What is Lolita?

Lolita is a fashion based on Victorian children's clothing, especially girls' clothing. It originated in Japan a few decades ago, and is much more well-known there than in most other countries.

Lolita in a nutshell has:

• knee-length skirts and dresses
• knee-high or over-the-knee socks
• petticoats (the things that make old-fashioned skirts poofy)
• blouses
• lace--lace is actually more complicated in the Lolita community than one might guess; this post by Miss Caro-chan of F Yeah Lolita may clear things up a bit.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, Lolita is rather modest. Mind you some of us have bubblegum-pink hair in large pink ponytails (the lovely Victoria Suzanne of Lolita Charm would be a good example of this, although she also has multiple wigs of all colors), and we may have "satellite dish bonnets" (thank you, Miss Lumpy, for the wonderful words), but the term "erotic" is known in the Loli world to automatically have a "not" right before it, or at least a "not an", as in "Lolita is not an erotic fashion, thank you very much, so take your misogyny and leave, before my servants throw you out."

That brings us to something else: some Loli(ta)s are also feminists. Some Lolis are happiest sticking to the traditional roles of men and women in the society they come from. Some are completely neutral on the subject. The Lolita community is composed of Shinto, Bhuddist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Athiest, Agnostic, Deist, Baha'i, Unitarian Universalist, etc. people. The point is, the fashion itself has no standpoint on feminism, religion, politics, any of it. It even lets boys and men join in. We call them Brolitas, if they're dressing in the girls' fashion. (If not, they're called Ohji or o-Ohji-sama in Japan, and Dandy in English-speaking countries. I don't know what they're called in other languages, I'm afraid.)

There is much more to Loli fashion than what I've just said, though. There are many places on the 'net to learn more, including this blog....