This week's Lolita Blog Carnival theme once again plays a little bit on our emotions regarding our Lolita life. This week, we're supposed to share which Lolita designer we'd like to meet, for whatever reason, be it wanting to share a cup of tea with someone who seems like fun, or experiencing how Mr. Yan would do on an actual date.
(Is he even a designer? Or just the big-money creepo who owns the business?)
Me, myself and I have decided that we would like to spend an afternoon in the company of lovely Alice and the Pirates' designer, Mitsuba! This lady of style created the brand who pulled me straight into a pile of frills in the first place, so that is one reason.
Secondly, take a closer look at the picture above. She's the picture of dream-like elegance, with her soft waves and impeccable though unusual eye-makeup. And pardon me, but is that a total of 4-5 piercings in her ear?
I think that whereas Maki and Asuka are absolutely adorable, and Misako Aoki is sweet as a french pastry, Mitsuba has a very interesting edge. Just like Alice and the Pirates, she has got the perfect balance down, between the feather-light beauty of Baby the Stars Shine Bright, and the darker, punk-like elements, that remind me a little bit of Atelier Pierrot.
The result is the image of a rebellious princess, or Alice, if she found out that she were the long lost daughter of Captain Hook and decided to embrace that.
If I got to spend an afternoon with her, I'd love to ask her, what dream her style is supposed to bring to life. How does she see herself, and what does she hope to pass on to the girls, who fall for her prints?
How did she fall in love with Lolita?
Did she have an ITA-phase? After all the designers are some of the ultimate trendsetters in Lolita. Becoming an accomplished Lolita takes hard work and dedication, and sometimes we need to be reminded of that. I would love to see, if the designers started out as newbies in lacemonster dresses, like most of us did!
(Hopefully we could have a good laugh at this. Maybe she would even pull out an old photoalbum covered in stickers? Haha!)
Last but not least, I would like to applaud her on pretty much creating a substyle of her own, within Lolita fashion. "Alice and the Pirates", her hard work, has without a doubt given Pirate Lolita a boost in popularity, at least as a classy "Con-Look", and revolutionized Classic Lolita as a substyle.
Without Alice and the Pirates, I think Classic Lolita would mostly consist of flowers, monochromes and cream colors. I love the image of the young victorian lady as well, but Alice and the Pirates added an element of adventure and vibrancy, without losing the mature look.
What Mitsuba understood, I think, is what the story of "Alice" that Lolitas love so much, was really about.
Young girls do not just want to sit quietly in a corner and read a book, do embroidery and play the piano. While all of that is fine and dandy, we Lolitas seek the magic and wonder of this world.
We want to explore and discover! Many of us are a part of Lolita because we dream about something exciting and grand, so we try to become the people this would happen to, through our clothing.
To me, Lolita would definetely not have been the same without Alice and the Pirates. I would probably still have been here, but my style would have been different.
My entire "Lolita world-view" would probably have been different.
More "Cinderella", less "Rapunzel", if you know what I'm getting at.
So, thank you, ms. Mitsuba! Thank you, for adding a bit of "curiosity" to our "cute"!
Check out the entries below to see who else deserves a big hug and a fruit basket.
She looks so awesome!!! =D I can imagine one would want to meet her!
SvarSletI don't know very much about Mitsuba, but I'm definitely going to research more into her after reading this post. We need a lolita wikipedia to keep track of these important figures.
SvarSlet