Lolitas seduce Tucson
Wednesday, 01 February 2012 08:35
Japanese culture is sweeping the nation with help from celebrities such as Gwen Stefani, Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga. But here in Tucson, Lollipop Culture Shop is helping the culture sweep southern Arizona, more specifically the Lolita sect of Japanese culture.
“When I hear the word Lolita, what comes to mind is old style Victorian dress, ‘Japanese-ified’. There are tons of styles of Lolita, my favorite being Sweet Lolita. They generally wear bright colors like pink, light blue, purple, lots of bows and really cute hairpieces and sometimes will have a matching umbrella to their outfit, knee high stockings and matching cute shoes. And always, poufy! But, I know there's some Lolita that is 'Gothic,' which is pretty much what it sounds like, darker colors, blacks, reds, sometimes plaid, and pretty much the same as Sweet with the poufy-ness, hairpieces, stockings/ fishnets/ shoes. I know this fashion is very popular with Harajuku, especially on Sundays when people will dress up to go to Harajuku", said Kiely Katz, a University of Arizona student and Japanese culture fan.
In Tucson, cultures and diversity play a very large part in society as a whole. Hispanic culture is the staple but the Japanese culture is booming. Tucson is home to an Anime convention called Con-Nichiwa. Anime is a special form of Japanese cartoons and comics. Con-Nichiwa was first established in 2010 and quickly became the largest anime convention in Tucson.
“Con-Nichiwa is a pun on konnichiwa, which in English means 'good afternoon.' This convention is dedicated to Anime, unlike Tucson Comic Con, which is more geared toward comics, but will usually bring a good number of anime fans,” added Katz.
Lollipop draws most of its clientele from the Lolitas and the Anime lovers.
Alexsis Corral, owner of Lollipop, has held parties at the store specifically for Lolitas.
“They [Lolitas] are here all the time and mostly regulars, so we’ve had parties for them before to entice them to come to Lollipop and try to make it as fun as possible for them to feel comfortable,” said Corral.
According to the UA Factbook, from 2010 to 2011, the University of Arizona has 43 undergraduate students who are from Japan and 461 who are from China or Hong Kong, which is also an attributor for Anime and Lolita culture. “We have Japanese exchange students that come into Lollipop and they really like it, it brings them back home,” said Corral.
Although many are embracing the Japanese/Chinese Anime culture and Lolita, some still see it as foreign and different.
“I love Lolita! It's such a cute, but different style of dress that I feel if girls here wore it they would get stared at in a negative way, but in Japan people would point and say how cute they look. I think sometimes Japanese culture is looked down upon here. Something like Lolita, I think is looked at negatively here in the United States. But, nonetheless, I still will dress up and continue to create costumes from Animes, video games and cute Lolita costumes,” Katz said.
Written by Lauren Urratio You are reading Lolitas seduce Tucson articles
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