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SUMARY

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KIYOHORI

tea party
Spectacular edition of
photographs of the Chinese
model Kiyohori

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 Harakuju
kawaii style

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Harajuku is an explosion of
colors and fashion never
before seen.

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lOLITA
WALDROBE

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KIYOHORI
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tea party

Photograpy María Butoh

Model @Kiyohori
Style Kawaii Lolita

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 HARAJUKU FASHION
The Birthplace of the Universal Concept “Kawaii”
By Tokyofashion

Harajuku district in Tokyo is a leading area for Ja-

panese young fashion. The area is like an
exciting theme park for young Japa-
nese girls in their teens and early
twenties with abundance of
shops and boutiques catering
to mixed tastes.
It continually generates new
fashion into the world with
the idea of “kawaii” as the
keyword.
Harajuku fashion is imagina-
tive, so much so that it may
seem
eccentric at times to the older
generation, but freely
incorporating one’s own taste is
exactly the spirit of Harajuku style.
On the weekends, the streets bustle
with girls of kawaii fashion looking for
By Tokyofashion kawaii clothes.

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So, what kind of style is the other’s judgment, while utili-
Harajuku kawaii fashion? zing bold colors to the fullest,
is what enables the Harajuku
There are many types of girls to evolve their kawaii
fashion in Harajuku including fashion.
the medieval aristocrats-ins-
pired Gothic style, the unique
Japanese Lolita style with em-
phasis on girlish cuteness and
coquettish beauty, the Gothic
Lolita style that combines the
two, and the ballerina-ins-
pired style that mixes a tutu
skirt with colorful tops.
But there are no sets of rules
for the kawaii fashion. The
focus of Harajuku style is not
about looking kawaii from the
male perspective, but rather
about staying true to what
you feel is kawaii and placing
greater emphasis on what is
kawaii from a girl’s perspecti-
ve. Having one’s own sense of
By Tokyofashion
style and not holding back for

By Tokyofashion

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Sometimes you encounter a shocking scene while taking a
stroll in Harajuku. A girl passes by with a stuffed toy animal
close to 30cm large hanging from her neck. It makes you
pause with disbelief for a moment but it doesn’t stop there.
Looking closer, she wears a giant—more like what you call
an obstacle—ring that reads “doki doki” in Japanese which
means “my heart leaps up”, colorful tights with full on print,
and a thick platform shoes.

Another girl with a more fantastical sense of fashion mi-

ght wear a large sparkly ribbon on her head, while dangling
colorful necklaces in colors like pink, yellow and minty green.
Either way, accessorizing with statement pieces is essential to
Harajuku fashion.

Although Takeshita Street is recognized abroad as the fashion

street in Harajuku, the cute two story shop situated a little
ways from Takeshita Street, with pink exterior, is what started
“Harajuku Kawaii” fashion. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu herself has
long been a fan of this shop even before her debut.

By Tokyofashion

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By TokyoFashion

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By TokyoFashion

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The Complex Femininity of Japanese Lolita
Fashion
The word “lolita” is a loaded
gun. Though Vladimir Na-
bokov’s titular novel casts
its protagonist, Humbert
Humbert, in ill light,
it’s Lolita née Dolores
who bears the story’s
most lasting moral
impression—that of
the coquette and
the girl who grew
up so fast that her
enticing beauty be-
comes an unavoidable
trap, which is reinfor-
ced by Stanley Kubrick’s
film adaptation.

Across the Pacific Ocean,

By Tokyofashion
“lolita” has come to mean
something vastly different. ge of gothic, aristocratic, and
Born out of Japanese street heavy metal aesthetic influen-
style culture in the 70s, Lolita ces—Gothic Lolita style, which
fashion is intricate, layered, has a more macabre focus
and visually modest; a version than traditional Lolita looks.
of femmehood that doesn’t
hinge on sexual maturity, or Why does this Lolita share a
traditional notions of (strai- name with one of Western
ght male-centric) sexuality. pop culture’s most hyper-
Lolita fashion reached its sexualized characters? This is
most popular heights back in a question that even Lolita’s
the early to mid-2000s throu- most enthused historians
gh the crossover medium of can’t answer, but in So Pre-
“visual kei” bands, which tty/Very Rotten, out today
brought with them a melan- on Koyama Press, artists and

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ByBy TokyoF
TokyoF ashion
ashion

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writers Jane Mai and An Ngu-
yen tackle the subculture’s
history, iterations, and nuan-
ces. The result is a love letter
to the movement, as a subtle
critique of its generally mate-
rialistic nature, and an explo-
ration of their own nascent
identities—all built on won-
drous, anachronistic clothes.

