This post precipitated out of the current litigation over whether mainstream influencers with near-identical content have defensible intellectual property rights to the stylistic aspects of their work and personal image. Influencers seem to have a role in so many fashion ecosystems, yet the lolita community doesn't really support this niche.
That's not to say that lolita lacks influential figures-- we have designers like Kato-san of Physical Drop (founder of Metamorphose), models like Misako, RinRin, and Midori, YouTubers like Lovely Lor, and the inimitable musician Mana-sama, who serves as the founder/mascot of Moi-même-Moitié. But none of these act in the way that the influencers described in the article do. Lolitas simply don't factor in the constant churn of sponsored lifestyle content.
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| Garfield reminds us that we are not immune to propaganda |
Audience
Part of this is obviously the size of the audience-- whereas the sad beige aesthetics of the influencers in the lawsuit can vaguely appeal to millions, very few people even recognize lolita fashion, and active wearers are even fewer. Although influencers function to introduce their audience to new things, they have to build on existing appeal to gain that audience in the first place.
As much as I like to pretend that my alternative style exists without regard to the opinions of others, alternative fashion definitionally has to be an alternative, existing as a counterpoint to mainstream fashion. Otherwise, it's just all one big continuum of fashion. As I've mentioned before, lolita clothing production is extraordinarily small in scale: this limits supply and visibility, which limits demand, creating a feedback loop that keeps the community and brands contained. This accounts for why many people aren't interested in buying lolita, but there's also wearability issues.
Lolita is an impractical fashion. We enjoy it, we compile tips and tricks for comfort and convenience, but at the end of the day, it gets in the way. Whether it's knocked over tchotchkes from a poofy petticoat, princess sleeves dipped into tea, or headaches from a too-tight headdress, pretty much all lolitas have suffered from the natural consequences of our style. Lolita does not concern itself with minimizing presence-- a good lolita coordinate proudly takes up space. This unabashed centering of the wearer's aesthetic exists in opposition to mainstream fashions, which are about blending in and only taking the space given to the wearer. This applies even to the most colorful summer styles, which adhere to their own chromatic decorum: even standing out, mainstream fashion has unspoken limits of how much room one person is allowed, visually and volumetrically. There's not much incentive for a general audience to stand out and inconvenience themselves and others-- to wear lolita, you have to really want to. That level of commitment just doesn't achieve the audience size that an influencer business model requires.
Hyperconsumption
Mainstream influencers rely on an unsustainable level of consumption that some have deemed hyperconsumption. The individuals in the Verge article get innumerable Amazon packages every single day. Lolita commerce doesn't work with this level of consumption. For one thing, lolita stuff is expensive, and the cornucopia of micro-brands can't afford to give away their product like Amazon or SheIn can.
Lolita fashion also has limited numbers of items available at one time. Most brands will release only a couple of print designs per season at most, so it's impossible to get a huge haul of new items from any single brand more than quarterly, if that. Some resellers can provide for more frequent buyers by pooling several (usually Chinese) brands together, but this comes at an upcharge for the purchaser and often a hit to their community reputation, especially if they don't properly credit original brands. Additionally, many brands rely on made-to-order and preorder models, not ready stock, meaning that by the time an item has arrived and is ready for the content machine, it's likely no longer available for purchase. For influencers serving as contracted advertisers, a product that can no longer be impulse-bought is a waste of their advertising time and space.
That's just the issues with new items, but most lolitas don't buy everything new. Lolitas have a healthy appreciation for secondhand clothing, which is a very finite supply and cannot be reproduced or emulated. Recommending secondhand stores and platforms helps people find similar items, but there are no guarantees of any one item being available and no kick-backs for referrals. In the influencer world, the lolita strategy of searching for a single dream dress over the course of years is an impossibility.
Lolitas do have issues with overconsumption, of course-- it's an impractical luxury fashion for nerdy collectors. I myself have enough dresses to bury me alive, and I used to buy something almost every month as a beginner. But even the most decadent buying habits of lolitas are restrained in comparison to mainstream influencer culture.
Branding the Individual
Influencers rely on personal branding to build on audience. At first glance, this seems extremely compatible with visually unique styles. Counterintuitively, though, blander visual identities fare better-- the influencer must be seemingly relatable while being perpetually out-of-reach, and too much individuality erodes the illusion of achievability. The goal of the influencer isn't really to be a person. Influencers exist as video game-style digital avatars of their audience-- bland enough to project on, but human enough to love.
This calculated balance of blandness is completely incompatible with lolita. Within our narrow substyles, lolitas carve out our own niches unconsciously, becoming synonymous with our styling. The fashion is so loud that minute preferences become amplified into full-blown idiosyncracies. I have had comm members send me unsolicited shop links just because an item fits my vibe. Lolita is baldly about self-expression: I honestly think copying a full coordinate without citing the inspiration would get someone blocked.
Lolitas use our style as a release, and turning that hobby into a commodity goes against the spirit of the fashion. Beginners are welcomed to join the fashion with the dual caveats that they understand the fundamentals of the fashion and develop their sense of style. When lolitas write, photograph, draw, or otherwise create media material, we do so with the hope of admiration, not emulation. Copying a lolita's vibe wouldn't be the subject of a court case because, with the size of the community, it would immediately descend into a nasty direct confrontation with no financial benefits.
Although the lolita community has our share of problems, mega-influencers with polished brand content will never be one of them. There are too many friction points, too many fundamentals of lolita too particular to translate into a viable business model for a full-time lifestyle advertiser. We may be frivolous and spendy, sometimes in ways that seem to conform to commerce. But at the core of lolita, there's a desire for self-expression that's all punk.
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