Elegant Gothic Lolita: A (Literal) Formal Protest
How a misunderstood form of goth fashion slowly took over the world.
I was fucking weird when I was a teenager. One thing I was really into was cosplay and gothwear. Unlike most people in my area, I was not afraid to wear goth clothing. More specifically, I was still trying to show I could “girl” right and therefore became obsessed with Japanese Elegant Gothic Lolita.
EGL, or Elegant Gothic Lolita, is what most Americans would call an eyebrow-raiser in both name and style. When I wore it, I looked like Elvira shat out a Cabbage Patch Kid. It was not very flattering for me.
However, it was flattering for the youth of Harajuku Japan back in the early aughts. How did I know? I would buy every Gothic Lolita Bible magazine that I could get. (For the reference, that was the streetwear magazine that every cool Japanese kid in the EGL world wanted.)
Looking back, it didn’t occur to me why people were weirded out by the name “Gothic Lolita.”
I know, I know. It’s a moment where my naivete really gets put on display. Or perhaps, it’s because the term “Lolita” did not really have a single connotation for me. I saw it as two things: a term for a girl that tempts (read: gets victimized by) older men and as a Japanese fashion statement.
It just so happened that most people didn’t know this was a Japanese trend at the time. It was 2006. Either way, I was oblivious to why my Cabbage Patch-looking ass was always getting derided for calling myself a Lolita.