[Question] A scholarly question, if you will.

[hayate-beads.livejournal.com]

This past summer I was spotted in Lolita by one of the design professors at my University. She wants set up a study abroad short term in Japan, exploring Harajuku street fashion subsets, including lolita. I plan on pointing her towards the handbook, this LJ community and lolitafashion.com (possibly the japaneselifestyle.com article, but I'm not 100% content with the Nabokov explanation and a few other things.) , however, a lot of the stuff seems to be more of a how-to-dress/where to buy style guide, and not a "why things are the way they are" or "lets understand this from an outside perspective" look on the fashion.

I know there are tons of people on EGL that are seamstresses, or used lolita with fashion majors, etc., who have looked at the clothes from the design, concept, and origin perspective. What do you guys recommend?

I'm totally not a fashion person, so if I've missed anything, feel free to chime in.