Lolita Fashion and Japanese Subculture

In ancient society, the strange dress is regarded as a symbol of cult, especially in the area of religious rights and under the influence of the government, but in the pluralistic society, you are not used to what kind of religion, what beliefs are there. Both age and social class can show the ideas they want to express and the identity of themselves. For example, the LGBT ethnic group, in a relatively different culture, all the common thoughts gradually develop into their own culture in small groups.

Such a small group culture also affects fashion and becomes an important indicator of popularity. The culture of Japan is a repressive and conservative country that has been highly developed and popularized throughout the world. This culture is called subculture, which not only affects today’s society but also reflects people’s repressed thinking. It can be a language of communication or a way of expressing oneself. Such thoughts and culture are deeply reflected in the fashion world.

Get quality help now
Prof. Finch
Prof. Finch
checked Verified writer

Proficient in: Fashion

star star star star 4.7 (346)

“ This writer never make an mistake for me always deliver long before due date. Am telling you man this writer is absolutely the best. ”

avatar avatar avatar
+84 relevant experts are online
Hire writer

This article will discuss the topic of Lolita fashion subculture in Japan and share some ideas to give some theories to define the identity and practice of identity to create links to different styles of clothing.

The most popular influence of Japanese subculture is Lolita fashion. The word Lolita comes from a Russian literary writer Vladimir Nabokov who published a novel in 1945 describing a 12-year-old daughter who is obsessed with a middle-aged man and the story that happened. The role that Lolita mentioned in the book is a 12-year-old child, the author gives it a very seductive image, described as a girl who is innocent, teasing and passionate.

Get to Know The Price Estimate For Your Paper
Topic
Number of pages
Email Invalid email

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy. We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

"You must agree to out terms of services and privacy policy"
Write my paper

You won’t be charged yet!

It was very popular at that time.

Later, with the film's remake of the film, Lolita was popular in the world, especially in Japan. Lolita, who had a strong girl factor, slowly became a Japanese fashion culture. One style and fashion, the most influential in the Japanese lolita fashion is the Victorian style clothing of the European period (left picture). The Victorian style originated from the 18th century Queen Victoria of England. Complex tone patterns, delicate, gorgeous, with plenty of lace, ribbons, bows and waist design to shape the image of the noble lady now evolved to become one kind of a modern Japanese Lolita fashion style.

Among them, the 'God and Lolita' in the costumes of girls and the fine clothing of the Rococo period, as well as the influence of Western Gothic and Punk subculture, because of the similarity with the heroine in the movie Lolita, It is called Lolita style. Because of the Japanese national repressed culture, this style is regarded as a symbol of a girl's dream by the Japanese, and the Lolita clothing is tight and has a large amount of lace and hem. It seems to limit the age, appearance and shape of the wearer. The spirit of the Japanese giving Lolita performance. They are not distinguishing between beauty and ugliness from the outside, but whether they can express Lolita's elegant, lovely and generous temperament in words and deeds, guide to the taste of clothing.

A survey led by Kinsella in Japan in 1992 brought up that youngsters will in general have negative perceptions of society and the grown-up world, and these imaginations are frequently connected to heavy responsibilities. According to youngsters, growing up means unpleasant qualities, for example, 'less free time ' and 'subject to social standards.' The quest for cuteness and child image symbolizes the resistance to the grown-up world, refusal to cooperate with standard social qualities (anti-social), escapism and personal freedom, through the display of children's image to enter childhood memories, and escape the conservatism of the adult world and social responsibility.

However, the author believes that that this sort of adorable culture is just an a “small rebellion', and the forceful, provocative and conscious rebellion of youngsters in the West is a slap in the face. Western youngsters focus on rebelling to show their independence, however Japanese teenagers are childish to express their lack of ability and reluctance to assume social responsibility. In Japanese society, ladies are more worried than men in the fields of work, social roles, etc. Women like to use clothes to express what they think. Because Japanese society is highly regulated to young people, they can only show 'cute culture' in their spare time. Kinsella means that this lovely culture is completely integrated with play and consumerism and becomes a leisure activity. Kinsella, 1995).

Psychoanalytic and analysts' examination of Lolita culture is exceptionally uniform and negative. Yo Yahata, a kid therapist who thinks about the Japanese Lolita culture, trusts that young ladies wearing Lolita are planning to pull in consideration and along these lines assert their reality. Psychoanalyst Rika Kayama said this is a lady's worry about the proceeded with monetary emergency in the nation. She would like to escape from the real world and come back to her youth (Parker, 2004). A few sociologists in Hong Kong trust that ladies love to wear Lolita since they need to pull in consideration through dress to compensate for the disappointments and injuries throughout everyday life. It likewise implies that since Lolita's way of life isn't acknowledged by the general public, young people who seek after this pattern are effectively victimized and minimized by society. (Hong Kong Economic Times, 2004).

Since the 1980s, there has been a trend in young people in Japan to make a baby-fed-children. These lovely cultures are especially popular among young people, especially girls. The cute dresses of this period are quite similar to Sweet Look Lolita and Classis Lolita in Lolita today. They are mainly white and pink, and the design also uses floral patterns, trims and ribbon butterflies, which also reflects the previous paragraph. In order to escape the reality, the narrative has been dressed up to conceal the identity of the individual and then to emphasize the inner injury and trauma of the self. On the other hand, some Japanese people are interested in dressing up Lolita, such as this Lolita.

