Ageing through EGL

It is always satisfying when the Bibliotheca bloggers pick your prompt suggestion. Because yes, I have suggested age/ageing – I increase my age stat in January and am very vocal about ageing, partly to grow comfortable with it myself and partly because I already am quite comfortable with it. But that’s not quite the direction that I wanted my contribution to the Bibliotheca post to go.

Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels.com.

When I was relatively young, a daft piece of information with no scientific backing to it that I’d read in either a teen or a women’s magazine stuck with me: that our style changes every 7 years. Now I understand that the number is arbitrary and the point is to allow yourself to grow in whatever direction feels right for you at the time, nonetheless the number stuck with me. Sure enough, how I dressed at 7 differed from 14 which differed from 21, which differed from 28… I’m excited to see how, if at all, it will differ at 35 (not quite there yet, but it is aspirational).

Some of these are the closest that I could find of me at those ages, but it's close enough. Fringed Paulina from the late 2000s was so of her time.

Those younger ages especially reflect more of your typical growth into an independent human being, which in itself is an interesting journey to ponder on a personal level. But by 28 I was very firmly into lolita fashion, even though I had started dipping my toes into it by 21. And between those two stages (as well as now) my relationship with this fashion continues to change. Not just in terms of how I view it or what I wear, but also why I wear certain things or why I wear them in certain ways. These changes are a reflection of other things affecting me at the given time, who I was as a person and what sort of internal conflicts I may have been going through. And that is the sort of timeline that I’d like to explore a little bit more here.

Because unlike many 18/19-year-old lolitas who are new to the whole world of EGL now, in the 2020s, I didn’t jump into it quite so intentionally or with quite as much of a hyperfocus. At the time, whilst the desire to present myself in more feminine ways was bubbling up to the surface, my confidence in being perceived was barely beginning to crawl. It was easy enough to throw on my Bodyline polka dot JSK for a night out at burlesque, but it was having that event as a ready-made excuse at my disposal that made me take the step and enjoy an evening of some compliments and attention. Back then, I definitely would’ve joined the chorus of voices asking ‘How do I just go out in lolita as if it’s nothing, I don’t want to be perceived, I want to be left alone” that we continue to see to this day. A far cry from how I act now, though even today, on my worse days, I sometimes take the easier route of just changing my clothes. It’s hard to not sympathise with the teens, still with a school mindset applied to the whole world, which fuels their anxiety of being judged at every step.

I also know that that’s how I would’ve been because that was still how I was at times at 24, when my interest in lolita fashion became a lot more sincere and focused on the fashion itself. It was easier to dress up with friends in Japan because as young women of other ethnicities, we stood out anyway. But I still remember that first time that I went out in frills not to a meetup (although braving public transport was still something), but for afternoon tea with just my Mum in the city we lived in. Trying to retain anonymity from potential students was only half truth – I was scared of being seen and recognised by anyone who knew me and might’ve seen me. I was scared of having to explain my ‘weird lil’ hobby’ and of the judgement that it’d bring, and the awkwardness of simply being nerdy amongst normies (though at least it’s easier to tell people that I play video games than to explain such a loud fashion, no least because the fashion isn’t being contained to one’s home). Lolita fashion back then was my escape, but also growing as a special interest given how deeply I dove then into all the stuff that I could find online. In the privacy of my room I spent hours on YouTube videos and blog posts. Outside of it, I still relied on the safety of a group and an excuse to actually make it outside.

The later stages are harder to pinpoint exactly in time. The exposure I received at meetups gradually transferred outside of them and I wore lolita more openly and without a need for an excuse. Sure, having a supportive immediate environment (family, partner, friends) helped, but alone they weren’t enough to make me brave the general public. By 27, when I finally moved out to live on my own, I was already confident enough to dress up and go places by myself, encouraged by big city living compared to the backwater city that I was in previously. (It also helped that moving out meant not having to navigate caring for my burando and living with smokers.) But the more notable change during that time wasn’t so much the confidence, but how my general sense of identity has shifted. I ditched wearing trousers altogether sometime around 2017. I embraced my femininity and expressed it through clothing. Whilst I still do not particularly wish to be perceived, gone was the 18-year-old who was terrified of expressing herself authentically and in came a woman in her mid-to-late-20s who found joy and freedom in wearing her personality not just on her sleeve, but as a sleeve (preferably a big fancy one). It took years to get to that point not necessarily because it was difficult, but because I got there at my own pace, with little steps rather than big plunges into the deep.

