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Abstract:
This paper will introduce and detail a current Japanese fashion
style called Gosurori (Gosu- from Gothic and -rori from Lolita), and it will
be distinguished from a more general and seemingly similar, though quite
different, fashion trend called cosupurei (or cosplay, costume play). Gosurori
fashion seems to be a chaotic style, with dark Gothic clothing, accessories,
and makeup mixed together with the cute looks of a young girl, Lolita.
Gosurori girls are also fond of classic European styles of expansive swinging
skirts with frilly lace and undergarments, but there are no bright colors in
their clothing, just black and white.
Despite expressing Western images, Gosurori is totally Japanese
fashion that was born on the street and has been led by the wearers, and it is
now becoming a globally well-known. Interestingly, street fashion normally
features a dressed-down, casual style, but Gosurori girls dress up excessively
and formally. Yet, they usually dislike having their pictures taken and believe
they are finding and expressing their 'real self' through their 'floating' clothing
rather than just pretending to be someone else for a few hours.
Possible interpretations of the causes and meanings behind this
current Japanese fashion are given at the end, which give rise to basic
questions about what fashion is.
The term Gosurori
Until recently, when talking of Japanese fashion, whether
casually or in serious research, it has almost always concerned Japanese
designers who are active aboard and well known and who present their
designs in Collection Shows, like Kawakubo, Issey, and Yohji. However, it is
especially the fashions that are born on the street, that is, the fashions led by
the 'wearers' that have recently attracted much interested observation. One
example of these distinctive street styles is 'Gothic Lolita' fashion, which has
gained a fanatic popularity amongst certain young Japanese girls of late.
Gothic Lolita fashion goes by the popular name 'gosurori' and
refers to a particular fashion style. In recent years, rather than being confined
to Japan, it has also been discussed as a topic of research in other countries.
The term ゴスロリ, gosurori, was coined in Japan, through joining the words
'Gothic' or 'Goth' and 'Lolita'. When written in English-language
publications, gosurori sometimes becomes 'Goth-Loli' or 'gothloli'. Being
faithful to the Japanese term, however, perhaps we should spell it gosurori,
though both spellings are being used at present1.
A writer, Luv Ishikawa2 stated that Japan has now become the
most progressive Goth country in the world, having drawn on such
developments as the musical movement in Europe in the late 70s and 80s
centreed around England and Germany, the rise of music and bands in Japan
known as 'visual-kei' in the 90s, and the distinctive American Goth style. The
Gothic of gosurori is often misrecognised as simply a Japanese version of the
popular Goths in Europe and America,but I think we can safely say that it has already developed into something of a different type of Goth.
The Lolita Complex refers to the disposition of a grown man to
be attracted to young girls, i.e., pedophilia, and is known in Japan by the
abbreviated 'roricon'3. It is needless to say that it has greatly influenced
Japanese manga and animation, and that it is an important concept when
talking about Japanese pornography, especially child pornography.
Furthermore, it is well known that Japanese mass culture is often analyzed in
terms of 'kawaii'-ness4, but due to time restrictions let us leave such
psychological issues aside.
Lorita fashion is, however, probably more akin to Lewis Carroll's
Alice than to Nabokov's Lolita. Alice in Wonderland is somewhat adored by
girls dressing in Lolita fashion. This is the reason why trump card shapes,
crowns, and white rabbits often appear as motifs in their designs. In order to
distinguish their style from the Lolita Complex, these Lolita girls often
double the 'i' vowel sound in the word 'rorita', making it 'roriita', which
distinguishes it as a different word in Japanese. Also, they write it as ロリヰ
タ, using an old Japanese character for the second 'i' sound instead of writing
it as ロリイタ or ロリータ, which would be the usual ways. Their original
way of writing it perhaps expresses their refusal to be the subject of adoration
of middle-aged men. If you search for ロリータ, for example, on the
Internet, you will find many pornographic sites. It is interesting that a
phenomenon has arisen whereby the characteristics of the fashion as well as
the ideas and ways of thinking behind it are being expressed via language.
One more thing I would like to add is that gosurori is a term that
is used by people who do not wear the fashion, in other words, outsiders orpeople who are at a distance from it. The girls who actually wear this
particular fashion do not usually use the term gosurori themselves. This is
because they think these various street fashion style names have a strongly
derogatory nuance. According to a girl that I interviewed who actually wore
this kind of fashion, when walking down the street people often whisper such
things as, 'Look, it's a gosurori' or 'weirdo', and she often feels treated as if
she were a monster. It is clear that gosurori fashion is not by any means easy
clothing in which to wear in your daily life.
