understand lolita you have to understand the social climate of japan at the time. Lolita was born in the 80'/90's on the heels of a kawaii revival that had been going since at least the 70's.
To us Kawaii obviously just means 'cute' but to young Japanese at the time cute was a culture and that culture did rebel against the mainstream.
Young Japanese rebelled against the social order which bid them to mature and take their place in society becoming parents/workers and instead chose to spend their time and money on cute culture.
Young women especially were drawn to cute culture as it often meant more time for themselves. Even today there is still an expectation for women in Japan to only continue with education/employment until they are married.
But cute culture and especially lolita allowed women to put this off, to selfishly spend more money on themselves and on clothes boys didn't find appealing ensuring them more time to spend within the culture.
>>8962456
Princess Skye was a Lolita though, right? That 'lolita at heart' crap got debunked pretty fast and became 'wear the clothes, lolita is a fashion first and as far as lifestyle, everything else is secondary and according to taste'. Who listens to the opinion of someone who isn't even wearing the fashion?
>>8962511
That's AFTER her followers discover egl, try to join it, get rebuffed and then baww all over the place about meanie lolitas not being lolita enough to be lolita at heart and lolitas should be luvlies, and every lolita must be their friend because apparently princess portal is all about the lifestyle and not so much the clothes. Repeatedly.
The "debunked pretty fast" is exactly what the pushback is -- anytime "lifestyle lolita" becomes a thing a lolita always has to step in and say very loudly, clearly, and repeated, lolita is always about the clothes first, not the lifestyle.
There's no lack of effort that the other anon mentions, or fear of not being lolita enough. The pushback isn't about that. There's just a lot of annoyance at snowflakes trying to treat the fashion we like as some kind special snowflake club. That is what really happened in the mid 00's.
As for Skye being a lolita, egl never did like Princess Skye much. I know someone on cgl bought the domain and tries to talk up the nostalgia every now and again so the domain they bought is worth something, but if you want the facts, Princess Skye wasn't regarded highly as a lolita either, and I've never heard an oldfag cite her as inspiration.
>>8962544
Really? I remember a thread not too long ago full of oldfags waxing poetic about how much she inspired them and how much they missed her.
>>8962570
Yeah, because the Princess Portal was long ago enough that people who followed her are now technically oldfags. The pre-princess portal people/non-followers who remember that horrible n00b influx of people being all about "how can I bring lolita into every part of my life" despite not owning a single item of remotely lolita clothing are separate from that.
>>8962503
Except we don't live in that specific cultural context so none of what you applies to us or is useful in this conversation.
>>8962345
I miss her so bad
What was her Nick again? She had an animu icon
tell it..
>>8962594
Not the same anon...
The social pressure for women to be mature is not only in Japan, and can be found in different countries, ways and times. I live in a country that is considered very progressive, and what you find is a social pressure to not show off, to be quiet and cool mature independent lady. You must dress in black and wear running shoes all the time, the more practical the best. Dress more and people ask what's the occasion.
>>8962594
By understanding what was, we can view modern/western lolita through a different lens and come to understand what it means NOW and what it will evolve into later.
>>8962326
thank you.. shit.
>>8962586
That influx is why people still get down on the post when someone new mentions lifestyle. Unless you have a closet big enough to wear Lolita daily without wearing your dresses to rags and a lifestyle to support that daily wear, technically it just comes down to "Lolita moments" which there was a thread about. Cute and sweet idea but who in this day and age lives a real princess life? Maybe a handful of people? Few really would even want to. So yea, there is a fair amount of grumpiness when it's mentioned.
>>8962596
I don't remember but I do too. Damn she was salty and her Bodyline rants as post replies were funny as hell!
>>8962602
Clothes, fashion, clothes.
I like turtles.
Get a blog, jeez.
Know thyself. Beauty. Radiance. Transcend or burn.
It's not for everyone.
I wear lolita because I like the general aesthetic and appreciate fashion as an art. I don't wear it everyday, I wear other alt fashions other days.
I don't think life would be much different if I didn't wear lolita fashion. Most people can't tell the difference between my lolita and not-lolita clothing, it all just looks "quirky" to them. At the end of the day, they're just clothes.
The community and lifestyle means nothing to me, honestly. Now, the lolita fashion community is an efame circlejerk that centers on drama and bragging. Trying to revive the old community would be kind of forced and pathetic.
