Lolita and Japanese Society

by Nessa Neko

On a Sunday afternoon in Harajuku, Tokyo, one is likely to spot a girl or two who stands out a little incongruously among the crowd of brightly-dressed youths. While her peers are wearing jeans, miniskirts and even colourful printed yukata (traditional cotton kimono worn in summer), she's more likely to be wearing a dress you would expect to see in a Victorian fashion plate – lacy and black, or perhaps a pastel pink, combined with petticoats, platform Mary Jane shoes and a bow in her hair. What is this fashion or subculture, and how does it reflect Japanese society and culture? Will it evolve in the future, or is it a static snapshot of twenty-first century youth rebellion? And how does it compare to the more well-known Western Goth subculture? This essay will cover these aspects in explaining the Gothic and Lolita phenomenon and those who are drawn to it.

Lolita began in Harajuku, Tokyo in the 1980s when Omotesando and Takeshita-dori, streets in the Harajuku district, were closed to traffic on Sundays. This closure allowed youths to gather in Yoyogi Park and the surrounding streets to listen to rock music performances, shop and simply spend time among other young people. Youths and street performers started appearing in wild, unconventional outfits which gradually developed into recognisable styles such as lolita, gyaru or kogal, decora and ganguro. These styles were catalogued by a street photographer, Shoichi Aoki, in his magazines STREET, started in 1985, and FRUiTS, started in 1997. Photographs from FRUiTS have now been released as a compilation in a book of the same title and toured both Australia and New Zealand as a photography exhibition, allowing Westerners a glimpse of this “grass roots” Japanese street fashion movement.

Lolita fashion was popularised with the establishment of brands such as Baby, The Stars Shine Bright in 1988 and Manifesteange Metamorphose Temps de Fille in 1993. Other brands include Angelic Pretty, Innocent World and Mary Magdalene. While most brands cater to the Japanese market, the advent of Western interest in the lolita subculture has meant that some brands have begun selling to Northern American and other Western countries; some brands such as Metamorphose have developed English-language websites to cater to this interest. Primarily, however, brands still aim their clothing at Japanese girls in their teens to mid-twenties.

Stylistic influences for lolita fashion spring from a variety of eras, the most easily recognisable being the Victorian era. The fashion is more akin to children's clothes from this era than adults'; skirts generally fall around knee-length rather than the full floor-length gowns, and the exaggerated wasp-waist corsets are not often worn. Influences are also taken from other eras such as the 1950s and the French Rococo style, but while lolita has a historical look and feel, it is not from any particular period and tends to blend multiple historical looks together for its own individual and recognisable lolita style.

The lolita style has since developed into multiple sub-genres, the most notable being gothic lolita (known in Japan as gosurori, a contraction of the phrase 'gothic lolita'). Where traditional lolitas wear pastel colours, embroidered cotton prints and lace, and sometimes carry toys such as porcelain dolls or teddy-bears, the gothic lolita is more likely to wear black lace, monotone black, grey or white dresses, and crosses or crucifixes in a style more akin to Western Goth. However, the main emphasis is still on Victorian styling; it “combines aspects of a Victorian girl's attire with a dark gothic mood.” This style has been popularised by Japanese visual rock bands such as Dir En Grey and Malice Mizer; Mana, the leader of Malice Mizer, has established his own store named Moi-meme-moitie, which sells a distinct style known as Elegant Gothic Lolita. Other styles include punk, sweet (with even more pink, baby blue or white and a surfeit of lace) and classic. Some followers of the fashion choose to combine lolita with other popular street fashions, leading to hybrid styles such as cyber-lolita or wa-lolita, where a traditional Japanese aesthetic reflected in the kimono-style garment is combined with the bell-shaped skirt and headdress worn by lolitas, but the most popular styles remain sweet, classic and gothic.

While the style could easily be confused with a sexual fetish, due to its namesake the novel 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov, the lolita subculture emphasises modesty and youthfulness, as well as drawing from the Japanese kawaii or 'cute' aesthetic, and is not considered overtly sexual by its followers. Most Japanese lolitas are not even aware of the original source from which the fashion's name was drawn, although the 'Gothic & Lolita Bible,' a popular magazine for those interested in the culture of lolita, encourages the reading of that novel. One of the more unusual aspects of modern-day Japanese society, at least to Western eyes, is the prevalence and even acceptance of the 'Lolita complex' or lolicon, where middle-aged men are attracted to young girls and often seek out pornographic manga (comic books) which is readily available at bookstores and train station kiosks. While there are hints of the 'Lolita complex' evident in lolita fashion, the young women who adopt and wear lolita are not catering to middle aged men's pornographic fetishes, but to their own desires to be 'cute' and non-sexual. In fact, some lolitas state that one of the attractions to the lolita subculture is the lack of sexualisation in the fashion. In a society where the rise of “sexy beauty” has resulted in clothing such as miniskirts and shirts which emphasise the breasts, as well as breast enhancement and other cosmetic surgeries, lolita is seen as a reversion to demure clothing which allows women to dress for themselves, rather than for the attention of men.

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