egl_archive

Somewhat related to the last post I made, in that I was curious about it after reading some 10 year old posts on here, I was wondering what people think the future of Lolita and the Lolita communities (online and offline, I don't necessarily mean this LJ community) holds. Specifically:

Where do you realistically see the Lolita fashion and community in 2 years? In 5 years? In 10 years?

Surprisingly, I haven't really seen this discussed much in the past besides beginning-of-the-year trend predictions which are often just wishful print release thinking!

Personally, I can't imagine any major decline in Lolita's popularity, as it seems to have been building up slowly for the last 10 years and haven't dropped off the face of the earth yet. So I guess my predictions for the style are an optimistic one!

2 years
I don't really see there being a ton of difference between Lolita now and in 2 years. I think more people will continue to gather in local online communities more, rather than in big general ones like EGL and forums, as the trend seems to be heading. I know a lot of people have left LJ for Tumblr, and I'm curious to see how that goes, considering how difficult it is to have discussions or even a reliable archive on Tumblr.

In 2 years I can maybe imagine another brand shop, or at least a boutique, opening in the US, maybe not. It doesn't seen far fetched, who knows.

Style wise, I bet Classic Lolita will rise in popularity, and people will complain about how boring it is that everyone wears it.

5 years
In 5 years I can easily imagine more stores or boutiques opening up in the US, and maybe even have a couple more established, yearly, Lolita events or conventions, instead of just Lolita stuff happening at other events and cons.

I think by then a lot of the brands we consider "taobao" might just be called "brands" and maybe we'll sort of see the beginnings of the vanishing of the "offbrand" "brand" hierarchy, and things will just be "lolita" and "clothes I bought at a regular store that I wear with my lolita"

I can see another brand, or even a couple, branching off with a sub-brand the way Baby did with AatP. My guess would be Angelic Pretty or Innocent World. If it is AP, I would guess it's a much more casual line, if it's IW, I would guess it being a luxury line. I would hope by this point at least one of the indie outside-of-Japan brands makes it to the big time with a storefront and large, factory made, runs of clothes.

I think style wise, Lolita has been definitely building up more and more towards the elaborate and OTT, as well as massive international trends, but I think maybe the increase in people mostly just sticking with their local comms, rather than the international online ones, might put a stop to that. The way it seems now, you sort of have to compete with the the whole world of Lolita to be a ~really great~ Lolita. Trends might become more localized and you really wont be able to say exactly what is the most popular style because everyone is keeping to their local communities.

However, I can easily imagine there being local "Lolita circles" that have online presences/group blogs or sites, rather than individual. Maybe they all get together and have incredibly themed meetups and "compete" that way online. Just sort of a silly thought though! I have noticed that back in like 2005 or everyone had "Lolita 101" websites, then in like 2009 everyone had more personal (but still heavy on the "Lolita 101" info) blogs, and now it's moving towards ultra personal informal style-dairy Tumblrs, so I am sort of pulling that prediction out of nowhere, but it's not like blogging can get any more personal than a lot of people's Tumblrs, so I guess it has to go somewhere!

10 years
I can easily imagine Lolita in 10 years sort of being like Goth has been for the last 15 years, at least in the average person's awareness of the style. Like it wouldn't be incredibly bizarre to have a regular TV show with a sort of goofy cliche Lolita in it, and if you're known for wearing skirts and ruffly blouses people might whisper to each other "Do you think she's a Lolita??" they way people claim Goth if you wear black a little too much. Maybe because of that we'll see a reemergence in cheap "mall lolita" every now and then, and people will once again complain about that. Maybe we'll even see a major movie released outside of Japan that features a Lolita.

People will stop asking "How old is too old?" for Lolita, because we'll have Elder Lolitas, and even second-generation Lolitas.

Style wise, honestly I don't think it will be terribly different. I mean in the last 10 years Lolita hasn't really changed that much, just added a few trends to the pot, so maybe we'll end up with some new style names and possibly a lot of Lolita-like trends that really blur Lolita with various other fashion tribes. I can imagine by this point there really being no brand hierarchy, and brands will just be known by how good their clothes are and how reliable the service. I think by this point we'll have seen a handful of the brands we have now gone out of business (Sadly, I would take a hazard to guess Victorian Maiden and Mary Magdalene and some of the more popular indie brands that simply have never produced large quantities of stuff. Maybe even Moitie.)

Hopefully, by this point, we'll have a few Lolita clubs outside of Japan and a number of smallish Lolita conventions that are annual events. And when a Lolita boutique pops up in a large city, it's no longer a Lolita-worldwide news event because it's will have been pretty a common event.