My BRUTALLY HONEST Lolita Opinions 

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Gatekeeping is a good thing. Obviously not letting people in based on race is not cool, but... without some gatekeeping then anything is lolita. If it can be anything then it's nothing. More communities need to value gatekeeping in order to avoid self destruction.

@@NightTimeDay I disagree, the Lolita movement started out as a way to break out against social norms. to impose even stricter rules on the fashion style would be missing the point of lolita.

I agree with this :)

Yeah, I think Lor was talking specifically about standard sweet lolita even though she didn’t explicitly specify it. I would love to see more cool edgy shoes paired with gothic and punk coords:D

i agree!!!

I definitely agree. They crash super well but with sweet lolita they just look out of place.

definitely. i’ve seen them look okay with fairy kei, decora kei, or like punk styles as well. however with classy victorian styles like lolita, it looks so strange 😭

Really? I think they're the prettiest substyles but I didn't know if I could wear them 😅

@@nah_. yes, anyone can wear any substyle of lolita, don't let anyone police you or tell you otherwise.

I'm a black person from the U.S. and I love Qi and Wa! I have a friend from Mainland China and she is always so supportive of me wearing Qi! :D

I don’t see to many Lolita’s wearing that (Atlanta ,Georgia) especially within the black lolita community here

I always figured, if they're not based off of things worn for very special events or only by certain people in the culture and therefore very culturally significant, then it would be alright especially if you understand the basics of what the style is based from.

Espacially if you consider that Demonia is just a brand and not a Style off shoes.. they have every cute Design that work well with Lolita

@@RinakaChan yes exactly, i came to say this. I have demonia brand boots that look a lot like things lolita brands have put out (victorian inspired heeled boots). and also the stompy kind that people i think mean when they say demonia also totally work with goth coords

Totally agree - demonias come in different styles that go with different styles of lolita. Personally I don’t wear my demonias with my lolita because they don’t go together, but some peoples might!

@@toopunkrockforshul7933 right, i own the kera 08 demonia shoes (the platform mary janes) and maybe i'm ita but i don't see the issue lmao

@@cinnamorollsmom I was considering getting those! And I've definitely seen other gothic lolitas wearing them too, like people who have been in the fashion a while.

100% this!! I’m an ouji and my Charade 110s are EVERYTHING to me. I love them so much. Some pairs straight up look like shoes Mana wears 💙 I saw the fluffy pairs that got popular recently a lot in Cult Party kei a lot a few years back, I feel like the new pastel colours or white could look so cute in sweet lolita, maybe with a dress with faux fur like some of the AP winter releases

Demonia has kitty face mary janes and flats, along with platform and T-strap mary janes with heels. theyre sooo cute with lolita coords if you dont want to look too short or don't like the staple lolita shoes. Either way, knee high demonias aren't as terrible as wearing Pleaser shoes (stripper & burlesque shoes) lol!!!

i love goth lolita and that can go well with the silver trinity boots!

This is so true demonia actually has a lot of alternative fashion staples, Dolly-50s for example would be perfect for mana-inspired egl looks

as another chinese person id like to add that personally i think it'd be best that if in these styles you preface that you're not asian as to avoid claims of asianfishing, since most times people accuse others of this due to them looking more racially ambiguous when they are indeed white

Qi is chee/chi for Chinese but chi for Italian is qi. Wanted to insert this random info.

Yes! I’m (half) Chinese too, as long as it’s not done to intentionally mock and done in a respectful way then it’s all good!

i just fret for you too for the cheap guzzle ones.

For me, I think it depends on the length of the dress and shoes. If you're wearing the super long boots, I think it'd look cool with a shorter dress to balance it out

Bittersweet is just sweet in black color ways tho

@@smegellimes I think black is more than often associated with being "cool" and "sexy" instead of sweet. With bitter sweet there is a clash of high saturation light color with the black, and there is where the "disconnection" happen I think

@@yucheung5853 Or...ya know it's just sweet in black colorways. Most of the prints are pretty traditional sweet on top of that (ie: sugary carnival).

We should have asked if bittersweet is existing because I got a lot of comments like "It's not a think" whereas I think bittersweet exists because... we exist hahaha

I’ve seen a few, and I’ve seen them work well when you’re mixing sweet and the color black for a sweet but kind of edgy look.

@@alice-8566 I can imagine that someone made it work combining contemporary sweet with demonias, it would probably not be a cookie cutter look though but that's fine too.

