What is Lolita fashion?

Many girls, especially those who have just started in Lolita fashion, confuse what is often called “Lolita fashion” with “Lolita”.

Lolita fashion is a fashion originated in Japan. Lolita dresses are mainly influenced by Victorian clothing as well as costumes from the Rococo period.

In Lolita fashion, it is generally accepted that “Lolita” does not refer to Vladimir Nabokov’s famous novel, in which “Lolita” is described as a sexually precocious girl. Adherents of Lolita fashion present themselves more as Victorian children or porcelain dolls and consider it necessary to look “cute”, “beautiful” or “elegant” rather than “sexy”.

Victorian children

Porcelain doll

The Lolita look consists mainly of a knee length skirt or dress, headdress, blouse, petticoat, knee high socks or stockings and rocking horse or high heel/platform shoes.

There are 3 major styles:

1. Sweet Lolita

The Sweet Lolita dress is the most child-like of Lolita styles, which is heavily influenced by Rococo styles as well as Victorian and Edwardian clothing. It adopts the basic Lolita format and uses lighter colors (mainly white or pink base colors) and child fantasy themes (such as Alice in Wonderland, fruits, sweets and classic fairy tales) in its design. It also uses a lot of color prints, laces and frills to create a cute look.

2. Gothic Lolita

Gothic Lolita is a combination of the Gothic and Lolita fashion. It is primarily influenced by Victorian and Rococo fashion.

Gothic Lolita fashion is characterized by a darker make-up (usually smokey or neatly defined eyes, which are created by using black eyeliner) and clothing. The outfits usually use black and white as dominant colors to express the feeling of mystery, horror or death, accessorizing a traditional Victorian Choker rather than necklace to make the Gothic Lolita look. Other accessories in the Gothic Lolita style include bags and purses which are often in shapes like bats, coffins and crucifixes, or just a black parasol.

Besides, there are 2 special branches in Gothic Lolita: Elegant Gothic Lolita and Elegant Gothic Aristocrat. As for the former, generally speaking, its style design tends to be traditional classical. Although the former is very similar to Gothic Lolita, it has more feeling of vampire; while for the latter, its outfits usually include menswear, long dresses, pants as well as button-down shirts and coats.

3. Classic Lolita

Classic Lolita is a more mature style of Lolita that focuses on Baroque and Rococo styles. Colors and patterns used in classic Lolita cosplay costume can be seen as somewhere between the Gothic and sweet styles: it is not as dark as Gothic Lolita, nor as cutesy as Sweet Lolita. The outfits usually use simple hues (such as pure colors) to express the feeling of elegance. Laces are reduced accordingly, while lotus leaf pleat become its outstanding feature. Various beautiful calicos are also used commonly by it.