The chicken, or the egg?

[oshidori.livejournal.com]

Something I've wondered for a bit now that I thought you ladies (and gents!) could help me out with-

Is Lolita a true street fashion? And by that what I'm asking is, did kids in the street either make their own clothes in that style, or pick and choose existing things to create the look with local designers following suit; or did local designers come up with it and the kiddies caught on and followed?

I've seen the Gosurori Timeline site, but I don't find it to be all that thorough, or that it completely answers my question. I may be wrong though, I admit I don't have the link on me anymore.

But what styles were on the street at the time that made the existing labels decide that that was the subgenre they would pursue? Or did it start with Baby (or if it wasn't Baby, please correct me) all the way, and with them dictating the origins of the fashion initially? What was Baby's start-off collection like?

I hope I've made my question and thought process clear enough, it's very early here and I'm still a bit muddled ^^; Thanks in advance! ^_^

Comments

[lolime.livejournal.com]

ermmm loli in my opinion is a street fashion and baby i heard started around the 70's...sorry not much help here

i would also like to know what baby's start off line was, lol hippy lolitas! XD

[armelle.livejournal.com]

according to the english explanation blurb on 'kamikaze girls', btssb started in 88 (i'm pretty sure it was 88. i've already returned the movie, but it someone wants to check?)

[kyandee-horikku.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's true that btssb started in 88.
As far as I know, the only lolita brand that started in the 70's was Angelic Pretty (1979).

[kurara.livejournal.com]

I don't really know..
Because like the person before me says, a lot of lolita like designs were present in the 70's and 80's in Japan

[oshidori.livejournal.com]

Doe anyone have sources though, or are you going by hearsay?

[innocentecchi.livejournal.com]

now i have a rather bad memory at times, but i think i read that when Baby first started they didn't do Lolita clothes. it took a few/several? lines before he did the clothes he wanted.

[crownprince.livejournal.com]

yeah, in the Kamikaze girls website, it mentions that Baby didn't start off selling Lolita clothes~

[kyra-cat.livejournal.com]

i'm sure someone said here, or i read it somewhere that people copied/made tributes to the clothing from visual kei bands and wore it to gigs

i don't know whether it was then worn as street fashion and brands picked up on it or whether brands picked up on people making their own clothes to be worn at gigs, copied it and then it became street fashion

sorry to be not much help

[61percent.livejournal.com]

In my opinion it started hundreds of years ago in the Edwardian/Victorian/Rococco periods of history. From then it's repeated many times in fashion in any number of forms, in any number of countries. The formation of the Lolita scene/style, is just an another one of these occasions.

[swan-princess.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think it came from the fashion houses. It seems to have started at girly brands like Pink House and Emily Temple, and evolved as different designers took it over, changing the silhouette, etc. (Pink House, for example, looks a lot like lolita brands, sans the silhouette.)

I'd think the visual kei bands would've taken their outfits from those brands, rather than the people trying to be them (kind of opposite from America's fashion trends, right?).

But it's all a matter of opinion. :x

[innocentecchi.livejournal.com]

thats what i always heard i thought. ^-^

[dymentia.livejournal.com]

Yes I think that's how the fashion as we know it came about, though I think the houses' initial inspiration came from certain rock groups who became big in the 80's while sporting their own DIY fashions. In the end, who can say? I think it's an interesting topic though

[swan-princess.livejournal.com]

If you can find any bands that dressed in non-goth lolita-style clothing before the start of lolita-specific brands, please show me. I'd love to see what you're talking about.

[kittyhot.livejournal.com]

From what I've read about Japanese teen fads, it would have been the teens themselves who made up the fashion, and then designers caught on and started producing things for them in the same light. (Example: http://www.kinsellaresearch.com/Cuties.html)

I'm 99% positive sweet lolita came first (what with AP and Baby), then girls started gothifying it OR girls started imitating Mana and other vk bands when they went to concerts, and gothic lolita was born.

Hmm, that's interesting to think that sweet lolita and gothic lolita may have totally unrelated origins o.o;

[dymentia.livejournal.com]

Remember, crinolines, big hairbows, lace rim, and lots of layers was in in the 80's. Madonna and my gal Cyndi at the forefront, with artists like Lene Lovich taking it farther out into their own less accessible version of the thrift store style. IMHO lolita as a fashion started with Strawberry Switchblade. (http://www.strawberryswitchblade.net/) They caused a bit of a splash when they toured in Japan, and I think that's about when the fashion might've started to catch. The "brand name" clothing began to pop up after that, but these brands didn't begin to churn out the strict loli fashions as prescribed by the Bibles and this community until closer to the 1990's. The recycled, frilly, and layered little-big-girl dresses with mismatched patterns and poofy accessories slowly turned around and wandered back to it's wee-little-girl roots - a toddler's sunday best, the classic frilly dress, the fashion doll** - they were very much DIY street fashion in the beginning, and seemed to keep that look for at least a little while even when the brands took over. Even Switchblade Symphony's style evolved over their brief existance, and after a couple of years they abandoned their little girl roots in favour of a more mature style. Without being able to find that link I had to Baby's oldest styles, I'm only working with my memory of them, and if I recall correctly they used to be a lot funkier, closer to DIY punk loli. History is always obscured by view and opinion, and I'd wager most people would prefer the idea of the glorious fully formed space chicken [that is to say the first loli ever] suddenly appearing in immaculate shiro sweet style, speaking perfect French, in the midst of the perfect tea party. I say signs point to the egg. The odiferous past expiry date salvation army egg.

**a fashion doll was the quickest and most amusing way ladies of the nobility would find out what the latest fashion in Paris was. The dressmakers would make an approximation of the new style of dress for a cloth bodied doll with a porcelain head. Because of the doll's proportions, however, you could really see best what the little girls would be wearing on the streets, which was usually a more squat mirror of their mothers' best dresses. The dolls were then given to the girls to keep and play with.

[tropigalia.livejournal.com]

Pink House came way before Strawberry Switchblade and I don't think they were really that popular.

[themadviolinist.livejournal.com]

Actually, they were HUGE in Japan, extremely influential in later decades of Japanese fashion, there is much documented cosplay of SS in Japan in the 80s, and Dada-sama (sorry I can't find the link right now, but it could surely be dug out) has explicity named SS as an aesthetic jumping off point and there are photographs in which you could line them up next to each other and the looks are nearly identical. It was obviously a huge push for the lolita look...

[pour-me-coffee.livejournal.com]

Eron is very interested in Harajuku. He's done some research into it. From what we can tell the way the Harajuku fashion developed is from the street fashion. Harajuku was *the* place to express yourself. As more and more people started doing so, the more extreme kids started trying harder. Thats how things like decora, lolita, and crazy shit like Takuya Angel came to be.

IMO I think lolita started as a general street fad and the designers took it up and tweaked it until it became what we know now. Hell whenever you see pics of the designers half the time they're wearing their own clothing. For all we know they were the kids on the streets doing it and made their own labels. Have you read the interview with Baby's designer on the Kamikaze Girls website?