I feel like people tend to forget that demonias have so many kinds of shoes, I feel like a lot of the Mary Jane kinda styles they put out would be nice for sweet lolita. They also have a couple pink ones I have in mind that I feel like would be cute. Idk I know you're not saying this in your comment, so this isn't like directed towards you I'm just tired of people like being uneducated and generalizing something like this (not just demonias, but people in the community tend to view platforms in this sorta style like this in general) because I think viewing an entire brand or style of shoe and saying it "wouldn't fit in sweet lolita" is both limiting and also silly. There's a million styles of platforms that would fit in this style you just need to find them

​@@HolisticCupid A lot of people simply don't know because they've never checked. A lot of people who are fairly new to the fashion see how easy it is to buy from shoe brands that specifically cater to lolitas, and who offer shoes in nearly every color and size, that they don't look outside of these brands. People with larger shoe sizes or who were there before what I shall refer to as the taobao boom are more likely to know about non-lolita-specific alt brands that sell lolita appropriate shoes. As for demonias and contemporary sweet lolita; according to a local website Demonia has 485 styles for sale (that's a lot of shoes) and I did browse them all not so long ago. There were non that I noticed that would fit as a cookie cutter contemporary sweet shoe imo but if you're going for something a little less cookie cutter they do have some.

This is what I was thinking of! Cause I have the strawberry ones

try body straps with the shoe nightcall

What are people saying about comfortable shoes? Is it the same old dead horse again or did something new happen? Being able to walk well should take priority over style imo, and that does sometimes mean style is sacrificed if that person cannot find comfortable lolita appropriate shoes or if they cannot make lolita appropriate shoes comfortable (inserts, stretching shoes, removing the extra footbed for extra room, etc). I'm sure it has happened that someone gave criticism to someone who had no other option than to wear orthopaedic shoes. I haven't seen that happen though. Some people don't try though and a lot of lolitas think that's annoying which I think is understandable. I also think that other lolitas don't owe it to the community to have perfect coords or to try to strive for that, so even if we're annoyed we should be able to scroll past it.

You might want to look into shoemaking, not to make your own shoes, but because they often discuss decorative elements. More specifically, there's a channel on RU-vid that has videos on orthopedic bespoke shoes and there's a video on design elements that might interest you.

@@biguattipoptropica You know, I have looked into shoemaking, but I don't think I've seen this person's channel so I'll totally have to check them out! Thanks! (In my case I have hEDS so it's a whole lot of 'let's see what works this week.' Doesn't mean we can't try more things!)

I feel this pressure on small brands to include each and everyone is really harmful. I sew myself and currently would only be able to cater so S and M sizes simply because I am experienced with these sizes and have the patterns. As you said, big brands should think about including as many sizes as possible and monetarily efficient but please dont expect that from oncoming businesses

@@oliveoconnor5589 completely understandable, I hope they make pattern making and grading software more intuitive and under $2000 in the near future!

@@oliveoconnor5589 relating so much with this, I've only made things for myself and looking into commission type work, and I feel bad being non-inclusive about sizing outside my range but I just don't have the skills to back me up yet 😭 I've looked into it a bit and seems bigger sizes also tend to vary more and won't always work with single body block. I understand it can be tricky for brands when attempting to make a size inclusive pattern to be suitable to all, and there's a reason most size-inclusive brands do custom measurements instead of off-the-rack stuff, so it's not just down to grading patterns one time necessarily 🤔

@@SwimmingInSunlight the best thing I'm finding to do is get their measurements, find patterns that correspond to those measurements, lay them atop each other, and connect the dots between the bust, waist, and hips. Using a light table helps. Still kinda hard and has to be made to order and you should definitely do the mockup before using your good fabric

Wait what's the name of your brand please??? I'm always on the lookout for more sweet ouji!!!

same :(

Lolita's love affair with high waists is murder, man. I have the shortest torso in the world, let me liiiive

Me tooooooooo... this is why I keep making dresses for myself. High waists are not comfy Q.Q

When I was still following the brand update pages it made me so sad to see the majority of dresses had waists higher than the actual "just waist". Disliking raised waists is probably one of the reasons why I like skirt+blouse/cutsew combinations so much.

@Maria Puchała I have the deadly combo of a super short torso and a very large chest, so not only do waists sit really high on me to begin with, but they ride up like nobody's business because of the bust. Ironically, high waists look GREAT with this combo - if the high waist is on the skirt. High-waisted bodices look awful because it destroys the fit.

I mean. If non Asian people weren't allowed to wear it, Asian people shouldn't be allowed to wear Lolita or wa and qi Lolita either. Since lolita fashion is basically historical European dress shortened and extra cutified. And qi and wa Lolita are a mix of a historical European silhouette and historical Asian dress. It's really ridiculous. Unless someone is doing it to mock people it really isn't anything but cultural exchange.

non filthy frank here.

@Trinity M what are you talking about?????????

@@Givebackthescarf what is bro yapping about 😭

@@Givebackthescarf "some of us have no desire of seeing you in it until ourselves can wear it" bro who do you think you are. Literally cannot believe you typed this out and decided to post it-

same

I love that. They go up to 13 size wise I own 2 pairs and they are worth the money

Its mostly americans who are against it. I mean yeah i get it their culture was probably made fun of growing up, but people from the actual country love seeing their culture get recognised. So it really depends on who you ask...