Gosurori: various fragmented styles
A cross-dressing musician called Mana, a leader of Malice Mizer
(pict.4) is said to have been the first to use the the term gosurori. His own
fashion and make-up is that of the Japanese rock band movement called
visual kei, mentioned earlier. It is fair to say that the unique fashion brand
'Moi-meme-moitie' that he produces has something of a seminal existence
within the now diversified Lolita fashions. If I were to sum up the
characteristics of gosurori, perhaps I would call it a fashion that whilst being
girlie is run through with a decadent beauty aesthetic. Talking in images,
perhaps it would be like a fallen angel because even though the forms of the
clothing are cute, the colors are dark. I think we can surely say that
seemingly disagreeing components were combined to become gosurori.
However, the Gothic and Lolita elements were then variously emphasized
and transformed little by little and now there are many fragmented styles in
gosurori fashion.
Looking at the process of how the style has become more specialized, I suppose we can broadly separate it into styles, approaching
either Gothic or Lolita. Together with a gosurori girl whom I interviewed
periodically over many years, I spent many months categorizing the gosurori
styles, mainly from the pages of gosurori magazines.
At the gothic end of the scale are: 'gosu', 'gosupanku', 'eregosu'
-short for Elegant Gothic-, punks, fetish, cyber, Vivienne -for English
designer Vivienne Westwood lovers-, 'iryou-kei' - using medical motifs, such
as nurses, blood, and bandages, etc.-, Rock, and so on. There are also
categories such as 'shirogosu'-white Goths, who in contrast to symbolic goth
black emphasise their white colors, and 'bangyaru', referring to girls who are
fanatical followers of certain bands and musicians.
Lolita style also contains detailed divisions. One is 'amarori' - an
abbreviation meaning 'sweet Lolita' and placing a particular emphasis on
girlishness, with heavy use of pastel colors and prints. Getting even sweeter,
it is called 'koterori', 'kote' coming from the Japanese term 'kotekote', which
roughly translates as 'very thick' or 'heavy'. Classifying according to color,
there are such divisions as 'shirorori' - white Lolita-, 'kurorori' - black Lolita-,
baby blue, and baby pink. 'Kurarori' from classic Lolita is a more mature
look than that of Sweet Lolita, and those who wear this style prefer clothes
that are more classically constructed. There are also 'Decora' 5and Punk
Lolita. In addition, 'wafu rori-ta' has recently come to attention, referring to
girls who like to wear kimonos or things remade from fabrics with Japanese
motifs. 'Wa' is a pseudonym for 'something Japanese'.
From this, it is now perhaps apparent that there are so many
finely divided categories that someone unfamiliar with Gothic Lolita would not be able to distinguish between them. Amongst a subcategory that we
have not touched upon yet, is a style known as 'Prince'. This is someone who
imitates the 'ideal male image' for walking alongside girls dressed in gosurori
fashion. They are usually thought to belong to a 'miscellaneous' style
category. You could say it was a fashion similar to that of a Rococo or
Middle Ages prince, but that would be a stereotyping of the look. Although
one of the princes’ standard items is black and white bordered socks or tights,
which are characteristic of gosurori leg fashions, the princes’ leggings are
more reminiscent of a prison uniform. The musician Mana, introduced
previously, dresses up so perfectly that he cannot be simply categorised as a
'cross-dresser' or as androgynous. Visual-kei boys, like Mana, also could be
the ideal type of men to sit by gosurori girls.
Gosurori and Cosupurei:
Returning to our gosurori fashion story, girls who romanticize the
Middle Ages, Rococo and Victorian periods and wear fashions that appear to
be costume revivals of those times, in effect become something like court
ladies from those gorgeous European eras. Therefore, would it also be
correct to call their fashion a variation of cosupurei? Since gosurori fashion
has attained a certain degree of recognition, there is now also an actual
gosurori cospurei style. However, gosurori girls dislike their fashion style
being referred to as cospurei.
According to gosurori girls, this is because their style is not just a
fashion. There are ideas and cultures behind the clothes they wear, and they
are proud that they are keeping those aesthetic styles alive. Gosurori magazines explain how to behave and act mannerly in the style of those
periods. The pages of gosurori magazines present lessons on how to behave
like an 'Otome'6 in order to grow up to be an elegant lady. It is true that
cosupurei girls make their own dresses, which gosurori girls also do.
However, if whenever cosupurei girls change out of their costumes, they
return to their 'original self'. It could be said that cosupurei girls enjoy living
in fictional worlds by pretending to be animation or manga characters
through their looks, and when Monday morning comes, they go to work in
plain styles without any hesitation.
However, gosurori girls are able to become their real selves
through wearing their gosurori clothes. Actually, the phrase 'true self'
appears quite frequently in such magazines. Perhaps we should think of that
spirit which resides inside yourself and cannot be seen from the outside, like
in your clothes. Furthermore, another important feature of cosupurei is
having your photo taken. Gosurori girls, on the other hand, mostly dislike
having their photos taken. This is surely another clear point of difference
between these two types of girls.
