It’s real, it’s very real…

I’m referring to the Lolita fashion – there are 5 types: Black Lolita, Sweet Lolita, White Lolita, Goth Lolita and plain Lolita.

you will learn a lot about the differences in this sub-fashion category from this video :)

Elegant Gothic Aristocrat (EGA) (also sometimes referred to as Gothic Lolita Aristocrat (GLA)) is a line of Aristocrat fashion-style clothing created by Japanese musician and fashion designer Mana for his store, Moi-même-Moitié. It has branches in Shinjuku and Nagoya, Japan as well as online through CDJapan. Another brand that makes EGA/GLA-like clothing is Atelier Boz.

Aristocrat fashion as a whole is often labeled in Western fashion as “Elegant Gothic Aristocrat” or “EGA”, but the term applies only to the line of clothing in Moi-même-Moitié.

The style itself centers on the concept of androgyny and often has identical outfits for both men and women. The clothing is usually limited to black, white and dark colors, and the main image is founded on elegance and simplicity. EGA makes up half of the Moi-même-Moitié fashion lines; the other half being EGL, or Elegant Gothic Lolita, which differs from EGA in that it’s strictly dresses, combining Goth fashion with Lolita fashion: the image of expensive French porcelain collectors’ dolls.

The clothing lines are usually simple and tight, with pants or long skirts that stand in contrast to the Lolita style. Typical gothic piercings and tattoos are not particularly compatible with the clothing; however dark, heavy makeup may be worn by both sexes.

EGA is a preference among older people who feel they’ve outgrown or are too old for the Lolita fashion and Gothic lolita styles. Many of these people will turn to EGA as a more mature alternative.

Source: wikipedia

Gothic and Baby Doll dresses are quite “in” within the Japanese teen community. Girls dressing up as gothically cute as possible…hence, the name Gothic Lolita is given. I hope they know that Lolita is also a term used as a sexual term for underage girls. Anyway, the Gothic Lolita look is also closely related to the french maid look cos the french maid costume is very lolita-ish. It is the fantasy of men world wide to come across a willing french maid in her french maid costume….err…well, let’s just say the french maid costume is very closely connected to a certain sexual fantasy.

But that does not deter the fashion in Japan. Gothic Lolita is a well known dress code. In fact you will see many girls in their gothic lolita fashion strutting around with their black baby doll dresses and sombre make up.

Here are some gothic lolita fashion for you to see:

Source: Morbid Outlook

I’m going to try and focus on the fashion magazines and books that are common in Japan for the next few posts. This information may not be complete and accurate, because my Japanese is poor and a lot of the information I’m finiding is quite old. If there’s anything that I’ve said incorrectly or something that you want to add, please feel free to add to it in the comments.

While I was still in Japan, my housemate purchased the highly appropriately named Gothic & Lolita Bible. This thing was a tome. It was huge. And fairly hugely priced at a bit under 2000 yen. The Bible has many articles, interviews with Visual-kei artists that goth-lolis so often idolise, catalogues, photos, manga and even outfit designs for budding cosplayers and gothloli heads. In theory, it’s published quarterly but don’t bet on that. It seems to be pretty erratic.

The Bible is a huge success in Japan (and around the world as Gothic Lolita and EGL became popular outside of Japan) and has spawned some spin-off magazines. The Gothic & Lolita Extra Volume seems to be just a collection of things that couldn’t fit into previous volumes. It looks like there is only one of these, but more may appear in the future. The Gothic & Lolita Hair Make Bible focusses obviously on the hair and make-up techniques and trends followed by gothlolis and finally the Gothic Lolita & Punk Brand Book is basically just a catalogue of fashions available. It has photos of all the typical fashions you can find for sale along Takeshita-dori and Harajuku.

I’ve seen it available for sale in quite a few places, but you probably won’t find it at your local 7-Eleven store. Akihabara has stockists given that a few of the maids in the maid cafes also follow Goth Loli fashions. Our sponsors at JList will sell you subscriptions, no matter where in the world you live.

One slightly annoying thing about Japan – if you don’t read or speak any Japanese – is that shops, bars, restaurants, even schools are pretty difficult to find. This is because they tend to be tucked into the millions of office buiidings and skyrises throughout the country. The only hint that there might be a really funky discount clothing shop in this building is a tiny, flourescent lit sign hanging off the side of the building. But it’s all written in katakana, so most gaijin would miss it straight away.

While wandering around Harajuku, I’ve taken to just exploring every nook I can find, walking downs stairs into basements, pressing random buttons in elevtaors…just to see if I can find some interesting clothes shops.

This has been successful on a few occassions, such as the time we found a ¥390 shop. Everything was ¥390 (I *think* that was the price) – including shirts, hats, shoes, bags, endless amounts of jewellery and so on. My housemate and I decided that we would choose a colour and make a Harajuku outfit based on it from items in that store. Twas great fun.

If you’re not brave enough to just randomly walk into buildings and look around, then there’s a few websites you can look at for decent maps:

superfuture has shopping maps for cities around the world, including 10 just for Tokyo. Each shop listed has a short description to it. The downside to the maps is that you can’t seem to filter out only the shops you want (eg: clothing), so the maps look quite cluttered with dots for clothing, design, bars and restaurants, etc.

One website of interest to GothLoli fans is Sumire’s Tokyo Gothic & Lolita Shopping Guide. Here you’ll find some custom drawn maps and shop descriptions for clothing shops, all of which sell Elegant or Gothic Lolita merchandise in some form. Be warned though, the webpage was last updated in 2004, and while most shops are still there, a few may have moved or closed.

If you know of any other fashion shopping guides in Tokyo or elsewhere in Japan, comment it in here.

A few Sundays ago I spent the day in Harajuku. It was a great day, the weather was great and there were plenty of people around. As usual, the kids on Omotesando were dressed in their finest, although there were fewer than usual because the right side of the bridge (facing Meiji Shrine) seems to be getting re-paved, so it was all fenced off.

Netherless, I got plenty of photos – here are some of them. You can click on them to see the rest at my Flickr account.

This gaijin punk received a lot of attention from the usual locals.


It’s Decorer Stitch! Rawr!

A GothLoli Dress for sale at Body Line in Takeshita Street.

My favourite photo from the day. I don’t know why.

On a Sunday stroll through Harajuku…

That’s all for now! Hope you enjoyed them!

There are many shops along Takeshita Street in Harajuku that offers pre-assembled outfits to fit in with the cool kids on Omotesando. They can be relatively cheap. Most of the are in the Lolita/Gothic Lolita vein but there are a few punk style clothes too.

It’s somehow disappointing. I got into Harajuku fashion because of what those kids could concoct themselves, not because of what they could buy from a shop.

I made a trip to Harajuku on Saturday to show some tourist friends around, hoping we’d catch some of the kids in crazy fashions that you’d normally see in droves on Sundays. While they weren’t there in high numbers, they were still quite a few. Mind you, even without them, there’s still plenty to see in Harajuku.

An interesting post at Web Japan recently. It seems that the humble ribbon is making a comeback in Japanese fashion.

Well, we all know how popular kawaii things are in Japan. And while I can understand the significance of ribbons and lace in Goth Loli costumes, I draw the line at ribbons being placed all over my clothes.

Ribbons can be in three places only!

1. A simple bow at the front of your underwear
2. A simple bow on each shoe, or sock, but not both and only rarely.
3. Like this:

Those three ways only!