Lolita taxonomy is hard. By documenting and verbalizing the styles we love, we preserve them, give ourselves bases from which to experiment, and make them easy to pass on. Even though lolita is an incredibly organized, well documented fashion, there are still major disagreements as to what deserves to be a substyle and what's just a theme. For those unfamiliar with lolita terms, a substyle is one of the major divisions (usually gothic lolita, sweet lolita, and classic lolita, the big three), while a theme is a set of motifs that coordinates can use (sailor lolita, country lolita, and military lolita, to name just a few).
Bittersweet lolita, punk lolita, ero lolita, and old school lolita are all points of contention that seem to never resolve. In this post, I'll discuss bittersweet and punk, and next post, I'll discuss ero and old school.
Bittersweet
This opinion might lose me some friends, but I don't think bittersweet exists at all. Raine Dragon wrote an excellent blog post about how the term originated; basically, one lolita had an identity crisis about being a goth who wore sweet. As a term, bittersweet is useless because it means such different things to different people.
Raine Dragon basically describes three different types of 'bittersweet': the original poster, who was into "delicate fancy floral prints, simple designs on black or darker shades of plaid"; lolitas who consider any black sweet print, even the sweetest OTT AP candy print, to be bittersweet, and lolitas who incorporate guro, creepy cute, or yumekawaii motifs into their sweet lolita.
Right off the bat, these definitions are mutually exclusive and confusing. The second type of bittersweet would include the AP Milky Planet OP, but the original poster and third type would reject it.
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Angelic Pretty Milky Planet OP, 2010 |
This Royal Princess Alice dress likely would work for the last category of bittersweet, but wouldn't be elegant enough for the first or sweet enough for the second.
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Royal Princess Alice x Tama Dark Grave JSK |
And this last JSK, the inspiration for the term in the first place, might be seen as more classic than sweet by the latter two categories.
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Music Note Embroidery JSK Special Set |
There's just not enough consistency.
Punk lolita
Punk lolita is my usual style and has been for six years, so I'm really comfortable categorizing it. I think that it is a substyle for a variety of reasons: it has its own silhouettes (shorter skirts, full shirring, and more dependence on skirts in general), characteristic materials (including heftier twills than in other lolita styles, spikes and studs, and the occasional wool or pleather piece), and a wide variety of motifs with no other unifying factor than 'things you can find in punk lolita' (including Alice motifs, roses, butterflies, tartan, crosses, windows, and more abstract things like asymmetry and distressed items). By having so many unrelated motifs, there's no way punk lolita can be a theme in the way that, say, pirate lolita is.
Furthermore, punk lolita can be mixed with any other substyle without losing its punk identity; if it were a theme within gothic, for example, it wouldn't carry such strong yet blendable characteristics.
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| Putumayo Toy March OP, 2014, is sweet-leaning punk |
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| Putumayo Pleated Lace JSK, 2016, is classic/punk |
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| BPN Lace-up OP, 2007, trends gothic |
Finally, punk lolita is an essential part of lolita history, and denying its status as a substyle is ignoring its impact. Punk lolita was one of the original substyles and had been featured in FRUITS and the GLB since their beginnings.
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| A Putumayo advert from GLB 01 |
Although it may not be popular with the English-speaking lolita community now, punk lolita is an essential part of lolita history and background. Dismissing it as only a theme or not a substyle at all shows a lack of understanding of lolita's punk origins. Even if someone thinks that the whole substyle/theme/style schema is too complicated, and they prefer not to classify things so precisely, punk lolita needs to be remembered as part of what makes lolita an alternative fashion.
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