Lolita girls take Gothic look to the extremes

Source: Agencies  |   2008-8-4  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

THE look is weird, and very Tokyo.

Growing up? Forget it. Look sexy, too. And seem as though you might have a pulse? Better to glow blue like porcelain. Or to break out the black lipstick.

Check out any place where young women hang out in Tokyo, and you are likely to find Lolitas. In fact, it's hard to miss them.

"People notice us - we stand out," said Sachi, the lead vocalist for Black Pansy, a two-woman band whose look, from puffy wigs to bright purple stockings, has made them the darlings of the Tokyo Lolita scene. "The pure, girl-like world inside of me, that is what Lolita is all about."

Tokyo can compete with any city in the world in terms of how many upscale boutiques sell the latest fashions.

But Lolita thumbs its nose at Japan's fashion establishment.

The look is little girl, tea party cute, starting with black hair ribbons or tiny bonnets and moving to frilly dresses and thick platform boots or Mary Jane flats, often augmented with a lace umbrella to protect milky-white complexion on sunny days.

And it has swelled into a full-fledged subculture, spawning several niches, starting with the classic Gothic Lolita - pale with dark lips in heavy makeup - and progressing through Elegant Lolita, Sweet Lolita (a doll-like look), Punk, Country and Black Lolita, wearing almost exclusively black from head to foot.

Designer Naoto Hirooka, whose brand h. Naoto is one of the main creative forces behind Gothic Lolita, said the whole look, like much of the anime culture it represents, is an escape into a childish world of cute.

"One of the salient points about Lolita is that it's a fashion that is not intended to attract men," he said. "The women are creating their own world."