e-shuushuu forums

I have not been very active on the imageboard for several weeks, and never posted here before, but...hi! Gardenia asked for my opinion on this matter, and I thought it would be more sensible to post it here instead of at the image which recently sparked a discussion.

Now that there is so much accurate information on lolita fashion available online, I see no reason that interested parties should be ignorant of what qualifies, and what does not. Japanese street fashions have gained such popularity, you can expect to find at least two people who understand loli in every online community, no matter how distantly related to fashion. There are smart, knowledgeable people everywhere who have researched lolita for years, who can point you to legitimate sources of information. There are brand websites like Baby, the Stars Shine Bright; Victorian Maiden; Angelic Pretty; Metamorphose temps de fille; and Mary Magdalene, which offer visual aids and an excellent variety of styles. There are groups on LiveJournal like [url=http://daily_lolita.livejournal.com]Daily Lolita[/url], or educational journals like the [url=http://lolita_handbook.livejournal.com]Lolita Handbook[/url], which are awesome sources of pictures and information. There are even magazines! If you are interested enough in lolita to slap that tag onto a picture, you should be interested to learn about it, and to keep it pure.

If everyone who feels compelled to tag something as lolita would take a moment to peruse the Lolita Handbook, or a similar guide, I bet there would not be such discontent associated with the tag. There is never a good reason to perpetuate misinformation. There is still such strife over the details of this exacting fashion because misconceptions of lolita, from the late 1990s, are still around! If all the taggers had an accurate concept of what is and isn't lolita, things might go more smoothly.

I think the best solution is to abolish the "lolita fashion" tag altogether. It is really not worth the trouble, is it? Perhaps the tag could be replaced with something that helps differentiate characters that look a certain way without compartmentalizing so much. Maybe a simple tag like "frilly" would suffice. It could combine several categories, including lolita, so people still have a way to find that sort of art if they want.

Lastly, on a related note: I have gotten the feeling that some of you have perceived the offers of information by people like me, Gardenia, and kiba_inuzuka_is_mine as arrogant meddling. I just want to establish that this is truly not the case! I think I can speak for the three of us in saying that we are very passionate about lolita fashion, and we just want to share and teach people about it. I know it is daunting to be told, every other upload, that there is something that makes a character lolita or not lolita; it probably feels like you can't win. That is why I think a replacement tag would be best; this fashion really does have such precise rules that it is rare to find it depicted properly by an artist. It is such a beautiful and complex phenomenon, though, that I really think it should not be misrepresented to newcomers.

Sorry for the teal deer, but thank you for your time.

That is why I think a replacement tag would be best; this fashion really does have such precise rules that it is rare to find it depicted properly by an artist. It is such a beautiful and complex phenomenon, though, that I really think it should not be misrepresented to newcomers.

Chance are most artist are increasing the appeal for anime fan with shorter skirt for zettai ryouki and adds cleavage.

I do like lolita fashion but not the point of having one bible next to me ( I have no bookmark for them ). The problem is I do have some doujin on the lolita theme but they won't be accurate enough for real fan. Most user might have a vision different of the fashion because of these images.

A tag with a broader meaning would be indeed a good idea because users, included me have problem sometimes with that tag. I would rather keep the same name, just that it would be a bit more off the original definition, and closer to the vision of anime fan.


Oh and don't write loli, it could have some misunderstanding ^^;

I don't think the tag needs to be abolished; it's still doing its job and pointing to a style that people may be interested in. I know it's a lot of work to maintain as it currently is (you're awesome, Gardenia), but I do support it being changed, made more lax.

As far as reading the handbook goes...well, I've looked at the handbook, and I can't seem to get myself interested enough in the fashion to do more than skim it. Asking users to read the handbook and familiarize themselves with the fashion would be unfair and impractical. Asking taggers to do that would be reasonabl, but I have a feeling some taggers may be too worried about getting it wrong to actually try using the lolita fashion knowledge.

I think instead of renaming that tag (because I can't think of a very good name for an altered tag), we could change the description to tell what exactly this lax version of lolita fashion entails.

The main problem is, alot of artists don't know what they're doing. Alot of the time it's obvious that the artist of a picture was trying to make an outfit look like Lolita, but didn't know much about the fashion and did it badly. Maybe we should use the tag on any image where even if it's done wrong, it looks like the artist was trying to make it Lolita. Unless of course it's done completely wrong. XP
Being the perfectionist that I am, it will be difficult for me to get my head around it, but I think that would be best.

Yes, reading the lolita handbook is a good start but still might lead to technically incorrect tagging. It just seems like a lot to ask normal users to do research into a specific fashion style enough that they can correctly identify it versus slightly off variants. That would really require all of us to be come experts in lolita fashion which I don't see happening.

I don't think removing the tag altogether is the best action. We should strive to be accurate when applying it but at the same we need to keep in mind that very few users will be able to 100% correctly distinguish lolita from non-lolita. I don't think I could do it ^^; An important point that has already been mentioned is that not even all artists know the real difference and draw their art intending for it to be lolita fashion. If that's the style they were intending, then I think these images should be tagged as such. It won't be perfect, but I think it will be "good enough". Those who are experts in the style, if you see something that is quite off, let us know and we'll remove the tag.

Ah. Thanks for the compliment, Niney. Just trying to help out. I wanted everyone's opinion so everyone would be happy. Thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention, Coren.

Sorry for digging up this old subject, but speaking of the "Lolita Fashion" tag, I think it should be known that most Rozen Maiden images should not have this tag. The outfits in Rozen Maiden are not Lolita, they are simply Victorian inspired doll clothes. I'm sorry, but I'm just getting tired of seeing it there.

It seems to me it would be easier just to leave the tag out and wait for a tagger or mod that knows what they're doing to do it themselves.

Maybe there should be a "lolita-inspired" tag, for clothes that aren't quite lolita, but certainly derive from it.

Gothic_Redemption wrote:Maybe there should be a "lolita-inspired" tag, for clothes that aren't quite lolita, but certainly derive from it.

For things like that we just use the "lolita fashion" tag. If it looks like the Lolita wanted it to look anything like Lolita, we usually use that.