Novala Takemoto is a writer known as 'Charisma of Otome'. His
novel Emily is a tragedy about a Lolita girl. The girl had been suffering from
bully at school after her classmates found her picture in a fashion magazine.
Her only interest was Lolita fashion, and the photo was reluctantly taken
when she was in Harajuku after school after having changed from her school
uniform. Most of his works are sad stories about Lolita girls and describe
very precisely their looks, and they are so well known among Lolita girls that
they are like their bibles.
I believe the most important and key concept for gosurori girls is
their assertion that it is neither mere cospurei nor just a fashion which lies in
the underwear such as drawers and panniers, that they are so insistent about.
These are not everyday garments in modern fashions, but are classical
fashions used mainly in the Victorian era. In magazines there are many
supplements with patterns included which are intended for girls who want to
make them by themselves, especially of these undergarments which cannot
be easily be bought.
I would like to introduce the phrase here '生パン撲滅運動'
'namapan-bokumetsu-undou', which roughly translates as 'the campaign to
abolish visible panties'. It is something of a slogan amongst the gosurori
girls. It was born from the desire to avoid showing their underwear
underneath their short, puffy, airy skirts. By not wearing just their panties as
they are, but instead wearing different types of underwear, like drawers or
panniers on top of them, they are demonstrating two things. One is
appropriate shyness in 'protecting one's body by oneself' so that even if
someone7 was peeping, their panties would not be visible. The other is that
they are presenting a stylish way of wearing the garments because the lace
attached to the end of these undergarments is shown and to make their skirts
into ‘kawaii’ form with the volume. This is a successful way of appearing in
public with a girlish style. These items are, so to speak, underwear that is
OK to be seen by others and are thus linked to the trend whereby
undergarments are turning into outer garments.
Whilst they are not underwear, other characteristic items of this
fashion include such things as head-dresses, and one can't ignore the boots and shoes with soles that are so excessively thick it would be no surprise to
see the girls fall over in them. The strings of the corsets are there to make a
sexually flattering shape and should not be loosened. These girls continue to
dress up, resigned to subjecting their body to pain in order to keep to the
dress code perfectly and create the required forms. Gosurori fashion has
surpassed present-day fashion - casual, unisex, sporty, easy to wear - and has,
after much effort, arrived at an image from the European past though
distinctly Japanese.
Conclusion: Back to Fashion:
The fact that a situation has arisen whereby Western people are
experiencing European nostalgia through a modern Japanese fashion such as
this is surely also a very interesting social phenomenon. It is rather a
paradoxical representation, but couldn't it be argued that gosurori girls have
taken the restraining dress code that applied to the original fashion and
uninhibitedly applied it to their own bodies? Their act of trying to escape
fashionization by creating a new fashion actually ended up back at the roots
of fashion.
The English word 'fashion', originally from Latin word ‘façon,
is becoming used to describe the manners that upper class, aristocratic ladies
should adhere to. That sense of not being restricted to clothes survives even
now as in the word 'fashion' meaning 'form' or 'way'. It is said that previously
a woman's fashion expressed the society, status, and so on to which she
belonged. Size and breadth were particular characteristics of women's dress,
and this is said to have borne the function of keeping men other than their fathers and husbands at a distance.
For girls living in the present times, the experience of the
physical sensation of clothes is surely more important than their function as a
social sign. An expansive skirt will billow and swing when walking, and
wearing platform-soled boots sometimes as high as twenty centimeters must
change one's line of vision and hence one's way of seeing things. Can we say
gosurori fashion is unstable rather than thrilling or chaotic? It is perhaps in
order to avoid the friction of their outer garments’ cloth directly touching
their skin that these girls wear layer upon layer of undergarments and pay so
much attention to the volume under their skirts. Their 'real self' in their styles
is floating like their favorite 'fuwafuwa' skirts. This Japanese mimetic word,
'fuwafuwa', which often appears in the gosurori magazines, might be
translated into English as 'floating'. Their fashion style might also be a form
of social communication in our modern times.
In fact, it is not only the clothes that are covered by Gothic Lolita
magazines, but also gosurori tea party events are covered and suggestions are
made as to which music, films, novels, and so on will nurture the gosurori
spirit. In that respect, perhaps you could think of gosurori as a culture or way
of thought. Clothes by their very nature resemble words that carry strong
meanings. Amongst the pages of the gosurori magazines are special feature
articles that teach one the proper use of polite language. Through current
gosurori fashion, we have the opportunity to once again re-examine the
question of what fashion is.
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