Teeny Tiny Meet-up at the Women's Museum

The entrance to the old Women's Museum in Aarhus

This saturday I went to a meet-up in Aarhus with just two of my friends. I had hoped for more people to show up, but everybody else were busy with their exams or work! 

(I guess it's that time of the year. I'm busy with university projects and exams myself, but I took some time out for Lolita)

We met up at the local trainstation and then walked in the sun towards the Women's Museum! 

As soon as we got in we were met with female power all around! It was a beautiful old building, with a beautiful old painting of elegant victorian ladies in the hallway. Lolita felt so very appropriate!

Of course the first thing we wanted to do, as fashion forward ladies, were visit the exhibitions of historical women's fashions. I was very impressed with their collection of historical undergarments! So many beautiful slips, bloomers, corsets and nightgowns! It made me want to make some for myself, or at least purchase some more elegant sleepwear. 

They also had actual everyday costumes from important women through time, and they were just stunning, especially placed in this old house. The one above was one of my favorites because of the lace!

Afterwards, we went to the top floor where they had their "Storm P." exhibition. Storm P. was a comic artist, who also drew covers for womens magazines. He had a very interesting and empowering view on women, especially considering that he started working in the 1910's (if I remember correctly)! While most of the women he drew were not designed to be aesthetically pleasing, they often had the upperhand, and the men he drew were tiny and weak in comparison.
The pictures above are not by him. They're a selection of some of the work that inspired his own.
I thought they were just beautiful!

There were some more psychological and emotionally involving parts of the museum as well, but I didn't take any pictures. I was too busy being frightened by women releasing bats out of their mouth when I opened the door to cabinets and such.

Afterwards we went out for tea at AC. Perchs Tea Salon! When I heard that one had opened in Aarhus, I just had to go visit, as the one in Copenhagen is my all time favorite place to get a good cup of tea and scones!
We just managed to squeeze ourselves in, but otherwise, the place had been fully booked for the entire saturday!
People stopped and stared at us from outside the windows. It was hilarious!

All in all, it was an awesome day! The museum was a cultural treat, and the scones a tasty one.
I can't wait until the next one!

LBC: The Most Challenging Substyles, and How To Pull Them Off

For this week's Lolita Blog Carnival, the topic is to really challenge ourselves and make some really difficult stuff work out in Lolita's favor.
And why go the easy route? I've been working hard on this styleguide for a couple of days, and so I choose YOU:
Sweet Punk Lolita! 

We barely ever see punk Lolita done with sweet elements. It's usually your typical gothy, mainstream-punky substyle of Lolita, but I really like the idea of sweet Lolita being combined with some more kickass elements. Because why do you have to be gloomy to be tough? And this comes from a big admirer of the dark beauty that goth represents, mind you!

So how do I think you can balance sweet with rough'n'tough in a way that won't clash, or seem unbalanced? In my opinion, it's not enough to just throw on a leather jacket and call it a day.
Let me give you a couple of pointers, before I present my idea of a sweet punk outfit to you.

1: Think about what look you're going for!
What image do you want to convey with your outfit? A cute biker? A punk-style magical girl from one of your favorite mangas or comics? Do you wanna go more "torn fishnet" or more "leather", or a combination of the two?

2: Balance your elements!
You want to have an equal amount of punk and cute in your outfit. If you're gonna go for torn fishnet socks, choose some cute dolly shoes. If you wanna wear skull bracelets, try to incorporate some bows too. 

3: Follow the rules!
(or guidelines. Whatever you prefer to call them)
I know, I know, punk wants to be a rebellious style, but if you want to combine it with your Lolita and still be able to call it that, keep the guidelines in mind! This is especially important when you attempt something as experimental as punk Lolita. Punk is all about everything that Lolita is not- The torn, things falling apart at the seams, the rough and being "Ready to Fight for Freedom"! Lolita is pretty much the polar opposite. You can see how combining the two is walking on a thin line, but following the quidelines should help, if you also keep in mind to balance your elements. 
At least keep your ankles covered, keep the full, knee-length skirt, cover your shoulders and wear something on your head, until you're sure you know exactly what you're doing.


So, let me present to you my ideas for how you could put together an outfit..

