I was contacted on MySpace by author Dakota Lane and we instantly hit it off. Dakota has written several young adult novels, and her latest – coming out this fall – is titled Gothic Lolita. It’s a mystery thriller with photos and artwork, set in Tokyo and Hollywood. Two girls, connected by a mysterious manga. A missing brother, the death of parents, dark surprises… and several closets worth of gosurori clothing!
I’m always curious about what draws people to the fashion. Dakota saw a photo of a veiled Loli clinging to a doll (like the one below), and it triggered intense emotion and longing. “Was it a lifestyle, was it a creative expression? And maybe they were victims, but they also seemed to be simultaneously rising up, finding strength and power through being Lolita?” Her protagonist reacts similarly when she sees a Loli for the first time at age seven:
they looked like children forced to pose in victorian maid's outfits. puffed sleeves, black capes, lacy parasols, some with veils—they were elegant and dignified and darkly innocent. nothing about them seemed fake or costumed; they seemed like the scariest girls in the world. (i didn't know that some day i would want to be like them.)
Dakota’s experience sparked three years of research, spinning into tangents such as extinct spiders and religious practices in remote Japanese villages. The longing for another culture becomes the grounding of her novel. “The girl in Hollywood imagines the girl in Tokyo as a perfect Harajuku, bridge-posing high-end Gothic Lolita. The girl in Japan–who's actually in an orphanage in Kamakura and has only been to Harajuku twice—she imagines the Hollywood girl as being a perfect cosplay Lolita, which she isn't! They know each other only through their blogs and their fantasies.”
As a Gothic Lolita blogger living in the West, I find this theme particularly salient. Many of us have never been to Tokyo and cannot speak Japanese – and yet we wear the same clothes and engage in the same activities as a Harajuku Loli. (Or do we...) The fashion has developed distinct norms, and our knowledge of it is considerable. And yet, it is doubtlessly lacking, as much of it is pieced together from glimmers on the Internet. Strange, isn’t it, to think that someone on the other side of the world is in the same Rocking Horse shoes?
Dakota’s characters treasure their clothing; they strive for authenticity and spend a great deal of time developing their outfits. We can dismiss them as odd dressers – but Dakota explores psychological layers as thin and fine as the clothes themselves: “How fully she was inhabiting the concept of Lolita, even after she took the costume off at night? Would she go to sleep a Lolita and wake a Lolita?” Her biggest challenge was to convey how the garments act as veils (literally and metaphorically), or are even inseparable from a Goth Loli’s being: “A girl could become so closely identified with her costume that she was no longer hiding behind it—she had actually become it, and the clothes were a way of truly expressing who she was.”
Gothic Lolita touches upon a number of thorny questions, which have already raised some eyebrows among American Lolis. But as Dakota says, “You can't please everyone when you're writing a book like this—you can only tell a story and hope the story trumps the premise.” She has been touched by the warm responses to her novel, including interview requests and even a movie offer! I’m sure we’ll hear more exciting news once the book hits stores on November 25th.
PS: Yoshitomo Nara's puppy has a cameo in the novel! The Japanese pop artist is well known for his adorable, sleepy-eyed figures, such as the dogs above. Here’s Dakota’s story:
“I could go on forever about Nara's puppy—but let's say that I spent a lot of time photographing the puppy when he was visiting in New York and it is really a magical piece and kept appearing in the scenes in my mind, so I finally opened my heart […] and asked if he could be featured in a photograph and as a fictional character in the book. Nara said yes and no matter how many changes were made in this book—(it was revised five times)—I kept the puppy in because I treasure Nara and his work and the crying puppy is a blessing on the book.”
