Rococo and Lolita

Marie Antoinette

Weather or not modern Lolita has Rococo influences has been quite a hot topic of discussion lately, as the Rococo period is one of my favourites art and fashion history wise I thought I'd add my thoughts.

Gothic and Lolita

There is no doubt in my mind that when Lolita first started attracting the attention of people in the west there was a very obvious Rococo influence on the fashion, in most, if not all styles of Lolita at that time.

Gothic Lolita, Phaidon

As time moved on, Victorian and Edwardian styles took over as the obvious influences, and now the most popular styles seem to have almost no historical influences at all.

So is there any place in modern Lolita for Rococo?

The answer?

Well yes, of course, though it might not be as obvious as it once was.

The most obvious place that Rococo still resides is with Baby the Stars Shine Bright, and in the Taobao shops that are influenced by Baby's not so OTT take on Sweet Lolita.

Their recent release "Rococo Princess Tea Party" proves that although Rococo may be gone, it is most certainly not forgotten by Baby at least.

This dress ticks all of the Rococo style boxes, ruffles, lace, ribbons and gigantic hat.

But what about Rococo in more OTT styles?

Well the influence is still there, though it is a lot more subtle.

At the height of the Rococo style, women wore huge wigs and even huger skirts, the bigger your wig and skirt, the more income and power you were saying you had.

Wigs and hair extensions have been used a little bit in Lolita for several years now, but in OTT Sweet they seem to be getting bigger and bigger. Just take a look at Gothic Lolita Wigs's most popular styles, some of those are MASSIVE!

The same thing is happening with skirts, the petticoat is an integral part of the Lolita silhouette, but in the last few years OTT Sweet petticoats have been getting much larger, creating the over the top "epic-poof" that OTT Sweet is so famed for.

It's starting to seem in the Western Lolita communities at least that the bigger your wig and the poofier your skirt the more attention you'll get when you post your photo, and this can sometimes give the impression that OTT Sweet Lolitas have the power in the communities.

Lolita is an expensive hobby, even if you do buy from Bodyline/Taobao it will cost hundreds of pounds to get the wardrobe of your dreams, and this is doubly so if you have a lot of wigs and accessories to add to the mix.

Georgian women would drop toxic Belladonna essence into their eyes to make them dilate and appear wider, this often lead to blindness later in life.

The current parallel to this in OTT is the circle lens trend, a lot of OTTs wear these to make their eyes appear wider, and should the wearer cut corners and try and use them for longer than directed, just like the Belladonna essence, circle lenses can cause permanent damage to the eyes.

All of these parallels lead me to believe that Rococo will always in some way or another have influence on Lolita, even if is isn't always obvious.