aprilstarchild (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aprilstarchild) wrote2009-01-07 07:46 pm
aprilstarchild) wrote2009-01-07 07:46 pm
I feel pretty, oh so pretty...
So this is totally a shitty cell phone shot, but I was so excited I didn't care.
My new dress! The blouse I also bought doesn't fit under the dress, so for now it's that black turtleneck (technically a short dress) until I get something better. Nothing else I have that would fit underneath, and match, has a high enough neckline.
It fits fairly well. It's tight enough that I'll have to be really picky about what I wear under it, but that was true anyway, it's just another factor to consider. The bust doesn't fit exactly right, but it's good enough, and I kinda expected that. My boobs are way bigger than your average Japanese teenager's boobs.
I need to fix my petticoat, but I knew that. The elastic on it is falling apart/stretched out/falling off, so it sits too low. I have the elastic to fix it, but I have to handsew it on, which is tedious as fuck.
So here's my little lecture on Lolita fashion, which I wish I could print out and hand to every person who gets The Wrong Idea:
Lolita the book and Lolita the fashion pretty much only share a name.
Lolita is set during the 20th century. It's about an older man who is sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old. The twelve-year-old is sexually precocious, but also prepubescent.
Lolita the fashion, is older girls and women (high-school and college-age for the most part, in Japan) dressing like little girls and/or dolls based on ideas from the Rococo and Victorian eras, as filtered through Japan. I read a quote from an American Lolita that went something like, "Lolita is nostalgia for an era that never was," and I think that sums it up nicely.
Yes, Japan sexualizes youth. But most of the women and girls who dress as Lolita aren't doing so to attract men. Matter of fact, in Japan there's commonly accepted rules for behavior and dress, if you're going out in Lolita--necklines are very modest, hemlines can't be more than a couple of inches above the knee, you are always demure and polite and modest. There are subcultures related to Lolita (punk and goth) that don't give a fuck for those rules, but if you're in a ruffly knee-length skirt with cupcakes on it, certain things are expected of you. (Americans aren't as big on all the behavior rules, but dressing modestly is still part of the deal--if you're dressed in any kind of overtly sexual way, it's NOT considered Lolita.)
Westerners dress in Lolita for all sorts of reasons, but from what I've read, it's mostly women/girls who love very pretty clothing and don't necessarily care what other people think. We like ruffles and bows and poofy skirts, and we don't care that that's not the normal fashion these days, or that it's impractical. We love it and we're going to wear it. Some women are only brave enough to wear it to meet-ups, or to get pictures taken by friends, or to anime conventions. Some are brave enough to just wear it whenever.
I've *always* loved old-fashioned poofy skirts. I didn't get to wear them much as a kid, but my prettier dresses were always the first thing I wore once my laundry was done, as long as the weather permitted. I used to wrap my pink blanket around my waist and tie it with a jump rope and pretend it was a beautiful dress. I received a copy of the American Girls dolls catalog when I was seven and obsessed over the clothes, especially Kirsten's and Samantha's (this was pre-Felicity).
When I was in eighth grade I had a full ruffled knee-length skirt from being Gretel in a school play. I wore that damn skirt around the house (because no one would catch me in it and ask WTF I was wearing) all the time, playing make-believe in my head.
So now that I'm adult, I can do whatever I want. My office has no dress code to speak of, and if I'm willing to put up with the comments of patients and coworkers, that's my business.
I've signed up to deliver Valentines by bicycle on Valentines' Day. Weather permitting, I'm doing it in the dress!
I've said it before: Half the fun of being an adult is getting to dress the way I wanted to when I was eight.
My new dress! The blouse I also bought doesn't fit under the dress, so for now it's that black turtleneck (technically a short dress) until I get something better. Nothing else I have that would fit underneath, and match, has a high enough neckline.
It fits fairly well. It's tight enough that I'll have to be really picky about what I wear under it, but that was true anyway, it's just another factor to consider. The bust doesn't fit exactly right, but it's good enough, and I kinda expected that. My boobs are way bigger than your average Japanese teenager's boobs.
I need to fix my petticoat, but I knew that. The elastic on it is falling apart/stretched out/falling off, so it sits too low. I have the elastic to fix it, but I have to handsew it on, which is tedious as fuck.
So here's my little lecture on Lolita fashion, which I wish I could print out and hand to every person who gets The Wrong Idea:
Lolita the book and Lolita the fashion pretty much only share a name.
Lolita is set during the 20th century. It's about an older man who is sexually obsessed with a twelve-year-old. The twelve-year-old is sexually precocious, but also prepubescent.
Lolita the fashion, is older girls and women (high-school and college-age for the most part, in Japan) dressing like little girls and/or dolls based on ideas from the Rococo and Victorian eras, as filtered through Japan. I read a quote from an American Lolita that went something like, "Lolita is nostalgia for an era that never was," and I think that sums it up nicely.
Yes, Japan sexualizes youth. But most of the women and girls who dress as Lolita aren't doing so to attract men. Matter of fact, in Japan there's commonly accepted rules for behavior and dress, if you're going out in Lolita--necklines are very modest, hemlines can't be more than a couple of inches above the knee, you are always demure and polite and modest. There are subcultures related to Lolita (punk and goth) that don't give a fuck for those rules, but if you're in a ruffly knee-length skirt with cupcakes on it, certain things are expected of you. (Americans aren't as big on all the behavior rules, but dressing modestly is still part of the deal--if you're dressed in any kind of overtly sexual way, it's NOT considered Lolita.)
Westerners dress in Lolita for all sorts of reasons, but from what I've read, it's mostly women/girls who love very pretty clothing and don't necessarily care what other people think. We like ruffles and bows and poofy skirts, and we don't care that that's not the normal fashion these days, or that it's impractical. We love it and we're going to wear it. Some women are only brave enough to wear it to meet-ups, or to get pictures taken by friends, or to anime conventions. Some are brave enough to just wear it whenever.
I've *always* loved old-fashioned poofy skirts. I didn't get to wear them much as a kid, but my prettier dresses were always the first thing I wore once my laundry was done, as long as the weather permitted. I used to wrap my pink blanket around my waist and tie it with a jump rope and pretend it was a beautiful dress. I received a copy of the American Girls dolls catalog when I was seven and obsessed over the clothes, especially Kirsten's and Samantha's (this was pre-Felicity).
When I was in eighth grade I had a full ruffled knee-length skirt from being Gretel in a school play. I wore that damn skirt around the house (because no one would catch me in it and ask WTF I was wearing) all the time, playing make-believe in my head.
So now that I'm adult, I can do whatever I want. My office has no dress code to speak of, and if I'm willing to put up with the comments of patients and coworkers, that's my business.
I've signed up to deliver Valentines by bicycle on Valentines' Day. Weather permitting, I'm doing it in the dress!
I've said it before: Half the fun of being an adult is getting to dress the way I wanted to when I was eight.
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i wanted to do the bike delivery, but unfortunately i'm too damn busy. :(
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I would occasionally just put shorts on underneath and have fun anyway.
I wasn't into climbing trees, but I loved hanging upside down and climbing playground stuff.
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more upper body strength is needed to get me back to monkey status though.
I've liked japanese street fashion for a while, occasionally lolita but I think that's more a throw back to my woe is goth days.
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Supposedly they're called cutsews because they are just cut and sewn, they don't require pin tucks or tailoring of any kind.
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I have become snippy with people I know, like my roommates and coworkers, because I get so tired of the idea that I'm dressing this way to be sexy.
I know that schoolgirl outfits can be hot, but sometimes the idea of finding women in Lolita dresses sexy kinda creeps me out. I'm dressed like a little girl!
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