Thursday, February 15, 2018

The Gothic & Lolita Bible - a gothic style touchstone.

Way back in 2001 I fell in love with a magazine called the Gothic & Lolita Bible. The text was in Japanese, but honestly, it was all about the photos. Created by visual kei musicians Mana and Kana the Gothic & Lolita bible was full of amazing pictures of gorgeous people wearing ornate and beautiful clothing. It was like a Sears catalog for angelic freaks.

Although none of the clothing was available in the US (and buying things on the internet was still kind of sketchy proposition) this quarterly publication became a vitally important inspiration for a community which was already starting to rebel against the gaunt fetish look popularized in the pages of Propaganda and other gothic publications.

Lolita style embraced (and still embraces) an almost roccoco aesthetic, proudly proclaiming that the more ruffles, sashes, crowns and crinolines you can stick to yourself the better. If you look like your name should be announced by a servant upon entering a room, you're pretty much there.  Because it originated as part of a cultural backlash against sophisticated fashions that only looked good on tall, rail-thin, fashion models. Lolita clothing, with its confectionary layers of crinolines, and its predelection for full, flouncy, skirts is flattering on a a wide range of body types. As the Lolita Bible began to influence the American goth scene, the creak of leather, and rattle of chains was soon joined by the rustling of petticoats. Rubber shirts soon shared closet space with elegant waistcoats, and perfectly cut trousers.

In addition to providing a remedy for fashion enui, the Gothic & Lolita Bible was also gateway drug to Japanese culture. After all, we had to go out of our comfort zone, and into Asian bookstores if we wanted to get our hands on it...and along the way many of us stumbled into anime and manga. I personally worked my way through the Dirty Pair (a couple of adorable lady spies, who inevitably left mass destruction in their wake), Ranma 1/2 (a young boy who turned into a girl whenever he got wet - with hilarious results), the death-rock hijinks of Detroit Metal City, and eventually into the darker works of the profoundly disturbing genius Junji Ito. I deeply love all of these things, and I am eternally grateful for them.

Even though I am a bit long in the tooth to pull off the full-on Lolita style, I still take inspiration from it. I love my full skirts and crinolines, coffin shaped purses, and bat winged backpacks. And I still love anime and manga. I owe much of that to having been lucky enough to discover the Gothic & Lolita Bible.