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 is, in all likelihood, very similar to many of yours! Ultimately it was my pre-existing hobbies that lead me to the discovery. I have always had an weakness for anything cute, historical and fantasy related so most my time and energy revolved around hobbies that fueled these interests.
Due to this it was only a matter of time that I would eventually stumble across Lolita style.
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 just finished an episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. 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, particularly their character's clothes and accessories.
My adoration first began with Cardcaptor Sakura. I absolutely 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 and represent all the feminine details of her clothes. My particularly favorite costumes involved soft pastels, frills, lace and ribbons. Sound familiar?
After the Cardcaptor Sakura episode ended I began to do some cosplay research. I wanted to price a few of Sakura's adorable costumes to see if she would be a possible cosplay option for my local anime convention. While browsing possible cosplay costumes on anime forums another post caught my eye. It 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 represented 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 accessories like laced gloves and, most importantly, a full skirt with a thick layer of frills!
After more hours of detective work I found a fashion thread that explained the "costumes" I saw were actually part of a street fashion called Lolita. Over the next few weeks I slowly 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 elaborate fashion style was an extreme deterrent so, while I did not wear the fashion, I spent a lot of time learning about it. The more I learned, the more and more I wanted to wear and collect Lolita themed items!
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 absolutely captivated by the fact these beautiful pieces of art were things people actually wore! The ability to full my life with something so incredibly gorgeous was a welcomed experience, even if at the time I did not own or wear it myself. I could not believe my luck! 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, it was a huge piece of what drew me to the style! Anime introduced me to the fashion. Anime made me open to an alternate fashion. Anime helped me find an online and in person Lolita community through previously 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, but I am certain I have made my point. Thank-you 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!
Stay frilly ~
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