Welp, here it is. I put this one off until last cuz I knew there would be a lot of pictures involved, and that takes a lot of formatting and what not. But hey! You get to look at a lot of pictures! Also, my constant thanks to Raine Dragon’s LolitaHistory.com for hosting these scans, as well as Ghostlie for providing a lot of the CUTiE content on there.
Gokinjo Monogatari
This time, my model is 太田麻衣 Ohta Mai, aka P-chan, who’s the lolita-wearing character in the Yazawa Ai classic ご近所物語 Gokinjo Monogatari.
For those familiar with Paradise Kiss, this manga is set in the same universe, at the same arts school – Paradise Kiss is a sort of sequel with the next generation of students. I highly recommend Gokinjo Monogatari – it’s not only a great snapshot of 90’s alternative fashion, but it has a great cast of characters with really well-written story arcs. The manga should be released in English soon!
The main character, budding fashion designer Mikako
Older than “Old School”
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about ‘old school’ lolita, including people asking just what the heck it is.
frillSquid’s in-depth panel on the subject (check out their blog!)
I’ve been especially interested to see discussions of 懐古ロリィタ on the few Japanese language accounts I follow (it’s hard for me to keep up with social media nowadays, so I’m pretty out of the loop in either language sphere). I have several of my own little theories about the old school lolita boom out here in The West. But one thing I think most people will agree with me on is that when someone envisions the style in their mind, the time period they’re drawing upon is Early Post-GLB – 2002 to about 2006, when Gothic and Lolita Bible first started being published.
An ad from an early GLB that sure checks a lot of boxes
Gokinjo Monogatari ran from 1995 to 1997. That’s not to say there isn’t a clear thru thread to what was considered lolita fashion then the early 2000’s, but there’s a few more wrinkles as well. You see, to put it in very basic terms, lolita fashion has two separate foundations that later converge. (This is my “don’t at me” to any fellow researchers of the fashion. You know how it is.)
- Gothic Lolita – visual-kei and other gothic scenes, particularly around Osaka. Examples include Moi-même-Moitié, Victorian Maiden, etc.
- (Sweet) Lolita – alternative fashion scene around Tokyo (Shibuya and Harajuku). Go-to example is Baby, the Stars Shine Bright.
In fact, one of the first lolita factoids newbies learn is Mana (of visual-kei band Malice Mizer, and then Moi dix Mois) was instrumental in the publication of Gothic and Lolita Bible. That’s not to say the sweets don’t show up in the GLB. Baby, the Stars Shine Bright is right there in the first volume.
Quite the gothic-leaning spread in this volume…
A familiar face in a familiar style! But wait, is that cherry chocolate? Hmm.
This is a conversation you can have about the state of lolita fashion brands (and scenes) in the 2000s. But the 90’s are Pre-GLB. So did I look to its parent magazine KERA? Nope!
CUTiE Kids
I knew exactly where to start looking for Mai Ohta’s fit, and that was in 90’s issues of CUTiE. Again, to give a very basic overview, when talking about girly alternative fashion during this time period, you have two Big Names: CUTiE and Olive. I talked a little about Olive over at my Pink House post. Both magazines have Big Shoujo Energy, but Olive takes the path of the imagined Western European cosmopolitan girl, whereas CUTiE is homegrown kawaii. Basically. People have written a lot about this.
I didn’t mean to get such a big contrast, but…here we are
The other great thing about CUTiE is they have a mindblowing amount of reader snaps. They also have street snaps, but yeah. So many. Which means so much Fantastic Data for fashion researchers like myself.
Her interests include Watanabe Tetsu, Denki Groove, and taking care of the ultimate accessory, her cat Yuki-chan
Diving in, it didn’t take long before I found a pretty solid match for one of Ohta Mai’s outfits, down to the slightly exposed midriff! I would be impressed with myself, but like I said. Ghostlie and Raine Dragon did all the work for me.
This house music loving lolita would have loved to be at this event
Looking through the snaps, there’s two brands that show up again and again: MILK and Jane Marple. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might remember that MILK is the brand that showed up in another important alt-fashion magazine, Zipper, with the quote “I think lolita fashion is what we’ve been putting out for a long time”.
MILK is a long-running “Designer Character” or DC brand. This is yet another thing people have written entire books about, but the short explanation is that a lot of important alternative fashion brands started in the 70’s/80’s (“the DC Brand Boom”), opening up shop in places like Harajuku La Foret and Shibuya Parco. Why the name DC? It’s weirdly convoluted. But basically we’re talking about brands started by people like Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo, and Kansai Yamamoto.
Not only did MILK survive the DC Brand Bust that accompanied the Bubble…Burst? There’s a set term for that whole shindig in Japanese (バブル崩壊) but I actually have no idea what it is in English. Anyways. They’re still around, and they put out stuff that looks much the same as their offerings 30 years ago.
Some selections from MILK Harajuku’s insta
Jane Marple and the rest
Jane Marple is also still around, but their recent offerings don’t neatly match up as well as MILK’s does. (I do love them tho.)
You can see the style similarities with MILK
Some more Jane Marple and MILK-wearing lolitas
Because of this, if you want to replicate the look these CUTiE girls are wearing with new items, MILK is the way to go. If you do plan to look for vintage stuff, there’s a few other brands during this time that are notable, such as Heart E, Atsuko Onishi, Maid Lane Revue, and Betty’s Blue.
A selection from Maid Lane Revue
Suggested coordinates from Atsuko Onishi
Bonus: Stuffed Animal Snaps
Old-litas know that people love a plushie purse. What they might not know is there’s no shortage of lolita snaps where they’re just straight-up carrying around a stuffed animal, just as Ohta Mai carries around “Petit Francois”
I would like to be friends with the woman on the bottom left. Bottom right likes to raise cacti and sleep in sleeping bags(?) which is too intense vibes for me.
I could have added a lot more pictures to this post, but I already lost a previous draft, so I’m calling it here.
kelp 