If there’s one figure responsible for popularizing the
look, it’s Mana, leader of the Japanese band Moi dix
Mois, formerly of Malice Mizer. In 1999, after noticing
his fans were widely copying his style, he launched his
own fashion label, Moi-même-Moitié. He cooked up the
terms Elegant Gothic Lolita and Elegant Gothic
Aristocrat, too, to differentiate between his women’s
and men’s collections. “He’s a major pioneer,” says
Godoy.
Nowadays, there’s a whole constellation of Gothic Lolita
designers, from Alice Auaa to h.Naoto’s Naoto Hirooka,
who has elevated the look to the runway. Four of the
eight floors in Tokyo’s Marui department store in
Shinjuku are dedicated to the style. And the look
itself, much like Western Goth, has multiple
subcategories: punk Lolitas, sweet Lolitas and grotesque
Lolitas, to name a few. (For the Goth curious, grotesque
gals come “injured” and bandaged up.)
“Western Goth responds to a lot of religious imagery and
potentially controversial connotations,” explains Carmen
Yuen, who’s made a career out of blogging about the
Gothic Lolita culture on lacarmina.com. “Whereas in
Japan, it’s just an aesthetic. It’s all visual, without
the context.” She points to other examples of similarly
co-opted looks: Japan’s popular rockabilly or American
surf style. “Can you imagine?” remarks Yuen, who now
goes by the name Carmina. “California-style board shorts
— in Japan?” Even though the Gothic Lolita look isn’t
exactly bum-rushing Western shores, it’s begun to filter
over. The popular style guide “Gothic & Lolita Bible” —
part fashion glossy, part McCall’s pattern book — just
launched an English version last year. (Available at
Barnes & Noble and Borders, spring 2009 is “The Wedding
Issue.”) This August, the Japanese entertainment
distributor VIZ Pictures is opening a multistory “J-Pop
Center” in San Francisco, which will include a cinema,
bookstore and Gothic Lolita shop. The sweet Lolita label
Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, meanwhile, has announced
plans to open up a store in that city as well. (There’s
already one in Paris on 72 Avenue Ledru Rollin.) And
Faoflex, an Italian eyewear company, is launching a line
called Dandy’s Collection later this month, with one
style dubbed Gothic Lolita.
Yuen herself is another example. The 24-year-old
Vancouver native, with a BA from Columbia and a law
degree from Yale, lives between New York and Tokyo, has
a Goth cooking show on YouTube and just launched a
capsule collection of Loli-Goth-style coats. Also in the
pipeline: a collaboration with London Underground shoes
and two book projects. “I go to Gothic club nights,” she
adds, “and every single time, there are more and more
people. It seems like things are only going to get
bigger.” Come March 2010, GothLoli even goes Hollywood;
Tim Burton is coming out with his own spin on “Alice in
Wonderland,”
starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and newcomer Mia
Wasikowska as Alice.
As for the reason behind all
this Gothic attention lately (no matter what its
strain), some point to the economy, suggesting it’s a
hemline effect of sorts, but with dark and gloomy
clothing for a dark and gloomy outlook. For Grai
designer Maya Yogev, who used to work at Rick Owens and
designed a limited edition fashion collection for Black
Sabbath in 2006, the financial connection is a practical
one. “It’s more cost-effective for me to do an all-black
collection,” she says.
Steele begs to differ. “No, no, no! A million times no!”
she responds. “That’s a total knee-jerk reaction. There
are always going to be designers, like McQueen, who are
going to be attracted to the look of the dark side.
There’s something dangerously charismatic about this
look — it’s the bad boy, the bad girl, the rock ’n’
roll, this sort of dangerous Baudelairean poet.”
Rodarte’s Laura Mulleavy echoes those thoughts. “People
have a connection to different aesthetics all the time,”
she says. “In the end, what people will pick for
themselves is really a personal expression. People can
find beauty, and it could be strange.”