/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

It was hard to pick just 9 dresses. Partly because I've seen lolita change so much over the years and I wanted my selection to reflect what typifies lolita for me, dresses I like as art in their own right that I might not wear, dresses I do wear and showing multiple styles.

I got into lolita through western/victorian/romantic goth, but have always loved dresses that walk the line between gothic and sweet, before the whole Tumblr creepycute thing. Yes, I do want Bittersweet to be a legit substyle but it's more because I loved pastel fashion etc as a 90s kid but also never left my emo phase. I'm short and young-looking, so hard-edged straight up goth looks stupid on me. I get the feeling gothic and sweet was less polarised back in the day as a kuro or shiro coord could lean either way depending on details and styling. Current gothic reminds me more of EGA.

I've always been kind of particular about classic even though I barely wear it in reality, but I always adored MM solids, perhaps with a contrasting shade.

The pintucks, ruffles, plenty of lace trim, bows (particularly waist/chest bows) and emphasis on solids with contrasting lace (often ladder lace) in earlier lolita kind of exemplifies the look for me. It is *absolutely,unmistakably, distinctly lolita*, not just any bell shaped sun dress that is expensive, happens to have a print slapped on it and a vaguely historical theme.

Some of my wardrobe is like that now, but I just look at those dresses as just nice dresses even if I can't fathom how they're supposed to be the same fashion as your typical black and white oldschool fare. You can tell I feel alienated these days. It's cool and everything but not what I remember. Fabrics, cuts and styles are drastically different. The world revolves around prints. Trim is disappearing! I'm not totally blinded by nostalgia though. Lolita was pretty questionable looking in the very early days. I think the 2005-2009 styles are a compromise between old and new.