So pretty. Very rotten.

So pretty. Very rotten. Comics and essays on Lolita Fashion and Cute Culture

by Jane Mai and An Nguyen

The new book about Lolita Fashion got both a lot of fans as rose lots of fuss.

Firstly I think it is good to say that the idea of the book was quite interesting.

Essays and comics combination.

As I was writing about Lolita Fashion a few times already too

I know how difficult it is to express meanings only through words.

Short comic stories, more like drafts without a definite ending and message

are much better way to express such a delicate and ephearmal phenomenon

as Lolita Fashion actually is.

Because first of all people become Lolita for many different reasons.

And I think that this book showed it pretty well.

It showed both a desire for a dream world, music connections, romantic spirit,

some kind of indefinite longing, consumerism, the feeling of being different,

the need of having own place in a big and anonymous city.

It presented quite big spectrum of individual motivations.

And it showed it through different stories, characters;

I found myself inside it many times.

And I have to admit that I was moved even more.

The story of lolita having an imaginary friend,
Instagram celebrity who doesn't find any pleasure
in lolita anymore,
troubles with affording clothes,
the meaning of sisterhood
and admiration towards visual kei musicians.
I felt more like reading a novel than
non-fiction book I was expected. 

I also found some connotations with a famous

 Arika Takarano (from Ali Project)'s text

Oh Maiden, Advance with a Sword and a Rose.

This is what I think: Gothic and Lolita clothes are a maiden's armor, which even a knight's armor cannot compare to. A maiden's lace is her steel. her ribbons are chains. Her dress hat is her helmet, and she surreptitiously changes the blood that flows from her wounds into true red rose petals. Thus, the maiden fights. After all, to live is to fight, and to become beautiful is to become stronger.

Arika Takarano

And this is from the book.

Lolita Fashion as amor and shield.

Essays were also pretty good

giving a scholar look on the phenomenon

without saying directly and obstinately what kind of truth is hidden beneath the bow.

The history of Lolita Fashion is still uncovered so sometimes it is difficult even to define

the simplest facts.

Even Novala Takemoto-

Lolita guru doesn't know it completely

as he is researching it now to write a history book about the phenomenon.

All sources until now are lacking a lot

and I felt it many times when researching it myself.

I had hoped that that 

if I surrounded myself with beautiful things

I could feel beautiful.

And- that it could be an external expression of 

the good inside me.

But these days.. all I see

is an unending emptiness.

Still the book shows some useful troops.

Visual kei, magazines, otome mentality, avantgarde and grotesque connections.

It also tries to show a few differences

between North American Lolitas and Japanese ones but it is more like

some authors' thoughts than analysis.

It shows ways that future searchings can follow 

on the difficult road to understand LF better.

Visual kei live

It is not an academic book.

Authors show their struggling with finding motivation to continue the project,

they share their own reflections about Lolita Fashion

and this personal approach is the big advantage of the book.

It doesn't aim at being objective, it is completely personal

and it makes a reader to think about own motifs of wearing

or just having an interest in Lolita Fashion.

Still I think that the book deals with some terms pretty well.

For example the differences between kawaii in mainstream wave and in lolita.

The definition of otome which in contrast to shoujo is not defined by age, gender

and physical state but by mentality and personality.

Lolita can be an example of being an eternal otome/ maiden

which can become part of her identity.

CAN. As this book doesn't insist anything.

It shows only possible ways of personal choices and personal refusals.

I read it during one evening

and stayed with the feeling of dissatisfactions.

But not toward the book but actually myself.

I want to understand LF better.

I want to understand myself as lolita better.

I want clothes to continue teaching me.

People are always telling me what to

do and what to wear.

And I just want to be in my own world, okay?