For my very basic outfit above, I chose a Lolita biker as my style inspiration. I chose this particular JSK because of it's typical pastel elements, but it also has a bright color, the vibrant pink, that I could play up with the jacket. I wanted the jacket to really stand out as a focal point. I chose a pair of elegant fishnet tights and practical boots, but to keep it from straying too far into non-Lolita territory, I seperated the two with a pair of typical kneehigh socks. Also, to balance out the pink with a bit of blue.

Hairband by Babydoll. 

For hair accessories, I'd pick a spiky headband, with some cute pink touches, like the one above, positioned in front of a pair of fluffy, playful twin buns! A playful hairstyle would be important for this hairstyle, in my opinion. You could add a couple of bright pink bows to the buns, too.

From pinterest.

By Nile Perch and Swimmer

To spice up the jacket, I would add a couple of cute pins. Since punk is all about rebelling and standing up for what you believe in, I'd probably pick buttons who supported women's rights or animal rights, but you can also go another route and just choose cute buttons with cupcakes or other sweet things to your liking!

Necklace by Bandai.

To go further into the "Girl Power!" territory, I'd put in some girlpower elements like Magical Girl accessories. I love the magical girl concept, even if I don't watch a lot of animés myself.

They were a great part of my childhood, and I still refer back to these memories when I feel lacking in the confidence department. I chose a relatively simple silver pendant, as I felt it suited the colorscheme of the coordinate the best. I'm debating whether or not it would look good with a pink leather collar too. What do you think? I'd wear multiple bracelets with this coord. A mix of pearls, bows and leather bracelets.

To wrap this up, I want to show you guys a gorgeous leather jacket I found, that I think would look amazing with a vibrant sweet punk Lolita coordinate!

This UNIF jacket, which I found on "Dolls Kill"! I think it's absolutely gorgeous, with just the right amount of crazy pastel madness that has been to typical of Angelic Pretty over the last couple of years. Grab it before OTT goes out of style completely! I know I want to, if the price didn't make my wallet groan in pain.. 

That was it for this week, folks! I hope I inspired some of you guys to explore your more hardcore, girly side.

Want to receive some more advice on hard-to-pull-off Lolita looks? Check out the blogs below!

Breidholt
Lemon Tree
Sparkling Girl

Daily Fuckery
Fire Extinguisher
Sleeping Sweets
Alice in Lolitaland
Hello Batty

Disney Heroines and Female Ideals

Recently, the new Disney movie "Frozen" was released in cinemas, and this movie has raised voices all over the world! The complaints mainly revolve around the amount of female characters and their portrayal, from what I've heard. 

The argument about the portrayal of women in the media in general is interesting, but in this post I'm gonna talk about Disney in particular, and the ideals that they set for girls and women. I feel that the portrayal of women in Disney movies and TV-series is to some extent misunderstood, but then again, the critics are right on some points as well. 

One must remember, that many of the Disney princesses were written many decades ago. The expectations that people had for a woman was different back then. There was a time where it was expected of a woman to be quiet, delicate and the wife of a husband/breadwinner. 

So is it healthy, pulling those roles out of the dusty old closet and pushing them onto girls today? Are Disney princesses bad rolemodels, just because they're not all "feisty" ?

I don't think so, at all. 

Many people seem to worry that Disney will make girls fall victim to the idea that you have to find a guy to marry, to be "right". What I think some of these people forget, is to reflect upon their own childhood and the worries and goals they had back then.

Growing up, did Disney make you frantic to go out and get married? Was the most important thing in your life finding a Prince Charming, or has it been since?
Maybe it's just me, but I watched every single Disney movie, I had the Disney-Barbie dolls. I still wanted to become a hero I wanted to travel the world and become a Pokemon Master, I wanted to become a secret Spy. The last one was a result of Disney's "Kim Possible", actually. See, that's a great story with a kick-ass female lead!

Disney Princesses were some of my greatest idols, though! I was a huge fan of Pocahontas, especially. 

I loved her affinity with nature, her strength, her willingness to stand up to her parents and to traditions to do the right thing. The John Smith-thing was just a side-plot to me. 

The great story with a strong female lead was in the center.