The theme of the party as a psychological level and the exchange of cultural language, so Japan's Lolita fashion is fermented around the world, for example, in some Muslims who like Japanese Lolita culture, blending Muslim women's clothing into the Lolita culture. Because women’s wear in Muslim culture cannot reveal the body, this concept echoes each other in the Japanese Lolita culture, because Lolita’s basic idea in Japan is to escape the reality of modern society and expose the body. And the creation of the skin culture, so in the picture we can see wearing Islamic traditional clothes Young women to pack his head yarn contrary to Islamic culture is not out of the mix Lolita fashion belong to Islam. , Lolita's dress (figure).

The style that highlights the strong traits is Goethe Lolita, which is the branch of the lovely Lolita but the difference is that this style of Lolita fashion comes from the head of the MALICE MIZER, the rock music department of Japanese music. Elegant Gothic Lolita (EGL) and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat (EGA) (EGL) also add some angels and demons to the gorgeous barn style of the baroque style with a strong dark color to express Gothic colors with death, religion, no The style of coordination, the color is mainly black and white, and there are often gimmicks, crosses, swords, bats, and images with death colors on the clothes. In the case of makeup, they sometimes use white. The face is decorated with a black lipstick to decorate oneself. Some of them have a delicate face or a large wound scar.

The hair is usually black, blond, pink, and silver. EGA is a double sex. He received the influence of Baroque and Rococo, adding many more women's lace to hide their gender identity. Goethe Lolita's biggest feature is that unlike the typical Lolita's cute style, the Gothic Lolita's traits are more vivid and more extreme. However, this distinctive culture is actually not widely accepted in Japan because it is a way of expressing self by marginalized people, especially the Gothic Lolita is more extreme.

Disgusting dresses such as ''scars'', many repressed Japanese young people express Gothic Lolita in this extreme way of self-mutilation, using this dress to escape the trap of real adult, unique dress in the ordinary people In the eyes, they are more characterized by their characteristics and characteristics, which makes such a culture become a clustering effect. Combining people of the same nature makes Lolita a subculture that has a certain position in the fashion world and starts in Europe and the United States. Fermentation.

Human society generally has a qualitative norm for gender roles, and clothing has been given gender for a long time. Male clothing needs to show male stability and masculine, representing costumes with suits, ties, hard collar shirts, etc.; It should show the gentleness and virtuousness of women, and the representative costumes include skirts, high-heeled shoes, stockings, and so on. Today, with the development of social politics and economy, the roles of men and women in society have changed. The traditional gender role stereotypes are gradually disintegrating, the gender symbols of people are gradually blurred, and people try to construct a new gender behavior model. There have been many new phenomena in this special period. The neutralization of clothing is one of them.

The rise of the feminist movement in the early 20th century made neutral clothing enter the line of sight as a style of dress. In the 1990s, neutral clothing has become one of the fashion elements used by major brand clothing. Especially in the Japanese Gothic style, Lolita fashion can see these neutral dresses Lolita show a neutral style. Even some clothing brand design teams dedicated to the production of Lolita fashion style are created by men, and the subculture effect of Lolita Fashion reflects the same interests and encounters that people can communicate through their own. Or the inner world to express or escape from the secular escape.

As a special style of clothing, neutralization has become more and more intense in Japan and the world, and it is more obvious in Lolita fashion. Fashion is not just a matter of 'covering things', but the trend of clothing is an important topic in the study of popular culture. In modern society, appearance is often the core part of self-construction, and clothing is a manifestation of personal desire, pleasure and fantasy (Finkelstein, 1996). People's desires, regardless of the majority of men and women, are constantly pursuing the freshness of new things. In fashion, each season's new fashion item clothing represents the evolution and reform of different popular designs, so ''sex ''It's not so important.

The form of men's wear follows the society's shaping of male gender characteristics. It also shows the social inequalities in gender relations and social division of labor. These clues are brought together. As a result, men’s clothing eventually surpassed its gender characteristics and developed towards neutrality, and this trend is the inevitable development of clothing. However, in the Lolita fashion, although the cuteness is the main starting point, it seems that only the exclusive women's dressing, but in recent years, the proportion of men dressing Lolita is getting higher and higher. In fact, this phenomenon is also affected by the opening of the pluralistic society. Lolita fashion can be pursued regardless of gender or ethnicity.

In summary, people's pursuit of clothing is nothing more than to show themselves, but since ancient times, whether it is the Lolita fashion from the Victorian period to the present, in the current society, their definition of beauty for different races and genders. Only they can define it personally. Such a definition is clearly reflected in the subculture and economy of the Japanese. The classic fashion created by the Japanese expresses its identity and tribute to fashion. People's pursuit of fashion is constantly updated. The basic element of fashion is 'beauty', and the definition of beauty is never lost in human culture, so Lolita fashion not only represents the pursuit of beauty and fashion, but also in the new generation. An identity.

Updated: Feb 18, 2024
Cite this page

Lolita Fashion and Japanese Subculture. (2024, Feb 18). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/lolita-fashion-and-japanese-subculture-essay

Live chat  with support 24/7

👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!

Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.

get help with your assignment