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yesterday i posted a little fashion ramble on my website, and i mentioned that lolita feels to me like genderless femininity, and i'd like to expand on that. why am i doing it on gemini? beats me. i'll probably mirror it there as well.
lolita fashion is, undeniably, a feminine fashion. frills, laces, petticoats, skirts and dresses, pastel colors, yadda yadda. it is not, however, a gendered fashion. because it is entirely feminine, there is no gender binary for lolita: everyone wears the frills and the lace and the skirts. mana, arguably the most iconic lolita, is a man.
and lolita's femininity isn't mainstream, contemporary female gender expression. the femininity here is inspired by historical clothes, specifically european fashions of the victorian era, often girl's clothes, rather than adult's, like you'd see in a fancy porcelain doll. a coord isn't just an expression of femininity, but of a specific performance of it, in a way that feels very particular to itself, rather than to the fashion and gender norms and expectations of society at large.
lolita is not a costume, but the closest feeling to me is theatre. hamlet is hamlet, regardless of who plays him. you leave your gender backstage. hamlet can only be a man, and so it doesn't matter the actor's gender. (well, unless you're purposefully retelling the play, but that's another matter entirely).
and i'll sideways-y segue into another topic i didn't fully explore on the www. ouji is lolita's masculine "counterpart". at first glance you could think that the existence of ouji wrecks my genderless femininity argument, when in fact it strengthens it.
ouji isn't as "strict" in silhouette as lolita, but much like lolita is the realm of petticoats and skirts, ouji is the realm of pumpkin shorts, breeches and trousers. ouji too drinks from the well of historical european fashions, and its source of masculinity is even less normative. it is, in a way, to our modern eyes, more feminine. it's a more obvious performance. ouji puts you in the shoes of an archetypical prince. like in revolutionary girl utena, this prince isn't a man (directly opposed to a woman), but a role. a specific performance of masculinity, with no gender at its core.
and since i'm here, i'd like to also talk about what feels to me like a masculine femininity. romantic goth and aristocrat fashions also have historical inspirations, and as such are embedded with different relationships with gender. goth is, as a whole, very androgynous. who wears the heavy makeup? everyone.
still, there's a slight difference to me between androgyny and masculine femininity. one could use the word effeminate, probably. in these goth contexts, my black nail polish and eyeshadow feel as distinctively masculine as my jabot. it could, of course, be a matter of myself. as in, i'm a transmasculine person, and the way i express my masculinity is often by this backdoor access to femininity. my crucifix earrings are a double irony: catholicism and gender both being bent to my own queer ends.
well, yeah this is it. one could also argue for feminine masculinity via butchness, if we are to complete the quadrant, but that's also its own can of worms, and not as relevant to my lolita talk.
i'll also say, of course, this is all just my thoughts and feelings on a very abstract and personal topic. so if none of this made sense to you, or if you have completely different views on the matter, that's cool, i'd love to hear about it. unless you're a transphobe of course, then i hope you choke and die <3