Bibliotheca: HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!

It's almost Halloween! Halloween is my favorite secular holiday, so I was feral levels of excited to learn that it was the October Bibliotheca theme!

I'm going to keep things light; this post is just a short list of five spooky reasons why Halloween and lolitas are perfect for each other.

My Kuma Kumya Jack-O-Lantern from last year

• It's a great excuse to experiment with the fashion!  

My first dress, Marcine (L459), 2012

For newbies and experienced lolitas alike, Halloween gives a chance to try new things. My first step into buying and wearing lolita, rather than obsessively browsing it, was as a thinly veiled excuse to wear Bodyline as a Halloween costume. I grabbed some Mary Jane pumps, a poorly homemade headdress, a $20 Bodyline OP, white tights, a thrifted theatre petticoat, and the finest makeup my cosplay-stunted brain could muster to scare neighbors and my parents alike as a creepy doll. No pictures of this costume survive, and if you see any, no you didn't. Putting the dress on alone and fresh from the mail felt nice, but seeing people look at me and see the frilly image I had put together? That's what made me spend all my money and time in the fashion.

Anyway, Halloween is a great time to test out styles, see how people react, and prove to your family and coworkers that yes, you do have a social life. Normies usually can't tell the difference between poly chiffon, cotton voile, and a plastic bag, so claiming a somewhat out there fashion as 'just a costume' is a safe excuse. Have fun, stay safe, and remember to have plausible deniability!

 

• Sweets are quintessentially lolita. 

 

Image shamelessly stolen from Pink Milk Tea

Just as Momoko says that she wants to consume nothing but sweet things, so too are real-life lolitas often fixated on sweet foods. We have brunch (with sweets), tea parties (with sweets), sweets-themed dresses, cake hats, and more. Halloween, therefore, is an amazing chance to indulge our collective sweet tooth to the charming tune of November 2nd candy sales, homemade baked goods, spooky sweet ~beverages~, and whatever aesthetically pleasing configuration of sucrose catches our collective eye. 

Just for the record, I am pro-candy corn and I pace myself by eating three bags over the course of the entire year. I eat Count Chocula cereal and call it 'goth kibble'. Give me your licorice jelly beans, your Necco wafers, your malted milk balls yearning to be free. Just keep the purple grape stuff away from me: even if I wasn't allergic to it, I might still have developed an allergy out of spite. 

• Halloween is for (almost) everyone!

Wikimedia Commons

Unlike most major holidays celebrated in the United States, Halloween isn't swamped with religious or nationalistic imagery. This is important for a whole bunch of reasons; in general, alternative-leaning folks (and yes, lolita is alternative fashion) tend to get burned by authority a lot, especially religious authority. Personally, I'm Jewish and celebrating Christian holiday motifs just rubs me the wrong way, but I know lolitas who identify as witches, atheists, atheist witches, and a whole host of other religious demographics. Witches love getting spooky. Additionally, the red, white, and blue color scheme for American national holidays just isn't kawaii (and glorifies a history of imperialism and oppression, which is doubly unkawaii). 

Halloween was stolen from druids by Christians, but it's been abstracted of all spiritual and religious meaning. Additionally, the central concept of the original holidays-- contact and closeness with the dead-- is something many cultures can agree with: there's Obon in Japan, Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, yearly death memorials and the Yom haKippurim Yizkor service in Ashkenazi Judaism, and several other holidays around the world. Some people don't celebrate Halloween, but it's a lot less off-putting than abominations like Saint Valentine's Day, a Catholic romance holiday. Honestly, with the pure motives of eating sweets and reaching out to the dead, who wouldn't want to get spooky?

• Halloween motifs fit right in with lolita. 

Halloween Treats Special Limited Color JSK, AP 2017

Halloween has a lolita motif for everyone! Most lolitas can unite around black cats. Cat prints come in all flavors, and it's hard to deny the seasonal appeal of a nice void creature.

As aforementioned, sweets and lolitas go hand-in-hand. This is readily apparent for anyone who has ever hazarded a look into a sweet lolita's closet and been deluged with macarons and chocolates.

Gothic lolitas, on the other hand, have bats, coffins, vampires, and (scariest of all) symbols of organized religion year-round. Add some fangs and swap the Moitie blue for pumpkin orange and you'll be asked to take off your cloak while in the theme park (it happened to me!).

Even classic lolitas have Halloween motifs for them: historical motifs lend themselves to ghosts, botanicals can easily be witchy, and a grimoire is nothing but a book with a festive attitude. Over all, there's some seasonal themes for everyone. 

• Halloween is a time for togetherness.
  

Wikimedia Commons

If there's one thing lolitas like, it's getting a dress they want for really cheap. But most lolitas also like excuses to get frilly, and Halloween is full of them, from lolita meetups, to parties where lolita can be shoehorned in, to making the kids trick-or-treating shyly ask if you're a real princess or an actual witch. No matter whether it's a seance, a themed bar crawl, a photoshoot, or a night in with the worst horror movies imaginable, there's a Halloween meet up for virtually any comm.

Halloween, in essence, is campy, spooky fun, and lolita, as a flamboyant fashion, meshes well with the spirit of the holiday. It's a time when it's cool enough to wear really nice coords without covering them up with coats, a time when gothic decor is cheap and easy to find, and a time, of course, to get spooky. Now, please excuse me while I chug some apple cider and plan out my pumpkin display; I only have five mini pumpkins, and they'll look lonely without some more friends.

Happy (almost) Halloween!