#sub-styles

[lolita-tips]

Hello, what do you think of the concept of substyles in Lolita? Where do they come from, and when does a "theme" become a "substyle"? I remember a time there being circus lolita, if I'm not wrong. How would this be more a theme than say, "religious lolita" (I'm thinking of many coords with J&J dresses for example), or even "OTT classical"? Shouldn't there also be such things as "mori lolita", "fairy lolita" or even "cult party lolita"?

So there really aren’t any set in stone rules about this, a lot of it has to do with just how the fashion developed over time, but I have my own personal logic about it which you are free to take or leave as you choose.The way I see it, a substyle is something that can stand on it’s own without necessarily being a part of a bigger style and it takes it’s name from things other than a print. For example, Sailor Lolita has an obvious sailor themed look which usually has a sailor collar, Wa Lolita has obvious traditional Japanese elements in its styling, Hime Lolita is usually quite extravagant and almost always has accessories like a tiara or crown that tell you it’s a princess theme. These are substyles that are quite regularly seen, for one reason or another they stuck. Something like “circus Lolita” is a bit less common but often times when you see this theme it revolves around a circus themed print. The same goes for religious themes that come from prints, they aren’t really a substyle of the fashion, they’re often just Classic Lolita dresses that just happen to incorporate that theme. (Although many people will say that “Nun Lolita” is a thing but in that case it comes from the overall design of the dress.) OTT Styles aren’t really their own sub-styles because you have OTT Sweet, OTT Classic, and OTT Gothic which are just off-shoots of the main categories. As for things that combine Lolita with another completely separate fashion I think it works better to refer to them as a theme because at the end of the day your goal is to make a Lolita coordinate, you’re just adding elements of this other fashion. Of course you can call them sub-styles if you want (I often use Steampunk Lolita for tagging purposes but in my mind it’s Lolita first but with a steampunk theme) but that sort of thing just ends up making sub-style lists and explanations long and messy.In my opinion, when all is said and done, it doesn’t really matter what style or sub-style something is as long as it looks good. They’re just labels and as far as I’m concerned their only important use is for tagging posts. If you want to tag your circus themed coord as circus Lolita by all means go ahead. Just because it isn’t widely recognized as a sub-style doesn’t mean it’s not a thing.

[desuish]

This was originally going to be posted as a response on a facebook group I am in asking members what their very specific j-fashion substyle is, but I feel my response got too big (and off-topic) for the post so I’m going to publish it here as its own entry.

I think the trend of super-specific style classification is purely a phenomenon in the Western jfashion community. (I feel like it might have been influenced because street snap magazines like Fruits or the Lolita Bible asking the "theme" or "motif" of the outfit.) If you see a girl wearing something she calls ___-kei its easy to fantasize and imagine her wearing and representing that style every day, and how wonderful that would be. But in reality, what is being described is a singular outfit/look of one girl who has an enormous, creative and varying style of her own, who doesn’t fully prescribe her life, looks, or wardrobe to the stylings of ___-kei. You definitely don't need a name/term/or classification to any style that you're wearing and you shouldn't feel that you need to limit yourself to existing styles or 'box yourself in' at all. I understand it feels good to have a name or orderly classification to your general over-arching wardrobe or style but in my opinion that is severely limiting to what fashion (particularly j-fashion styles) are all about.

That is just one small difference between the Western j-fashion community, but I’ve noticed its one that comes up quite often. I feel that the Western understanding of substyle trends in Japan, for the most part having only learned about them through second- or third-hand media, is about as accurate as those articles that claim things such as “The Crazy New Trend in Japan is Bagel Head Body Modifications!” For example, the striking difference between googling “oshare-kei” in English versus “おしゃれ 系” really illustrates how the terms mean completely different things a Japanese or Western audience. 

I’m not suggesting at all that you stop self-categorizing specific substyles, looks, or outfits if you enjoy doing that. But, please stop getting all of your information on j-fashion from anonymous English blog posts entitled “ALL JAPANESE FASHION SUBSTYLES”.