I found Belle in Beauty and the Beast to be very inspirational as well. She was clever, openminded, independent, and her close relationship to her dad is for some reason some of what I remember the clearest. Many people worry that her falling in love with the one that keeps her prisoner will have a bad influence on how girls view relationships. I never even thought of that when I watched the movie! The only thing I cared about was how she was able to see past his beastly looks! To me, "Beauty and the Beast" is about not judging a book by it's cover, and second chances. And Belle is not all beauty. She's brains as well!

Even the women in the older Disney movies have great traits that young girls will undoubtly learn from. The three fairies in Sleeping Beauty are fun and quirky characters. They're creative, they're motherly and they raised her all on their own with no man involved. I'm not gonna talk about miss. Beauty. She doesn't have much of a personality of her own, in my opinion. I'll give the critics that.

The first Disney princess, Snow White, is innocent but not just that. She has a sense of curiosity that makes her go her own way, and a basic trust in humanity. She moves in with a bunch of nice, little strangers that would probably have been looked down upon and shunned back in the middle ages or whenever this story takes place. She keeps that trust, despite having just been betrayed by a person that she trusted, and having been mistreated her whole life. She turns that into something good. She helps the dwarves and becomes a motherly figure to them, and they give her a place to stay and protects her. Even if she is naive, I think the basic message that little girls get out of the movie is a good one.
It didn't make me trust strangers blindly, but it's central message about friendship went right in there.

I could go on and on, and talk about Jasmin's independence, Mulan's sense of justice and Tiana's hardworking personality and goals, but they speak for themselves.
What I'm trying to say is, that Disney is not all about finding and marrying Prince Charming. That's not what little girls get out of watching these movies. What little girls see, are women that can hold their own in a world dominated by men.
They see that by following your sense of justice, being independent, being something besides "just" beautiful, and doing good in the face of adversity, you become a great and admirable woman!
Those are the traits that make up a princess and/or a heroine!
People claim that Disney has started to make female characters that look the same, but I disagree. Merida doesn't look anything like the Frozen girls, for instance.

Disney have their flaws, but I think their ability to make a wide range of different, but equally rolemodel-worthy heroines deserves applause.

I have yet to watch the movie "Frozen", but I know I will, despite the lack of female characters in the movie. From what I've seen, the Queen looks pretty badass.

Why Lolita Isn’t Feminist but Most Lolitas Probably Are So.

When I was writing the “Sexy Lolita?” post I got inspired to open up a can of worms and discuss feminism and Lolita a bit more, but I decided that this subject was big enough to deserve it’s own post. 

Lolita is from my own experience often described as a bit of a “rebel fashion-choice”, in it’s own refined and elegant way. Quite at the opposite end of the line from the torn look of punk. Most Lolita handbooks think that Lolita even might have started out as the chosen look of Japanese women who wanted to rebel against the strict dress-code and culture that kept women in “their place”, which would not surprise me. We’ve had our fair share of youth rebellions in the West too.

The question is, if Lolitas are still in the midst of a rebellion. If Lolita started out as a feminist rebellion in Japan, which it could definitely be described as, if the idea was to free women from a patriarchic society in the 70’s or 80’s, or whenever Lolita was born.

You can look at this question in two ways:

In my opinion, a fashion in itself cannot be feminist. Clothes cannot stand up to anything. What makes a fashion a way to rebel, is the value that you put into it, of course! And this value may be different for anyone.

It is widely accepted that you are a Lolita as soon as you put on a coordinate that can be described as a Lolita outfit and call yourself a “Lolita”. You do not have to sign your name in blood on a contract or go through any rituals or get a tattoo. In short, you’re not tying yourself up to any promises of loyalty to a set of values. You’re wearing an outfit that you think is pretty and that has personal value to you on some level.

Lolita clothes might at some point have been a tell-tale sign of a young woman who did not want to be tied down. Much the same way punk used to have a deeper meaning than misfit teens wearing pins on their backpacks for school.

Today, at least in western society, Lolita does not have that connotation and might have never had it.

