How I Discovered Lolita Fashion
Who doesn't like a good origin story?
It's time for another topic from the Lolita challenge! This week I will share of how I discovered lolita fashion.
The story of how I uncovered lolita probably similar to many of yours! It was my pre-existing hobbies that lead me to the discovery. I have always had a weakness for anything cute, historical and fantasy related. Most of my time and energy revolved around hobbies that fueled these interests.
Due to this, it was only a matter of time that I would stumble across lolita style.
Once Upon a Time...
For those of you who do not know, I enjoy anime. I have been a serious magical girl since my middle school years. In 2007 and I had finished an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. The talented women of CLAMP are my favorite manga artists. I love their art styles, their characters and the worlds they create. CLAMP's illustrations always cause me to take pause and appreciate the intricacies of their work. This is especially so with their character's clothes and accessories.
My love for style began with Cardcaptor Sakura. I loved all of Sakura's costume. Unlike my first magical girl love Sailor Moon, who's outfit only changed slightly every season, Sakura had multiple costumes for her card capturing adventures! Each costume was more beautiful than the next. Clamp went out of their way to illustrate the feminine details of her clothes. My particularly favorite costumes involved soft pastels, frills, lace, and ribbons. Does this sound familiar?
I was hopeful that Sakura would be a possible cosplay option for my local anime convention. While browsing possible cosplay costumes on anime forums another post caught my eye. The results looked a lot like what Sakura would wear, but for the life of me I could not figure out what series or character the outfit belonged to!
These unknown costumes had the same elements for sure! The blouse was full and had accents of lace and ribbons and was layered under a sleeveless pastel dress. There were cute rounded shoes, knee-high socks, cute laced gloves and, most importantly, a full skirt with a thick layer of frills!
Down the Rabbit Hole
After hours of detective work, I found a fashion thread that explained the "costumes" I came across were actually part of a street fashion called lolita. Over the next few weeks, I pieced together the lolita puzzle. I found EGL on LiveJournal and learned more about the Japanese fashion brands. At the time, the money required to fund this fashion style was a deterrent. While I did not wear the fashion, I spent a lot of time learning about it. The more I learned, the more I wanted to wear it! Lolita fit perfectly with my love of beautiful things. The unique style was a welcomed site, as being ordinary has never been a priority. I was positively captivated by the fact these beautiful pieces of art things people actually wore!
The ability to full my life with something so gorgeous was a welcomed experience, even if at the time I did not own or wear it myself. Who would have thought an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura would lead to this life-changing discovery?
As much as anime gets a bad reputation in the lolita community, anime and manga was a huge piece of what drew me to the fashion style! Anime introduced me to this fashion. Anime made me open to an alternate fashion. Anime helped me find an online and in-person lolita community through established skills. Anime made me familiar with the graphic novel section of the bookstore, and thus my discovery of the Gothic Lolita Bible occurred! There are countless more examples I could give, but I am certain I have made my point. Thanks so much, CLAMP!
That is the story of how I discovered lolita! I am so glad I did.
How did you get introduced to the fashion? I would love to read your answers below!