So Pretty/Very Rotten takes

its name from the 2004 Ja-
panese film Kamikaze Girls,
which was adapted from a
Novala Takemoto novel. The
film’s two protagonists em-
body different kinds of Japa-
nese youth street culture: the
“Yanki” delinquent Ichigo and
the Sweet Lolita Momoko.
Though Momoko looks like a
living doll, the clothes mask
her less pristine reality, and
she steals and lies to make
By Tokyofashion
her living and afford the
extravagant clothes. Momoko satisfaction that can be glea-
proclaims, “So what if I was ned from material goods—is
deceitful? My happiness was ongoing. (See: social lifting
at stake. It’s not wrong to feel
culture.) Mai and Nguyen,
good. That’s what Rococo who started working on this
taught me. But actually my idea in 2014, dress in Lolita
soul is rotten.” styles themselves. They trace
their admiration of the style
This conflict—between perva- to other shared subcultu-
sive and almost unavoidable ral interests but still, at the
materialism and the personal center, the clothes. Though

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they both agree on Lolita’s des “prince”/”boystyle” looks,
complicated, inherent mate- known as ouji style.) Nguyen,
rialism, Mai and Nguyen who’s researched the
also take pains to topic heavily and does
examine the magne- most of the essay-wri-
tic promise they fulfill ting in the book, came
by wearing Lolita; a to Lolita through a
pull that perhaps different ave-
all young people nue—a
feel, and of which focus on
Lolita is just one literatu-
form. re, 70s
Japa-
“I make things nese manga,
that are appea- and underground
ling or un- music. “Our book
derstanding isn’t just about
toward tee- the creative
nage girls, production of
because Lolita,” Ngu-
it’s a diffi- yen offers,
cult time “It’s about
in anyo- the human
ne’s life,” feeling.”
Mai shares
over a phone conver- Fictional explorations
sation. She encounte- of Lolita fashion and
red the Lolita world as culture in the form of
a teen through visual comics make up much
kei musicians, whose of the book. Nguyen
fluid androgyny offe- and Mai have con-
red a bridge between trasting styles, and
her earlier tomboy years the visual dichotomy
and the more ultra-femi- can be startling. This
nine Lolita styles. (Lolita is perhaps the only
fashion, though heavily book where you’ll read
femme-centric, also inclu- a body horror story about a

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girl trading her body for clo- complete morphologies of
thes (“Empty,” by Mai) along- their Lolita relationships.
side an earnest and pure take
on the “secret admirer” Both Mai and Nguyen
trope (“Ribbon Army,” know they’re too close
by Nguyen). to the subject to offer
up a truly objective
The rest of the book is take on Lolita cul-
populated by personal ture, and its more
essays, anthropolo- ambiguous quali-
gical explorations of ties don’t escape
the Lolita subculture either of them.
(courtesy of Ngu- To Mai, the
yen’s years of re- joy
search), and two of
chapters—an Lo- lita’s
essay and clothes
an inter- doesn’t mask
view by its inhe-
Ngu- rently ma-
yen— terialistic
devo- nature:
ted to “It is such
Novala an exces-
Take- sive hobby
moto. The re- to have.” To
searched aspects are Nguyen, Lolita’s someti-
particularly delightful, mes extreme aesthetic is
presenting topics like in dialogue with inevitable
the disconnect between mortality: “These are adults,
more individual Lolita not little girls or children.
observers in Japan This is a suspension of time;
and more communal your way of ignoring it for
ones outside its origin a while.”
country. But the personal Those are more indivi-
narratives, supplied by Mai dual-centered conflicts, but
and Takemoto, offer up more Lolita’s origins as a Japane-

