Journal - April 5th, 2023

What makes something high quality, when it comes to lolita fashion?

I avoided lolita communities for the first decade of my love affair with the fashion so I missed out on a lot of conversations that were happening in that time. I didn't watch youtubers, or use LJ, or attend meetups. I couldn't tell you how those groups defined lolita fashion, and I didn't have much of a definition either. It was a "know it when you see it" kind of thing. A couple years ago I found a kind of "anatomy of classic lolita" blog post on a Japanese site, and I agreed with it. One of the key points was "high quality". This seemed perfectly reasonable to me. But the more I think about it and the more I talk to other lolitas about it, I wonder, what exactly does that mean?

Often I see lolitas ecstatically poetic over the quality of a new piece: it's so luxurious! soft! sturdy! beautiful! But if I'm really being hones with myself, I don't think anything in my wardrobe makes me feel that way. The closest I get is with my baniran pieces (mostly BABY, one Meta), the pattern of raised geometric texure across light woven cotton... but that wasn't an instant thing for me... I didn't feel it for the first time and faint in awe. It was a slow love, it came with my slowburn romance with my Alice in Fun Fair OP, an impulse purchase that I went from sheepishly regretting to being so enamoured with that I'm dedicated to collecting as many different pieces of the print that I can. Friends even DM me when they see the same OP for sale in different colorways. Its fabric is baniran and that's both an element of it I love and part of my love for the fabric. But if I'm being honest... is it transcendentally high quality? No. It's fading. And unevenly at that. If I can get my hands on one in better shape I'll probably retire my original to save it further damage.

None of my baniran pieces cost me more than $100 secondhand so I'm not particuarily pressed about them being exquisite quality anyway. The BABY pieces have unlined bodices. The Meta JSK has a tubular bodice and strap buttons that don't stay buttoned. Who cares? They're beautiful and they're mine. But what about my other pieces? I bought the Angelic Pretty 2022 MTO release of French Cafe. I was so excited for it because the original release is too small for me, this one is snug but it works. It is beautfiul, printed twill with eyelet lace--that isn't cut cleanly. There are stray threads all over the place. Compared with my AP Wonder p{arty JSK from 2014, which is marked "SAMPLE" on the tag, these dresses seem like a completely different price point. But they cost me the same. And MARBLE, much hyped to me as a classic pillar of Gothic Lolita, worth the price if you liked the design, using high quality materials. My Alice Style OP is polyester crepe (a fabric I despise and asspciate with fast fashion button-ups) with no lining and more stray threads than I've managed to snip away. The arms are way too tight around my 29cm biceps despite fitting my broad shoulders. I still like it and wear it, but it was over $300 and uses a fabric you can find at H&M. It's a marginally better version of that fabric, I only dislike it instead of wanting to run and hide when I touch it, but I'm left wondering... am I missing something?

Elephant in the room is that when many lolitas talk about quality they're actually talking about how much respect they have for a brand. I sold two Bodyline blouses and one Meta blouse that no longer fit me recently. One of the Bodyline blouses was my detested poly crepe, the other was cotton broadcloth with torchon lace. The Meta blouse was cotton broadcloth with eyelet lace. If I had to rank the three in terms of quality, the cotton Bodyline blouse was easily the best. It was soft but not thin, had double buttons which prevented gaping, had nice little design elements like pintucks on the breast and sleeves, mixed several types of lace, and crucially, it came in multiple sizes. For contrast the Meta blouse was the crinkliest, paperiest broadcloth I have EVER felt, god only knows where they found such paper bag cotton, the construction was extremely simple, the back shirring refused to stretch when you wore it so the buttons always pulled and gaped, and being pre-plus size meta, there was no sizing up or down to solve the fit issues. I don't think anyone believed me when I insisted the Bodyline blouse was nicer than the meta blouse. Bodyline's reputation is set in stone (and is not undeserved) and that reputation means many people will never judge an individual article of clothing beyond its Bodyline tag. Meta is the same, but with a positive reputation. The quality of both these blouses is assumed rather than self-evident. Sometimes it seems the only lolitas capable of seeing past a brand tag to judge quality honestly are the AP brand whores, the lolitas most likely to complain about AP's decline in quality.

And if perception of quality is more tied to espect for a brand than to any real characteristic of a piece of clothing, then I have to ask, what does that say about the common refrain that Chinese brands are "just not the same quality" as other brands? Sometimes I can look at my wardrobe and agree with some critiques of Chinese lolita, a 248 Yuan dress is just not as nice as a 28,990 Yen dress. And, yeah, I'd sure fucking hope the more expensive dress is better quality.