Under the influence

 Last week I launched my About Lolita page on this blog. It took me about two weeks to do the research for it, but I'm still working on more concerning the topic. It was hard not to include the Western history of the fashion because it's also very interesting. A lot of it was really new to me as I mainly follow Japanese content creators on X and Instagram. So going through the Lolita Handbook on LiveJournal was actually insane. It's very clear that this is written by people who love the fashion but don't quite understand it. Yes, to me that's very sad but at least they conveyed their love for it by writing this handbook so I do respect that dedication. I do not respect that they claim you can't wear a certain accessory when going for a specific style, but I somewhere do understand where they were coming from: The EGL Community was created around the turn of the millenium by Americans. It is very clear from the very first post on the LiveJournal community that this fashion attracts a lot of people who are big fans of Japanese cartoons and comic books (I'm refusing to use certain words here on purpose). Unfortunately this is where the issue starts: most people documenting things on Lolita in the 00s were looking at it through specific spectacles. Because of the connotations of a lot of Japanese cartoon and comic book fans not being the most aesthetically conscious people the Lolita Handbook was a must. And now I do understand why they felt like they had to make it very clear what could and could not work when coordinating a Lolita outfit.

Screenshot from Lolita Handbook on do's and don'ts (2006)

The EGL Community on LiveJournal was created on December 29th 2001. The first post is from January 1st 2000 so I don't know how this can work, but let's just say there was a community already but it really got established at the end of 2001. Unfortunately my inner historian was not satisfied with this so I did some research. Apparently you can convert an already existing journal into a community so I assume that's what Tyler AKA sakurafairy did back in 2000. If anyone knows how it happened or you're Tyler sakurafairy please tell me. So this community was there for people to discuss the fashion and meet other people that enjoyed it. It mainly started out by posting links to eBay shops that sold Lolita(-ish) clothing and shoes. A lot of these links don't work anymore so we can't know for certain what these people were actually window-shopping around for. I use the term window-shopping because that's what most of them mostly did back then. They'd look at pretty clothes on Japanese sites but realized they wouldn't be able to buy any of it because they didn't ship overseas until mid-2003 with Métamorphose Temps de Fille being the first in doing so. 

Screenshot from The Lolita Shoe Survival Guide by pezzazz (2007)

The community was built upon a sense of yearning. Because you could only wear the fashion back then by either going to Japan or making it yourself. There was another group that opted for thrifting Gunne Sax dresses from the 80s because those came pretty close to the silhouette if you can see past the bold shoulders; nothing a bit of sewing couldn't fix. This yearning caused people frequenting this community to adore people who had some brand pieces. This is why when the monthly theme of January 2011 was so popular: wardrobe. This theme was extremely popular because it gave people a look into what pieces other members were able to gather. Another reason is that these pictures were sometimes better than those on the brand's websites or on the magazine scans. Some of the first ones still survived but others got lost to time. You can tell these were really popular because it allowed for shameless bragging. That month 559 posts were made with 96 of them being wardrobe post. Wardrobe posts still get done by a lot of people in the Western community but I don't really see the why you still would. They're only focused on Lolita specific brands so for someone like me who has a lot of pieces from non-Lolita brands it doesn't really work. If you want to keep track of what items from Lolita fashion brands you have you can just go to Lolibrary and use the closet function. 

Screenshot from The EGL Community with 23 Wardrobe posts on January 31st 2016

One thing this community was very useful for was for meeting other people. There were frequent posts on entering a mailing list for Lolita events in your area. These people would try and organize tea parties in big cities like Vancouver, New York City and San Francisco. The only other places you could meet other Lolita fashion enjoyers was at specific conventions. So for people that have no interest in these conventions mailing lists were a godsent (I hate being asked what character I'm cosplaying). In 2005 kittyhot posted her idea to all go out wearing the fashion on a particular day so people could go "wtf was with all those weird costumes yesterday..." She suggested the community to host a National Gothloli Day, which became a hit. To this day the Western community celebrates International Lolita Day on the first Saturday of June and December. You can find posts online under the hashtag #ILD2023 (if you're reading this in 2024 or later just change the year in the hashtag). I personally don't really participate in this holiday because I wear the fashion everyday. For me or other people who aren't aware of the Western community's traditions it's just a day like any other. 

Screenshot from NYC Lolita events mailing list and site by oshidori (2005)

Something else I thought was an interesting read was a post discussing whether Lolita is a subculture or just a fashion style. This shows yet another set of spectacles were blinding the contributors: the Western gaze. The people commenting only focus on how most Western subcultures are music based (to the poster's chagrin). They claim that there's nothing else connecting us than the clothes we wear. To that I say: "Isn't that beautiful?" Lolita is a purely fashion based subculture of which there aren't many left these days. We even have our own language that might come off as cant or some secret language to supposed outsiders as we mainly use the Japanese abbreviations for certain garments. These have also been featured on my own blog whenever I do a coord rundown. It saddens me when people claim "it's just clothes" because to me fashion is a way of self-expression. And isn't that what music is as well; a way for the artists to express themselves? So please, next time someone asks you about what you're wearing give them a proper response and say it's Lolita fashion.

Thank you, and take care.