A Gothic and Lolita Grimoire

For this article, I am going to abandon my fear and loathing of hypocrisy and become a hypocrite. I tend to stress that one should not let others decide what is “right” or “wrong” in anything as open to interpretation as fashion; however, every English-language Ouji or “boystyle” guide I have ever come across is embarrassingly misinformed!

Maybe this isn’t hypocrisy, because I have always believed that while the “rules” of Lolita are completely bogus (which is why I tell you not to listen to the people who tell you what’s right and wrong), it still stands that Lolita is the name of a specific fashion. Likewise for Ouji.

Because it is one of my favorite fashions, I strive to understand Ouji and related styles as they are in Japan. I have NEVER come across a style guide that satisfied me and matched what I have learned. It’s as though everyone is making up their own styles and calling it the same thing. The style called “Ouji” has already been created–we do not need to make up our own versions.

I strongly believe that the main reason we have so many misinformed Ouji guides is because they are being written by Lolitas rather than Ouji! Ouji is defined by the people who wear it. Like true Lolita, its rules are purely visual and intuitive. This may be another one of the reasons why it is so hard to find a well-written Ouji guide: because it, like most fashions, cannot be confined to words without giving it severe restrictions. Needless to say, I have never come across a Japanese Ouji guide on the internet…or a Lolita one for that matter, although there are at least sites that give basic descriptions of different types of Lolita.

I do my best to understand men’s “Gothic and Lolita” fashion without actually being there experiencing it with them. I buy magazines and mooks, I do internet searches on Japanese search engines, I watch Japanese videos on Youtube. I read and observe. I go beyond LiveJournal communities. I do my best. This is all I can offer you.

Overview of Popular Terms

First, I have to get some things off my chest.

There is no such substyle as Dandy.

Dandy fashion was created a long time ago and still exists today as a men’s fashion completely unrelated to Gothloli. It is Dandy fashion that modern-day men’s formal wear evolved from. Either way, nobody in Japan seems to use the label “Dandy” for any major genre of men’s Gothloli styles.

If what you wear looks like something a Dandy would wear, then of course no one is stopping you from calling it “Dandy”. But please stop asking Lolitas what Dandy style is, or how to dress it, and if you are a Lolita, please stop telling new people that there is a boy-style called Dandy. There isn’t.

There is really no such style as Kodona either, but sometimes I use it anyway to describe the overly cute and childlike boy styles (at the time of writing this essay, this style seems the most popular at LiveJournal). That’s because “kodona” stands for “kodomo otona,” or “child adult”.

It drives me nuts when people describe masculine, aristocratic Ouji outfits as “kodona”. This is incorrect vocabulary usage and proves that the person using it does not know what it translates to, or its origin, which is detailed here.

Well, it appears we should ALL stop using this term. “Kodona” is apparently an actual word in Japan that stands for something that seems to be a trait you do not want to brag about.

• In a Yahoo!Japan community with a structure similar to Yahoo!Answers, someone asked for ideas of activities for “kodona-chan”s and was not met with particularly polite responses. Read more here.
• I also found a website that defined “Kodona” as a term for an adult who is a child at heart, as well as “Otomo,” an adult who never really grew up.
• Let us not forget a conversation held by Japanese Lolitas regarding the word “kodona” on this infamous Gothloli site (which I happen to believe is one of the few Lolita resources worth reading, as the author has actually done first-hand research). According to one of them, “kodona” is a word parents use to describe their children in the awkward phase of adolescence between childhood and adulthood. Do you remember that phase? Right. I don’t want my clothes to be named after that phase either.

Now let’s talk about Ouji. There is such a style as Ouji, but NOT ALL menswear in this fashion is considered Ouji. If a man is not Ouji, he is Gothic, Punk, Cyber, a mixture of several of these, or not wearing anything considered Gothloli. (Some people call this style Oujisama or Ouji-kei.)

I don’t even think a man’s style can be called “Gothloli” even if it’s just used as an umbrella term. It’s best to just describe the man by what he’s wearing, because a man is never “loli” unless he is crossdressing or cosplaying.

The different types of menswear within the English-speaking/non-Japanese version of this subculture do not have agreed-upon labels. This is partially because there is no one person to set the standard and make definitions (whereas Lolitas have Novala Takemoto and the egl community). Another reason labels cannot be agreed upon is because many people use terms like Dandy and Kodona without doing their research, and purists like me refuse to adopt those labels.

Next I will talk about the different styles, but instead of trying to force everything into one huge article, which is taking forever to do, I will discuss them in separate articles. So, if you are interested, please check back every week or so for new style guides.