Monday, June 27, 2011

What is Lolita?



This is one thing many people wonder when they first hear about Lolita. [Also called 'Loli' for short sometimes] In the words of the interesting Lolita site http://www.lolitafashion.org/ Lolita is the following:



Lolita is a Japanese street fashion inspired promarily by the clothing and general aesthetics of Rococo and Victorian periods. This fashion movement started in Japan in this 1980's and has evolved greatly since. Nowadays Lolita Fashion has grown to be relatively popular all over the world. Relatively popular for an obscure Japanese street fashion, that is.



While it is true that most fashions are open to various interpretations, the term Lolita is used exclusively to describe a very specific [one could say narrow] look that is created by abiding by a number of strict guidelines and principles. The "rules" of Lolita fashion don't exist to limit the wearer but are rather qualifers of what makes an outfit Lolita. With there rules however there are a variety of styles.



Gothis Lolita is probably the style associated most with Lolita fashion outside of Japan. Lolita fashion is often referred to as Goth Loli and EGL. While Goth Loli can be a correct term it only applies to the specific Gothis subset and not Lolita fashion as a whole. However EGL is an abbreviation of the term Elegant Gothic Lolita, which was coined by the Japanese musician Mana to describe his specific Lolita clothing line.



The term "Lolita" may be off-putting to those who first hear about the fashion because of the connotation it holds from Vladimir Nabokov's novel, "Lolita", which changed the meaning of the name for most people in the Western world. It is generally assumed though that the name of the fashion comes from a distortion of the meaning while word-borrowing from English. In the case of the fashion the term "Lolita" only refers to the child-like nature of some of the clothes and is also used because of the beauty or cuteness of the name. Lolita fashion is emphatically not about looking sexy and is instead about looking cute or elegant.



In addition to being a fashion, some people enjoy living a "Lolita Lifestyle" in which one sees Lolita as more of a philosophy of living beautifully rather than just dressing it. Someone living a Lolita Lifestyle may try and live like a princess, surrounding themselves with things of beauty, and taking part in a number of 'proper' feminine activites such as baking, embroidery, sewing and other old-fashioned "women's" activites.



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That is a very good description of Lolita. Personally I find the side mentioned above seems very informational. Not only do I suggest that anyone reading this looks at the sight but I will also be using more passages from it to describe things in detail better than I could on my own.


Your Lord[ess] and Master,

Alice

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