I joined my local comm to go to meetups and hang out with other girls who wear j-fash, but it's totally disappointing how many only wear lolita and only to meets. Lots of people have a good reason why, but it's beside the point. It's the "lolita at heart" shit that's the worst. It seems like there's so many girls that use the clothes as a ticket to get into the comm so they can bitch on btb and get asspats from a captive audience. The local comm page is mostly "here's a photo of me that I also put on CoF and tumblr and IG and /cgl/" or "I just bought this for $600 omg so irresponsible". I still like meets but yeah that part of the community is dead.
That being said, I love /cgl/ because we talk about crafts and makeup and new releases all sorts of fun stuff. I guess if there was ever a kawaii culture I liked, it's the anonymous one where I can give and get honest opinons and talk about more than ourselves.
>>8962648
Woops sorry, stupid phone
>>8962648
YEP, she's the one. What happened to her, I wonder?
>>8962648
yes, it is thatone, and her icon.
The post I found while searching for the name:
>You know that brands like Angelic Pretty have a lot of maid-lolita outfits right? one of their recent Milky Planet headbands even has the word maid in it. There's nothing wrong with a maid-themed Lolita. The brands do it, the lolitas do it. These western-born taboos are so silly. :/
>>8962680
I was kind of on the fence about her until she told me (iirc) that it was more worthwhile for me to buy lolita as an "investment" than to go to university. Until that point I enjoyed seeing her post even though I knew other people disliked her, because she was at least bringing something new to the table and not afraid to speak her mind.
>>8962680
don't forget guys she lives in Japan. She knows all about lolita because she lives in Japan. Japan (where she lives) is the be all and end all of lolita. Did she mention she lives in Japan?
>>8962594
it's very useful in this conversation. People all over the world are still getting into this fashion for the same reasons the original lolitas did. OP seems to think there's only one way to rebel against society and that our spending money on lolita isn't it, when we're all rebelling in our own ways every time we put on a petticoat.
>>8962680
I really liked her, because we got some real discussion on lj.
>>8962695
funny though, it is very common to see posts of Lolitas bragging about their lives in ~*Japan*~, and every post has to be accompanied with a mention to Japan. She was like the epitome of the annoying Lolita
>>8962690
>dresses as investments
The worst mentality to fall into, I never understood this line of thinking, it's not going to happen, if you ever "cash out" you will lose money unless you're ground floor on a blood bath in which you're just scalping.
>>8962290
>Unfortunately, most of these girls couldn’t tell you themselves.
It makes me feel like a beautiful doll. Beautiful frilly, full skirted dresses like I wish I could wear all the time when I was a kid.
>>8962295
They're just defending their brands because most the time, the high quality and effort they put into dress designs is worth the money. Doesn't feel as good to prance in a dress with paper bag material.
>>8962782
same! I used to dream about being able to dress like the girls in story book illustrations and now I can! My mum tells the story of how I once cried in a shoe store because they didn't have the 'victorian' boots I wanted. Now I've got a pair in 3 colours...
>>8962570
Someone on cgl bought the princess portal domain, anon. Do the math.
>>8962614
I like turtles too.
>>8962808
I did the same thing! Though it was over an expensive, high quality Belle costume. Her dress was basically weaved from dreams and fairy dust in the eyes of little-me.
>>8962320
Fucking this.
>>8962286
This is probably a pasta and comes across a bit baity but I'll roll with it just this once.
>Clearly, it’s all about the status. And now you know what lolita is all about!
This is the trouble with online visibility, whilst I would acknowledge that the way people consume lolita fashion and culture appears to have changed, you are not seeing the full picture. This is the same shit argument we see in cosplay threads with claims that 'it's not like it used to be and is full of fame-hungry whores'. Go to an actual convention and the extroverted skimpy costume types are actually a minority, they just tend to have the greatest visibility. The people that reach the top of the pile due to extensive promotion etc to not represent the whole.
Take lolita fashion for instance, there are still plenty of people out there that continue to enjoy the fashion but don't care that much for their online presence, collecting of the latest must have item etc. I wouldn't deny the status element to certain aspects of lolita fashion culture but to claim that it's all that it is seems like a massive oversight. There's a whole bunch of confirmation bias malarkey going on when it comes to these type proposals.
