Akihabara + Harajuku = Rise of Otaku Lolita?
Elleanor, who reports on trends in Harajuku street fashion, just posted an in-depth video today about a rising trend in Japanese Street Fashion in which Harajuku designers are embracing Akihabara Otaku culture in their latest collections. Pins of anime characters and screen-print shirts of non-famous (not tied to a show or manga) Moe girls are starting to get mixed in with already established Street styles and it is bring forward the potential for something many of us have dread... Anime Lolita!
As far as what I can see in this video and from what has been slowly cropping up on tumblr; the whole concept seems to be about integrating anime / manga character art as an aesthetic rather then focusing on which characters are in use specifically. Instead of looking at an anime pin as a sign of fandom it's being used as an accessory to match back to the overall theme or color palette of an outfit.
I felt like this might be an important topic to bring up because this trend has the potential of becoming wildly popular and bleeding into Lolita fashion.
Designers such as Angelic Pretty may start to collaborate with certain manga artists and anime studios to ride the band wagon and we might begin to see a complete flip-around of the "Lolita should never look like cosplay" rule. In the past I have seen people be criticized for making coords "inspired by" animated characters, comic book characters and movie characters... But with Akihabara Otaku Culture becoming trendy in the Japanese Fashion mainstream will it now become acceptable? Perhaps even it's own respected sub-style much like Decora Lolita?
What are your thoughts?
(promise not to start anymore topics for a long, long time)
As far as what I can see in this video and from what has been slowly cropping up on tumblr; the whole concept seems to be about integrating anime / manga character art as an aesthetic rather then focusing on which characters are in use specifically. Instead of looking at an anime pin as a sign of fandom it's being used as an accessory to match back to the overall theme or color palette of an outfit.
I felt like this might be an important topic to bring up because this trend has the potential of becoming wildly popular and bleeding into Lolita fashion.
Designers such as Angelic Pretty may start to collaborate with certain manga artists and anime studios to ride the band wagon and we might begin to see a complete flip-around of the "Lolita should never look like cosplay" rule. In the past I have seen people be criticized for making coords "inspired by" animated characters, comic book characters and movie characters... But with Akihabara Otaku Culture becoming trendy in the Japanese Fashion mainstream will it now become acceptable? Perhaps even it's own respected sub-style much like Decora Lolita?
What are your thoughts?
(promise not to start anymore topics for a long, long time)