ロリータ！ Harajuku ! Only in Japan!

Have you ever seen a ladies dress in mid-list couture baby – doll dresses end in a sea of ruffles just above the knees, with frills, loads of accessories and large ribbons on the fashionable streets of Japan?

If the answer is yes, you met a Lolita girls!

Last week we were in Shibuya with Gyaru, this week we're in Harujuku! For those whom were turned off by Gyaru fashion, Lolita might be more up your ally as it's much more elegant with parasols, umbrellas, headdresses and stockings. There's definitely a lot to love about Lolita fashion!

Met my beautiful colourful Harajuku friend Sebone-chan in town today.
We're both wearing #listenflavor pic.twitter.com/OSL5F0f9JO

— Cathy Cat ☆　カティーキャット (@DoitCosplaygirl) September 9, 2016

Lolita fashion quietly originated in the 70’s with a few Japanese labels, but it wasn’t till the 90’s that the fashion married urban street fashion and hit the streets of Shibuya. “Lolita” is slang for a sexual precocious pre-teen in Japan. The term goes all the way back to Lolita (1955), the controversial novel written by Vladimir Nabokov about a middle-aged professors obsession with a 12 year old girl. It's also a less popular film by Stanley Kubrick (1962) as well as the title of some 1990s songs. The term also has some other negative meanings (eg Lolita complex), but in this sense, it's this very interesting style of fashion. It was quietly burgeoned over the years into an enormous fashion industry, with famous brand names such as Angelic Pretty and Baby, The Stars Shine Brights, etc. which were selling for hundreds of dollars.

How to dress as a Lolita? This fashion has a complex nature, and there are rules as to what can be called Lolita. Outfit and accessory choices range from subtle to extreme, and other aesthetics can be thrown in and made to work with the basics of the style, as long as it sticks to being (mostly) cute and feminine:

1. Elegant Gothic Lolita or simply "Gothic Lolita": it fuses Gothic and Lolita together: puffy, pimped-out dresses, loads of accessories, ribbons, mostly black, plenty of crosses, religious motifs, veils and vampire overtones. The hair may be dyed and in Ojou Ringlets, though, as with Goth, any hairstyles in black are pretty common

2. Sweet Lolita: also called "Ama Lolita" or "AmaLoli", characterized by brighter, more colorful aesthetics, focusing more on the cute than elegant. Fairy Tale themes are very common; sweets, pastries, toys, flowers, fruits and cute animals are commonly used themes as well. Coordinates tend to be colorful and highly intricate, and bright colors such as pink, pastel yellow, white, sax blue, pale yellow, lavender and red have become the norm

3. Classic Lolita: The style is between the Gothic and Sweet styles, with more emphasis on creating a natural-looking appearance: it is Darker and Edgier (though usually just more mature and elegant) than Sweet Lolita, but Lighter and Softer than Gothic Lolita

4. Gothic, Sweet, and Classic are the most commonly worn and well-known styles. There are many other defined styles which are really not popular, such as:

• Punk Lolita
• Shiro Lolita
• Kuro Lolita
• Hime Lolita
• Wa Lolita
• Ero Lolita
• Guro Lolita
• Sailor Lolita
• Casual Lolita
• Ouji/Boystyle

The Lolita subculture has always been a female-dominated scene, but in recent years, crossovers with the Visual Kei scene has made it fairly popular among men as well, with a few male artists and fans (known as Brolitas) adopting the style. Something tells me these brolitas will be a lot more tame than Jersey Shore bros!

Today, Lolita fashion shows are commonplace at anime and other conventions around the world, and everyone has a separate story about how they ended up in the community.

So what do you get from this sense of fashion. ロリータ fashion is represented by some interesting themes:

Innocence is a strong theme as even older women will look younger in a Lolita outfit. White and pink are central colors in classical lolita outfits

Dark Interior , or devil inside is another theme. You can see there is a hint of darkness in a lot of the outfits.

Selfishness is another theme that pulls the attention towards the fashion style. The excessive decorations and era lapse really screams out to everyone I WANT ATTENTION, yet I don't.

Western is what a Japanese person would think seeing this fashion for the first time. It looks like you're a Victorian European woman, or at least what some would envision they look like!

How do you feel about Lolita fashion? Would you ever consider wearing it, or does the idea of looking like a doll make you feel uncomfortable?