Its just the younger ladies taking ott to the extreme for photoshoots for asspats and online adoration but thats not all there is, see the resurgence of old school for its relative simplicity.
Oldfag here, wear lolita almost everyday. Online all anyone wants to see are ornate elaborate coords so thats the way things have gone... I've got fancy ones with a thousand plus notes, and daily wear with 20 or so. I will still post the daily outfits and I love looking at the fancy creative ones.
>>8962680
>>8962690
I liked __ifwinterends too, even if I didn't agree with her entirely, but that's what made her kind of interesting. For the things I did agree with, she usually made me say, "Yeah, that's not exactly an uncommon opinion but a lot of people wouldn't say that out loud." She was literally the last thing keeping egl an interesting read.
Speaking of her, where is she now? I know she was in Japan and had a Japanese blog or something. I'd love to see her post in Rufflechat.
>>8963121
Oldfag chan
can you orient me in wearing it every day? I am trying to, but I feel like whenever I try to dress more than usual (use bows, frilly blouse), the outfit looks too over the top and I do fell very noticed.
how do you keep it for everyday use? any avice
>not contribooting, sage for derailing, just needed an oldfag
>>8963159
Different anon but just try to keep things simple: Blouses with smaller collars and minimal amount of details, or cutsews worn with skirts; simple JSKs worn with boleros; simple OPs; no special prints - go for solids or simple prints like florals, polkadots, checks, etc.; small petticoats (enough to give the dresses shape but not so big to make you look like you're going to a ball); simple socks or tights; comfortable (but matching!) shoes, etc.
Sage for OT.
Not everyone is out for efame. I fell in love with it a few years ago and I still love it. I was a lone lolita for a long time and even now I don't see my comm all that much. I'm married with a small child now, but I still wear it all the time. I love how it looks and how I feel when I'm wearing my dresses.
>>8962594
Yes we do.
>>8962602
>>8962503
This.
If you dug into old EGL posts, you can find people stating personal and collectively personal reasons why people got into lolita. Such as anon's explanation from a Japanese standpoint to the Western standpoint of (3rd wave) feminism in which they felt that dressing up in an overtly feminine, child-like, and/or "modest" style challenged their culture's expectations for women to be "sexy" and "grown up" looking. Same story, different approaches.
And then you have folks who mostly feel that lolita pretty so they decide to take up on it, rather than have a (pseudo) political stance on it, and that's fine too (personally, it was both for me).
What I've found that if people who wear any kind of outlandish/alt-fashion for attention aren't going to be the kind of people who will contribute to their respective alt-communities nor stick around long.
And so this begs the question, OP, why do you care?
>>8963284
Aw.
I almost fell out of lolita myself. For some reason my area tend to have people who came and went, and I lived too far from my state's main community, and it wasn't as fun dressing up on my own. I realized that after browsing communities and online shops every day when I wasn't wearing it meant that I couldn't give it up so easily because I was technically a lone lolita.
Now there are more people in my area, although mostly younger than I, but I feel better about wearing lolita on my own.
>>8963285
lolita is* pretty
I feel like there's another grammatical error here, like in the section between "why people got into lolita" and "such as".
I didn't get enough sleep.
Here's a polite sage and some FRUiTs era lolitas.
>>8962286
That wig is awful! Imagine how much better she would've looked with her natural hair..
A fashion like lolita naturally attracts loads of attention seekers. It's your loss that's all you pay attention to. There are many posts and even books written about what lolita and kawaii culture means to girls.
>>8962836
She bought the domain AFTER people were talking about Skye. Based on the chick we are talking about I don't think she'd have the foresight to drum up talk about it so she could buy the domain and get hits.
>>8963349
True, but every thread after she bought the domain I now have trouble believing are genuine anymore.
>>8962680
She worked at a maid cafe though, right? So bit biased in more ways than 1. Was she the one who moved back to the states and her boyfriend just sold off all her lolita stuff rather than shipping it to her?
>>8963349
Why would anyone buy that domain unless they were going to revive what it was all about even as a blog? Seems a little silly.
>>8963303
Shit like this comment is what lolita means to /cgl/ that's for sure.
