Bunnies and bears and fawns and bunny-bears, oh my!

    The world of lolita fashion would be a much duller place without its fluffy animal friends. As embodiments of the aesthetic sensibilities of their respective brands, mascots and mascot-like characters have represented the subculture on dresses, cutsews, bags, headwear, novelties, and even shoes. Like lolita fashion itself, these characters are an exercise in harmonious contradictions, sitting on the borders of the cute and the unsettling, the elegant and the outlandish, the sweet and the rebellious. They are our silent, but loyal companions, offering their own quiet encouragement - holding our hearts even if they can't always hold our phones (or keys, or wallets , or books, or anything more than a single tube of lipstick.)

Usakumya Rucksack Mini Mini from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, released 2019.
Stock image from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, courtesy of Lolibrary.
(https://lolibrary.org/items/btssb-usakumya-rucksack-mini-mini-2019)

    This post is a celebration of the iconic mascots of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, Angelic Pretty, and Metamorphose Temps de Fille. I'll be looking into their backstories, the historical inspirations behind the characters, and how they reflect different aspects of the philosophy behind the fashion. 

whose lolita is it anyway?

    If you've been in online lolita communities, you'll probably have heard a few complaints about the evolution of the fashion to over the past few years, especially in relation to the rise of lolita in China.

"Taobao is ruining the fashion, all these new trends and releases are so tacky." 

"Western lolitas shouldn't even bother, most brands only care about catering to China now."

"Chinese girls don't really care about lolita, they just buy expensive dresses to show off their money."

"The quality of lolita has gone down since production moved from Japan to China."

"I'm glad I don't like the styles that are popular in China, rich Chinese lolitas keep driving up secondhand prices."

    If any of these comments sound familiar to you, you've probably scrolled through the same popular lolita groups, twitter threads, and websites as I have.

lolita, by any other name...

    Around the end of 2020, "lolita fashion" began trending on twitter following a certain twitter user's assertion that the fashion was connected to grooming and child sexual abuse. Lolitas across the world responded by flooding the tag with positive examples of the fashion. Many users, and even the official Twitter hashtag, made a point to mention that the fact that the fashion and the book are not connected. All of these posts culminated in a popular youtuber creating an image that loudly proclaimed, "Lolita fashion has nothing to do with the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov", which has been widely shared across Instagram. 

From @lovelylor on Instagram

    This is just the most recent example of lolitas banding together to fight the misconceptions that have arisen from the name of the fashion. The discussion, if it can even be called that, is old hat by now - someone (usually an observer who has no experience with lolita or any other kind of alternative fashion) denounces the fashion and attacks its wearers. Lolitas defend themselves against the accusations, and "solutions" are proposed to prevent further misunderstandings. People talk about how to educate the "normies", how to raise awareness about the fashion and its history, and even debate changing the name of the style entirely. Blog posts are written, Instagram posts are shared, Twitter threads get made, Facebook discussion groups and Discord servers burst to life with activity. It's clear that this is an issue that many members of our community feel passionate about. 

    But I, personally, want to add something to the statement so often made by so many lolitas about the relationship between the fashion and Nabokov's novel. Lolita fashion has nothing to do with the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.... and even if it did, it wouldn't matter.