Gothic Lolita and the Politics of Fashion
Vera Mackie
University of Melbourne
In recent years, subcultural fashion styles originating in the streets of urban Japan
have become the focus of international attention. One of the styles which has been the
focus of such transnational interest is the ‘Gothic Lolita’ style. ‘Lolita’ originally
referred to the young woman who is the object of Humbert Humbert’s infatuation in
Nabokov’s novel, Lolita. In contemporary Japanese popular culture this name has
been transferred to the label ‘Lolita complex’ (usually abbreviated to Rori-kon/ Lolicon), referring to middle-aged men who have an interest in younger women. ‘Lolita’
has also, however, come to refer to a particular style of street fashion. This is a style
which is adopted by young women, acting in a complex interplay between the street
fashion subculture and the capitalist enterprises and small boutiques who sell the
fashion goods and magazines. In this lecture I will consider the cultural logic of the
Gothic Lolita fashion style in contemporary Japan. This will be contextualized with a
reading of the place of the young girl (shôjo) in contemporary culture, what we might
call the ‘girlscape’, in an appropriation and condensation of Honda Masuko’s
reference to the ‘landscape of the girl’. The ‘girlscape’ is also part of a transnational
mediascape, in addition to the density of cultural references in the deployment of the
Lolita figure in contemporary Japan. It is no mere accident that several apparently
unrelated phenomena in contemporary Japanese popular culture share a name ––
Lolita. These connections will be considered in the context of contemporary gender
and sexual politics.