But can Lolita be described as feminist, even if the clothes bear no meaning in themselves? Well, I'd say no. But I do think Lolita has a tendency to attract feminists. Both people who claim the lable, and people who just so happens to be very openminded and "modern" in their worldview.
Some of you people out there who have fallen prey to the mainstream misunderstanding of feminism might be a tad bit confused, but you might just be a feminist yourself without even knowing it.

Even the ones of you who're guys.

Lolita is a little less mainstream than most alternative fashion-styles out there, which means that you'd probably have to be extraordinarily open-minded to things that are different. From what I've observed, just.. you know.. living on a day-to-day basis, open-mindedness tends to go hand in hand with the idea that everybody should be equal. Which is the core idea of feminism- Men and women are equally capable, equally worthy of respect, and they should be treated as equals in all aspects of life. Simple as that.

Most people I've met are not dressing in Lolita to prove a point, but because they love it.

 I've met some people who do dress in it because they're tired of sexism and want to get away from it- Which would make their particular Lolita-life a statement. But Lolita in itself is not a feminist movement, and I kind of like it that way, even though I myself support feminism fully. 

Lolita is a free space for self expression, with room for you to put in whatever values you please. 

Though I'm kind of proud of the kind of people it attracts, at least where I live.

There is nothing better than celebrating whatever has value to you when you're in Lolita, being around openminded and non-judging souls who love the same thing you do, but for their own reasons.

Sexy Lolita?

I shouldn't have to warn you about this, but well: 
Slightly feminist post ahead! You have been warned!

Last week a topic was brought up on EGL that had a bunch of people screaming "troll!", gasping in horror or hiding under their beds. Sexyness and all related topics are what can best be described as taboo in Lolita.

The question was, whether you do or do not feel sexy in your Lolita clothes. Many people responded with something along the lines of "No, I do not see Lolita as sexual" or "No, I do not think Lolita clothes are sexy in any way". That was also pretty much my response- But then a user wrote something that I found interesting, and that made me think.

She/He commented on how many positive feelings that women have, are turned "sexual" in some way. "Confidence is sexy", "Being comfortable is sexy", "A happy woman is a sexy woman" etc.
I am sure you have seen or heard something a kin to this at some point recently.

How often do you hear something similar said about a man?
How often are men asked if a particular shirt, suit, pair of pants or any other clothing item makes them feel sexy?

This topic brings up a couple of very interesting issues, at least in my opinion.
Why are the way women feel being sexualized, even when that feeling has nothing to do with a boyfriend/girlfriend or sexual themes?
And why do people within our own community have an interest in whether or not other Lolitas feel sexually attractive in their Lolita clothes?

Interesting thoughts, that I think mostly have roots in a culture that is very dominant in most cultures I have knowledge of. The very simple principle that women are, well, sexualized, and that principle is in-grained in men as well as women.
Women accept that it is the norm in our culture for women to strive to look and feel sexual at all times.

"Smile! You look so much prettier that way!", not because we want you to be happy.
Why are you not looking pretty for us? Correct that right away!

From what I've heard and experienced in Lolita culture, a lot of girls are attracted to Lolita fashion to get away from the pressure to look and feel sexualized. It is a relaxing- getting away from the pressure and society's expectations. This causes a knee-jerk reaction when the outside culture knocks on the door and somebody brings up the "horrible, dreaded and dirty" topic of sexuality in this safehaven of non-sexualness.

Even if all of the above sounds like I'm banishing everything that has to do with sex from "My Lolita", that is not the case. I think the sexual part of human existence has it's place in Lolita as well. And not just in Ero-Lolita.

Hear me out!

To me, Lolita is partially about being free from society's expectations on how a woman should look, act and feel. This means being free from restrictions in general.
Lolita is about the ultimate freedom to look and feel like yourself- It would take away from this freedom to beat yourself up over feeling sexy in Lolita.
 If you feel empowered and sexy in Lolita, so be it! You're living your dream, aren't you?
Why should my feeling of being strong, whimsical and beautiful in Lolita be any "better" or more "right" than feeling sexy and confident? Lolita is about something different for everyone.

Lolita might not be "sexy" in the conventional sense, but that doesn't mean that you can't feel sexy!

Lolita is the freedom to look and feel the way that is right and true for you, after all.