This is a detailed and sometimes overly harsh critique of the most widely read and discussed article on gothic and lolita to be found on the web.
For Original Document please follow this link:

Morbid Outlook - Elegant Gothic Lolita

After reading the article, I became irate enough to write out this entire refutation, so at least try reading this before you accept the original as true. Even though it is long.

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An elegant Gothic Lolita, EGL or Gothic Lolita for short,
is a Japanese teen or young adult who dresses
in amazingly elaborate Gothic looking babydoll costumes.

From the first line, this article gives its readers false information. The term "gothic lolita" is used to describe a Japanese teen or young adult who wears clothing, usually black and white, which takes its influence from two separate influences. These are the kinds of dresses young girls, dolls, and princesses wear (lolita) mixed with the appropriation of gothic symbols such as crosses and bats, now all but devoid of their original symbolism, dark colors, darker than normal make-up, and middle century European dress styles. Calling it "Gothic looking babydoll," to me at least, brings to mind images of Courtney Love in a nighty.
But more importantly, the term "Elegant Gothic Lolita" (EGL) is one of the two subsets that fall under the category of "gothic lolita." This term was coined by Mana in reference to the girls who wear his clothing, follow his aesthetic sense, and usually like his music. Because he is featured so heavily in the Gothic and Lolita Bible, the term was mistakenly read to mean all gothic lolita, and has thus become the umbrella term for all styles of lolita in the foreign fashion scene. It is, however, not recognized by a large nu,ber of Japanese lolita! The only ones who use the term and defend it are Mana's fans, who tend to be proud of their identity as a Mana supporter.
That aside, lolita is not a costume. It is a clothing style.

On the weekends these women walk the streets of Tokyo and Osaka
and fill Yoyogi Park and Harajuku neighborhood
where they pose for tourist’s pictures and sit around looking pretty.

This, although not untrue, largely misrepresents gothic lolita. They are indeed mostly found in Harajuku (if found at all) on weekends walking the crowded road known as Takeshita Doori, legendary for all sorts of styles and now, unfortunately, Gwen Staphani. For some of them, this is to get their pictures taken. For most, however, tourists are either an amusement, an annoyance, or flat out invasive. The lolita who are really into the style, follow the ideologies, and read the literature, are more often than not avoiding crowded places and getting their pictures taken. They are at home or with their friends at lives trying to avoid social contact.
Moreover, many of the lolita who gather in Harajuku live at least an hour from the city and have come into town for the weekend to shop, talk to the clerks, go to lives, or meet with their friends and give the other lolita judgemental eyes as they pass them on the street. But mostly to shop and get style ideas and talk to their friends. And calling them women....members of society? adults? There is a reason many of them hide their age once they hit 20; lolita's for the girls.

They are beautiful, glamorous, doll-like manifestations
of their favorite Visual Rock stars

Visual rock stars are very popular among fans of visual kei bands. But the lolita who are not fans of bands resent this connection.
As for the glamour of the visual kei bands, taken from the glam rock and androgeny of the politically turbulent 1960's and 70's of Britian, this is not to be found in the lolita as I see it. Glamour is for adults and performers, and for lolita there is a fine line between individuality and conformity.
For some, such as Elegant Gothic Lolita, visual kei members are seen as ideal lolita...but just as often they are not. Some people look up to friends, classmates, models, pictures, princesses, or even anime characters (in secret).
At any rate, saying a gothic lolita is nothing more than a manifestation of her favorite rock star is bound to get many angry.

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This subculture’s physical look began around the fall of 1999
as a sort of French Maid meets Alice in Wonderland style
and has expanded gradually to encompass many nuances in a Victorian Gothic look.

Exactly how the term "gothic lolita" came into being is not quite known. But it's been suggested by a Japanese article writer for the magazine "Rococco" that the lolita style was around a long time before 1999. In fact, she traces it to the bandgirls of the 1980's. That aside, Kisumoto Maki's "KISSXXXX" manga has a girl who dresses lolita in it with no connection to french maids or alice, thus nullifying this statement entirely.
In an interview, Mana of Malice Mizer, Moi Dix Mois, and the clothing designer of Moi Meme Moitie, said that the first he knew of the term "gothic lolita" was when a journalist used it to describe his Bara no Seidou costume. But however you look at it, the lolita style came before the "gothic lolita" style, and was not connected to Alice in Wonderland or French Maids in anything more than the vaguest sense. The Victorian came before anything else. Besides, noawadays lolita who look like cosplayers are looked down on in Japan for not being original or serious lolita.
That aside, gothic lolita is not a subculture, tribe, scene, neotribe whatever theoretical semantic nonsense the anthropological community is blathering to itself about these days. This is because participants don't seem to consider it a subculture and it has nothing of the trappings of subcultures laid out in modern anthropological theory. First of all, being a lolita does not make other lolita accept you in Japan. Nor will they try to get together with other lolita. There's really no common ideology to speak of either, and no collective resistance to much of anything. So I consider it a style with subcultural underpinnings to those who want them. It is also naturally physical, being a style.

Make no mistake – these women *girls* want nothing to do with our Western Gothic ways.
They do not listen to our music and they are not Gothic in the American and European sense.
(Don’t worry there are Japanese Goths but they are just not a prominent mainstream subculture.)

Not entirely true. Classical music is classical music, western dolls are western dolls, Rococco is Rococco...
But for the most part this is correct, and one reason is because these girls don't consider themselves Japanese gothic either.
The part about the gothic subculture is true too. No complaints.

*insert the rest of the paragraph*

This is not about lolita, but about visual kei. And so therefore I won't be critiquing it. Trust to say it is all wrong, as visual kei is not jrock but a subset of it, Kyou hates lolita, band members don't really link their music with their style to convey a message most often anymore (if they even have a message), Motley Crue has nothing to do with anything but Mana, who guys dress up as all the time....
It's just wrong.

 

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