Looking through my photos, it seems that by late 2018 I was already bold enough to just go out for nothing in particular dressed like an occasion. It seems earlier than I thought, but I guess not by much.

And without meaning to skip the lockdown years entirely, my ageing through EGL hadn’t hit another point until the pandemic was semi-officially over and I hit 30. The age itself hasn’t had anything to do with it. I do not subscribe to the notion that you should stop being a fun human with individual personality just because you’re no longer young, that shit is toxic and all the ‘Meet This Quirky Old Lady’ articles on Vice, Glamour and what not had to start somewhere, so why not speed the process up. The age, in this case, is entirely coincidental since no-one chooses when they’re born. Staying at home allowed me to explore some big ideas, as well as explore a lot of them in a relatively compressed space of time – between 2020 and 2021 I have worn lolita more than in the previous years combined (or that’s how it feels, I can’t be bothered to actually count). Lolita fashion was my primary hobby, one that I engaged with at almost every opportunity, and as such it wove itself into the fabric of my identity. 

And now, at times, it feels like that weave is loosening.

I’m certainly not considering leaving the fashion anytime soon and don’t consider myself anything less of a lolita because I’ve gone from 150 coords a year to 100 or even fewer (we’ll see what 2025 is like). Yet at times, especially recently, I do feel like my stars may have shined very bright for a bit too long and the fatigue is catching up with me. Whilst I’m grateful to not be like one of those people without any hobbies whatsoever, having multiple time consuming hobbies is also a never-ending juggling act of trying to keep yourself happy. Now, having explored so much of the EGL world: done a lot of coords, attended multiple international events, hosted multiple meetups big and small, blogged and vlogged, created an updated version of the Lolita Level Up Quiz (which probably needs updating again, but someone else take that on), coordinated an actual fashion show… Now feels like the right time to take a step back from that, dial down the intensity, and allow myself to indulge in other hobbies of mine. I am neither a newbie soaking up all the knowledge nor that intermediate lolita who needed to prove herself. Having explored my coording creativity so intensively, there is a level of contentment with being able to just wear the clothes, even if it sometimes requires putting duct tape over the mouth of my inner critic. And with contentment with limiting my engagement with EGL to make space for these other hobbies comes acceptance that my style is shifting once more.

The goals I set myself for 2025 are so clear in prioritising comfort and rest that I don’t need to repeat myself. What I wear or gravitate towards on a day-to-day basis reflects that: my extended wardrobe has grown in pieces from Son de Flor and I’m gradually making my way through replacing normie clothes that aren’t a comfortable fit. My work from home coords are getting lazier/simpler with each one and I’m finding myself putting off the more complex ideas for meetups or filming or theatre or moments of more energy instead of doing the pandemic thing of getting ready over the course of an entire morning. If things continue like this, then I imagine that by 35 my style will transform into something a lot more classic and simple, with more pieces from brands like Physical Drop and Violet Fane, eventually dropping some of my printed JSKs in favour of skirts. Maybe my Instagram outfits backlog will ease because I won’t be wearing frills as often or documenting the other outfits as much to fill in the gap. There is no way of telling what my life will be like at 35, but I am hoping for a degree of stability and security that would make slowing down not an indulgence from having to do it all myself, but a conscious and consistent choice that’s honouring the values that I hold. It could be wishful thinking or it could be a moment of a total lack of self-awareness. We’ll find out.

The highly professional mirror selfie from the day of my 33rd birthday. This is what I look like for a big chunk of the time - and I am pretty happy with that.

One thing that is certain, at least for now, is that my ageing through this fashion is not going to be isolated. There are already so many people in this fashion in their 40s and 50s because it resonates with them on a personal level. Right now I struggle to imagine not joining their ranks. Despite the near constant influx of new lolitas, most of whom are in their teens and early 20s, the millennial contingent remains a steadfast foundation of our communities and we plan on sticking around some more. We may just happen to be a little bit less intense in how we talk about this fashion and the community than our enthusiastic, overly energetic younger counterparts.