Gothic & Lolita Fashion
A Foreword on Gothic and Lolita Styles
Although various brands have been creating lolita clothes since the mid to late 1980's, the style did not become officially recognized until the early 1990's. It was in the late 1990s that it became a full blown trend in Japan. By 2000, lolita became a part of the Western fashion world's vocabulary with brands launching websites and the Gothic & Lolita Bible starting its publication in early 2001.
Like most popular trends, lolita was able to reach a massive audience through celebrity endorsements. Mana, former frontman of Malice Mizer and current frontmant of Moi Dix Mois wholeheartedly embraced the idea and created two subtypes of styles; Elegant Gothic Lolita and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat (a Japanese gothic style related to lolita) which he sold with his own brand, Moi-même-Moitié. Countless other Japanese rock bands followed Mana's trend in donning female lolita clothing, while Plastic Tree frontmant Ryutaro Arimura wore a more masculine interpretation he called kodona. An actually female celebrity who modeled for the GLB and wore some lolita styled visual kei was Kana.
Lolita style is a modern take on older fashion styles namely 18th century Rococo and various 19th century ones especially Victorian. It is a style pioneered by the brands Baby, the Stars Shine Bright ('Baby), Metamorphose Temps de Fille('Meta), and Angelic Pretty (AP). Like the Victorian era it draws much of its inspiration from, the style is about looking prim, proper, and modest.
For some people, lolita is a way of life. Nobara Takemoto created the iconic Shimotsuma Monogatari novel about a girl named Momoko Ryugasaki who dresses only in sweet (a substyle) lolita fashion and is nostalgic for the romanticized Rococo period in France. Nobara too is like his character in that he pretends he is still living in the Rococo time and feels like he has more in common with a young French maiden than his true identity of a middle aged Japanese man. When lolita was heard of internationally, Westerners wanted to inject Rococo and Victorian beliefs into it and live the same way as Momoko and Nobara. To a majority of young female Japanese lolitas, it is a fashion style and stops there.
This study will cover lolita from its conception to its modern existence and also touch on the fashion styles that contributed to it, its different substyles, the related styles like Elegant Gothic Aristocrat, lifestyle features, and the latest news.