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By Kiyohori

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se subculture also bring up ma didn’t exist for white kids,
strange assumptions about she claims, whose families
race and nation. Mai often have a broader understan-
fields questions about her ding of teen subcultures: “For
“true” identity: “The most other families, it’s just a teen
common question I get is, thing that they can do, it’s
‘Where are you from?’ I know part of growing up. Whereas
that they’re expecting me [in our families]... ‘Oh, you’re
to say, ‘Oh, I’m from this not a good kid’.”
country, I’m from Harajuku,’
and they get mega-disa- It doesn’t help that Lolita fas-
ppointed when I say I’m from hion is still quite an unknown
Brooklyn.” subculture in the West—with
the hilariously dated ex-
“It’s not really [an asker’s] ception of American singer
fault, but it’s something that Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls
annoys me because, I know phase. Mai and Nguyen are
some other girls that wear blithe about their distaste for
lolita, and they’re white. They this “version” of Lolita, but it
get asked if they’re in a play, remains perhaps the culture’s
as opposed to where are you most popular image, which
from.” Mai sees as a double-edged
sword: “On one hand, it could
Nguyen shares a tale of pan- totally paint someone’s idea
East Asian assimilation—or of what Lolita is… But on the
rather, not: “When I was other hand, if you’re actually
growing up, I had friends that gonna try to explain it, it’s a
were Chinese, and they were reference point for them. It’s
really interested in Japanese their closest access.”
anime and visual kei and stuff.
A lot of them talked about Lolita still maintains a global
their parents or their gran- presence, but it’s focused
dparents didn’t like it—that more on surface visuals and
they were so into Japanese loses some of the original
stuff, because of all the cultu- tethers that drew in earlier
ral baggage between the two adopters like Mai and Ngu-
countries.” This same dilem- yen. Neither is bitter about

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 By Tokyofashion

this development, and Nguyen ascribes Lolita’s longevity to

its growth beyond Japanese culture: “It’s been quite resilient
as a fashion subculture. The growth that you do see is mostly
outside of Japan.”

So Pretty/Very Rotten comes out in an uncertain time for

Lolita adherents. FRUiTS, the longtime Harajuku street style
bible, is no more; during the course of writing their book, Mai
learned that the equally iconic style tome Graphic Lolita Bible
is also folding. Those were the resources for an entire gene-
ration of Lolitas, and in their absence, there’s a real fear that
the aesthetic can become just another thing to be mined by
global fast fashion’s deft, appropriative hand, or else totally
divorced from its indie beginnings.

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Though many, including Takemoto, are working on a definiti-
ve history of the subculture, there exist few resources of this
kind, let alone regularly accessible or non-Japanese ones. For
Mai, “It’s important, at least to me, that someone at least has
written it down. Even if this subculture is waning, it’s made a
real thing that exists in history, and I was able to be part of it.
I hope other people can feel that way as well, valid.”

Nguyen echoes this statement: “No matter what generation

you’re in, there’s always gonna be something like it. Lolita is
its own special thing; nothing will ever be exactly like it. But
people are always gonna try to find something that we tried
to find … To share that with other people. To create a snaps-
hot of something that meant a lot to us that one time, and
also, now.”

By Tokyofashion

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By Kiyohori

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Lolita Wardrobe

Collection LolitaWardrobe
Style Kawaii Lolita
Style Dark Lolita

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Yolanda -Sugary Carnival-

Sweet Lolita Salopette

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Whale Fall -The Praise of Stars- Star

Shaped Lolita Bag (NEW Version)

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ZJ Story -The Whisper of Versailles-

Vintage Classic Lolita

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Hinana -Rococo-
Vintage Classic Lolita OP Dress

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By Kiyohori

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Diseño Editorial y Maquetación
Xochitl Paz

Article from
Jane Mai and An Nguyen

Photografias
TokyoFashion
Weibo
Lolitawaldrobe

Artist colaboración
Kiyohori

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