Well, my spring semester at college starts today and its back to lectures and tests for myself and many. A lot of lolitas like to use school as an excuse to wear their frills in a more daily fashion. But if you've never gone all out the idea of wearing full on lolita to class can be a little daunting. So I've put together a couple tips for learning in your loli.- Start small. If you're too nervous to just take the plunge and go all-out lolita on the first day, work up to it in babysteps. Wear a ruffled skirt sans petticoat with an everyday top or wear a blouse with jeans. Slowly add things toward full lolita so the transition isn't so much of a shock to others.
- Stay classic or casual. If you want to stay in the background as much as possible classic or casual lolita is the best. Classic will, at most times, just look like dressy clothes with a petticoat. Casual lolita, with a cute cutsew, will look even more like casual everyday clothes. If a bit more girly.
- If you want to go a little further than classic or casual. Say, gothic or sweet, don't go OTT. Sweets jewelry and incredibly huge teased hair may look cute at a meetup, but it will be distracting while taking notes. Also, keep any makeup tuned down and low maintenance. There's no need to spend an hour getting ready to simply sit and learn all day.
- Wear flats or low heels. Chances are you're going to have a long school day and high heels just run you the risk of getting sore feet.
- If you have an art class, or lab, or anything with the potential to get messy or harm your clothes, don't wear lolita. No amount of "being careful" is worth the risk of ruining such expensive items.
- If someone asks what you're wearing and is actually curious, try to hold off on the word "lolita" because of the stigma attached to it. Introduce them with a title something along the lines of "a Japanese street fashion". Don't go crazy explaining it to them either unless they specifically ask. Be polite.
- Remember you're most likely going to get harassed no matter how carefully you ease into your frills. People feel threatened about things that are different and you're going to be different. But if you act confident and keep your head held high then you're not likely to get much more than a handful of odd stares and rude comments.
I don't agree that people will get harrassed most likely... It's of course terrible to be suprised by the harassment but don't automatically assume it! With such an attitude I think you'll easier be harrassed than when you go to school full of confidence! I have never been harrassed at school and I know many others who haven't as well.
ReplyDeleteI also don't agree about not using the word lolita, but to each their own :)
I don't know how it is at your place, but here in the Netherlands it's like: "omg! you're different!" Really, if you just were slightly something different you "weird" and so on.. Basicelly, I really don't care anymore, beter be me than the next mainstream sheep!
ReplyDeleteEven before lolita, I tended to dress up a bit for school; my parents taught me that looking presentable was a sign of respect. Not that I looked like every day was prom, but I didn't wear jeans and an old band tee ad nauseum, either. When I got to college, the big trend was looking like you just rolled out of bed after a bender: Uggs, messy buns, ratty sweatpants with Greek letters across the butt, pajamas, etc. (Of course, I'm guessing quite a few of my classmates actually did sidle into class after blackout weekends...). That look's not so popular now, but in or out of lolita I still get, "Omg why are you dressed like that?" at the beginning of every semester. It bothered me at first, but I've gotten used to it. By finals week, if I do wear just pants and a button-down, people wonder why I'm dressed so casually!
ReplyDeleteP.S. Thanks for mentioning the lab part! I was a lab monitor last fall, so I had to wear boring clothes pretty often. To compensate I embroidered molecular structures and bubbly Erlenmeyer flasks on my lab coat and rhinestoned my initials on my goggles.
I totally agree with this! Especially the part about the stigma of the word "lolita." Even when we're at meet-ups and people ask us about what we're doing, we've started avoiding the word so that we don't get that "oh." reaction.
ReplyDelete@Q's I disagree with you! I live in the Netherlands too and I wore lolita for he first time in public. Peoe on the street were staring and some people were obviously talking about me when I walked by, ut at my school absolutely no one teased/bullied me and my friends loved it! A teacher even said I looked like a Japanese doll! XD So it's not that "Dutch people won't accept it" . But you'rw right that there are a lot of mainstream sheeps.
ReplyDeleteI actually also thought the "start small" part and I'm doing it now. It is however scary...
ReplyDeleteI love this! I was a lolita for years but I ran away from it because of the attention I was getting. Bad attention. No one was there to tell me how to deal with it or even tone it down. My parents even wanted me out of the Loli fashion! I still love it though. My only thing is, I can't wear a wig to school, normally. It gets so uncomfy after being on for 12 hours.
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