Her channel, and her fans, also gave me the confidence to buy lolita!! She’s really changing the community :) I got a lucky pack so I didn’t need to get socks and accessories and a blouse and a dress all separately from GlitzyWonderland. Been three months and it’s finally been sent out (I love living in Australia trying to buy lolita totally not infuriating at all). I just need to see the dress so I can get a petticoat for it, and then I can finally wear it haha. This community she’s created is so supportive, and I hope she inspires so many other people too. I hope the dress is as beautiful as you hoped and I bet you’ll look gorgeous in it!

Where did you see this? I'm curious about the circumstances/context because the outfits themselves (with the exception of ero lolita, which isn't really that revealing anyway) aren't sexual or fetish-y, nor are the online community spaces themselves, so I don't know how that would end in slut shaming. Unless someone broke community rules, but criticising that also doesn't have to be slut shaming.. I'm seriously confused.

They don’t appreciate being likened to a pedophilic fantasy. Quite the leap to call that “sex-negative” 🤔

@@itsalwayshalloweenexceptwh5118 So I think you might have conflated the two portions of my statement, which were "people outside the community often accuse/assume lolita to be a fetish thing" and "people within the community got so hyper-defensive about these accusations that they swung too far the other way". It has been a problem for lolita fashion from pretty much the beginning that people outside the community hear "lolita" and instantly their minds jump to Nabokov's novel of the same name, despite there being absolutely no relation. Between surface-level knowledge of the book's plot, and the fact that lolita is easily described as "childlike" in its aesthetics, non-community members assume the worst about the fashion. Because of this, lolitas - both individually and as a community - have had to spend a LOT of time explaining to people "no it's not a fetish, it's a fashion style just like punk or goth or anything else, and it's DEFINITELY not about child predators jesus christ". This is a completely understandable thing to get distressed about. I've had to have this argument literally two weeks ago. However, this constant situation of having to be on the defensive, having to be ready for people to assume horrible things about you, has lead to people getting... pre-emptive, shall we say. Many people in the community will grab their pitchforks if someone mentions anything even remotely "sexual" in the context of lolita. I've seen people get crucified for wearing a spiked collar with their punk co-ords because OMG THAT'S A KINK THING HOW DARE YOU. This isn't something you can really provide direct links to because it's both insular and can very often be subtle. I've seen some pretty Big Name Lolitas (in the English-speaking sphere, of course, I can't speak at all for the Japanese community) be very nasty regarding this. I know this was an overly-long reply, but it's a situation with a lot of nuance to it with a few contributing factors.

@@PepsiObsessi Online lolita spaces aren't sex talk friendly and kink friendly anyway, so I don't know where OP gets the sex negativity and slut shaming idea from when kink and sex aren't appropriate topics of discussion anyway. I'm eagerly waiting for Electrosa to supply some examples of situations of slut shaming and sex negativity in the lolita community.

@@Electrosa first of all yes that is an overly-long reply for one of the biggest common denominators of being a lolita especially on a video by a channel that brings it up probably at least every six months. I wasn’t confused about anything. Sexualizing lolita at all is weird in the first place, calling people who are upset when it’s sexualized “sex-negative” is weirder- if an individual lolita is fine with it whatever, but strangers in or out of the community being obnoxious at best and creepy or harassing at worst to somebody because of what they’re wearing, surprise, is not. I wouldn’t want a stranger assuming or implying or approaching me to talk about sex it at all in any other clothes, much less when I’m dressed like that. I’ve been into lolita for over half my life now and I’ve never seen “slut-shaming” when it comes to this, only people putting up boundaries and being upset when they aren’t respected or rightfully angry when they’re outright accused of being fetishistic, regressive for women, or even pedophillic. This isn’t hard, or misogyny, or “sex-negative”. It is normal.

That sounds like its so pretty! I think demonias totally go with more gothic styles

shocked this is the first comment ive found pointing this out

I don’t even think it’s a case of needing to look hard. My main intro to demonias *was* their Mary Janes which are super popular in lolita still, right?

Agreeddd. I think it looks very nice if you can manage a good balance overall.

I totally agree with the demonia thing! I'm more on the v kei side of things, but have a lot of friends in lolita, and I think it's that a lot of the demonia-lolita content that dominates online is just poorly styled. I was thinking the same: if it's paired with other additions, it looks great! It's honestly the same as slapping demonias on any other outfit it doesn't compliment (which again, is a lot of what ends up getting a ton of engagement and views online)

@Trinity M No, wearing outfits from other cultures is *not* "colonisation" and it's incredibly incredibly wild that you would even say that. Clothes are clothes, if you're not wearing outfits for Halloween night I think people should be allowed to appreciate whatever clothes they want. I'm mixed and like to engage with my cultures, I also live in a very multicultural city where I like to learn about different cultures. Not once have I ever been told I'm "colonising" from people I was learning from

I have a really cute pair of pink demonias that I want to coordinate into a sweeter look! Plus I think they look really cool in a black and pink gothic/punk adjacent coord

@@phlackbillip That sounds amazing! 🖤

i think it's the pierrot blouse from kaneko if that helps at all!