ITS NOT THAT DEEP
T
S
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O
T
T
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A
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D
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E
P
>>8963906
Lolita doesn't have the same meaning it used to in Japan anyway.
tl;dr
>>8962286
You sound like a failed lifestyle blogger in her 2nd semester of psychology major. FFS, to some of us it IS just a fashion and a reason to meet up with our fashion friends and have fun. If you want to make it more for yourself, no one is stopping you. But surely this is not your grand plan to gather like-minded people and cause some kind of sweeping change cause I hate to be the one to break it to you honey, but you are basically just here ragging on a pet peeve topic like every other anon on cgl.
>>8962286
Lol there are popular lolitas who don't wear only rare or "print of the week dresses"
>>8963614
The person who bought it was mellahugbear, she bought it to forward the domain to her own blog after revived interest in it, not to restart it or anything.
>>8963942
what does it mean if you know so much?
>>8964792
It's for sale again so she must have dropped it.
>>8963666
>ITS NOT THAT DEEP
>666
nice try Satan
>>8962286
>because I really care about lolita
Just care enough to post long-winded negative rants on anon but not enough to visibly be working to improve or better or remedy any of the things you complain about.
Sure.
Try-hard edgy commentary that fails to solve anything.
There are still meets and comms where your last paragraph applies but with your post attitude, small wonder you are not invited.
Isn't wearing the clothes because one enjoys it, already a form of rebellion? Is it not enough of a rebellion for OP's standards?
I like this thread if just for the discussion it has started.
OP's opening statement seems to suggest that just wearing the clothes is not enough, and nowadays it's all efame and attention-seekers.
I came into the fashion "late", well into my twenties and without knowing the connections with punk fashion, alternative subcultures of Tokyo, Mana, GLB English translations. My peers who grew up with those have that nostalgia, whereas for me they are interesting bits of history that I learned well after entering the fashion. I feel less attached to those "times"; I see dresses from those eras on secondhand sites and I buy the ones I like and can afford. Is it bad if I grab something that turns out to be a rare and historic piece? Is it a bad thing if it's not?
I post a few outfits on facebook, but limit views to close friends and family. I know a lot of lolitas in the local comm who don't post anywhere online due to having no interest in posting, or having jobs which may be threatened if photos of them in lolita were shown to their employers. (Employers do use Facebook to check out candidates nowadays.)
Also, it's not just lolita fashion and cosplay where there's more visibility -- it's in Western street fashion, too. The people who have time and interest will post. The people who participate in fashion but don't have time or interest in posting, won't post.
looks like op's only source of information is tumblr.
how sad for you, op.
go get some friend.
tl;dr
>>8965258
I don't take room coord posts on groups with an obviously fake name as an indication of someone's involvement in the fashion outside of their room, too seriously. Too much tumblr culture for it to be believable. I've also met a few big talking lolitas online who turned out to be meek mice in person, and most of the tumblr SJW culture is like that so regarding this thread, how much of either side, the side with history or the came late side just online culture, period?
It also makes me kind of laugh to see people get so furious with 'those tumblr SJW, they must not have met many of them in real life or they'd know most of them are mumbling socially awkward teens or very stunted twenty-somethings who couldn't start a riot on a bet.
So much of Lolita now IS online culture and with anon here, I'm never sure if half the people here even wear the fashion, have been to a meet, belong to a comm or even have a real life circle of Lolita friends, often it seems not. So I come and go here, cgl never holds my interest long.
>>8962345
I miss her craziness so much.
>that time she insulted specific employees at specific brand stores, calling them fat and/or ugly and not "suited" for lolita (but apparently her horseface was) all the while posting under an account linked to her Japanese blog which had her face posted
>also said that most Japanese girls who wear lolita are ugly (again, she looks horrid, so it's just confusing to insult other people)
>that time she told people not to buy from a professional seamstress she never purchased from nor knew about because....??? (granted that seamstress did provide meh service later on to at least one person, but she was still butt-talking)
>that time whined about being posted on getoffegl and ended by saying that if she were a bitch she'd write her reply in Japanese and then come back in a few days to laugh as everyone tried to figure out what she said, because she's the only person into lolita who understands Japanese
>>8962343
I feel the same way. I'm extremely fascinated with history and wearing historically inspired clothing makes me feel like my real self. I don't care for a lot of modern clothing trends and most of it seems ugly and too revealing to me. Sometimes I'll wear lolita just to sit at home. I don't need to be seen, I just like feeling like I'm living in a different time.
I've seen and read things about lolita being a form of escapism and in a way it is that for me. I can escape from my daily struggles and live in my little Victorian princess bubble.
