Nothing in this world is perfect and neither is loita fashion. Obviously, for so many of us to
stick with it, there have to be some good things too! Today’s Lolita Blog
Carnival prompt asks about one aspect of this fashion that we like and one we
dislike.
Some of these are so common that they border on clichés. “I
like how it makes me feel like a princess” or “I dislike normie people asking
dumb questions”, this is almost a given if you’ve worn lolita for a while. Therefore,
for the sake of keeping this post from using the same old things, I have tried
to think of a less common thing that I enjoy and not enjoy about lolita
fashion.
And so as to end on a high, I will start off by the thing
that I dislike, which is how lolita fashion can sometimes make you feel shit
about yourself, particularly your body image. A lot of that is in big part due to the general way social media
works, but also as I’ve been reading Saxon Blues’ Chronicles of a Black Lolita series,
I realised how this can go deeper than just pressure for perfection from
social media. On an individual level if you’re over certain body measurements
(in part), you will find a
whole chunk of dresses becomes inaccessible to you due to lack of shirring
and/or size/length variations. That’s just a fact of life in this fashion. So if you’re
unlucky enough to have fallen in love with a particular design that is clearly
too small for you and can’t alter it (for whatever reason), on a bad day it can
make you feel terrible about your own body. A more resilient person would be able to
brush it off sooner or later, however, this can trigger further bad things for
those who aren’t so strong or whose resilience is compromised. And then you
look at the grand picture of lolita fashion and *really* look at things like
representation, which is what Saxon Blues mentioned. I am white, so I can only
attempt to imagine how alienating it must feel to look for resources about this
cool style you just discovered and only be met with people who look nothing like
me. And then potentially have the misfortune of interacting with a douchebag in
the online community who would actively tell you that you shouldn’t wear this
style or be racially offensive towards you. The fashion itself is not
inherently exclusive, it’s the people within it who can make it (appear) so,
whether by being racists or by producing garments in only one inflexible size.
However, the emotional effects of that can be pretty hard on some members of
our community (again, for a whole variety of reasons). And that’s something I
don’t enjoy about lolita fashion.
 |
| The road to self-acceptance is hard as is. If you struggle with things already, lolita fashion can make you feel worse about yourself, if you've not yet developed enough resilience to cope with this. |
Luckily, this fashion isn’t all doom and gloom. Like I said
at the beginning, it has to have some very strong good points about it for it
to continue and continue growing in popularity. For me one of the (many) aspects
I enjoy about it is how lolita fashion is a gateway to exploring the world and
learning more. In an attempt to try new things, many lolita comms will have had
a museum or an art gallery meet. Some of these I might have never visited
myself, thus missing out on something great. On a larger scale, lolita events
are an excuse to travel places I maybe wouldn’t have otherwise visited, be it
within my own country or abroad. And taking that even further, the friendships
we forge through the community, locally, during events or online, can also be
catalysts to going somewhere new and learning something you didn’t know before –
because suddenly you already have a friend there and it’s less scary to make
the trip. Or, going back to small scale, even things as little as trying out a
new dish during a typical ‘let’s go eat’ meet or learning something from a
person you met at the meet/online. The pursuit of social activities and finer
things, that wearing lolita fashion inspires many of us to engage in, is a
catalyst to growing as a person, discovering new things and gaining new
experiences. True, some of us likely would’ve experienced these
regardless of the fashion – but equally many wouldn’t have. Or they would, but
those experiences would look vastly different. It’s incredible to think how
many interesting things I’ve done, seen and tried purely because I wear this
niche fashion from Japan and decided to interact with other people who also
wear it. While I’m sure that many other hobbies achieve similar goals – for example,
going to sci-fi cons kind of exposed me to similar degree of meeting new
people/travelling to new places/trying new things – yet somehow it feels even
more special when that hobby is as passive an activity as wearing clothes.
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| Dublin's been on my 'to go' list for forever, but since it's 'just next door' it kept being postponed. Up until Myths of Our Own last year. And through this and other events I've met and grown close to a lot of wonderful people. This picture is still my phone's screensaver, it's that dear to my heart. |
I could’ve picked some less deep things – like enjoying
being able to have a social life regardless of where I live and not liking
handwashing my more delicate pieces. Well, since it’s the Lolita Blog Carnival
Prompt I felt that if I try to do something outside the box, it won’t feel
repetitive if another blogger also dislikes handwashing and loves the
community. Still, make sure to check out what they have written for this prompt
– maybe someone else has thought about this topic in as much depth as I have,
or maybe even more!
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