It was a bit of a magic when I got to connect with Ashley. I was at the collaborative event between Boston Girl Collective and Let’s Shoot Boston in March. I was not interacting with Ashley the whole time but we accidentally said “hi” to each other towards the end of the event when I was leaving. After we followed each other on Instagram I found out she was a Lolita.
I fell in love with Lolita fashion when I was 17 or 18, because I have been a girly girl my whole life. So when I found out through Ashley about the Lolita community in Boston, I was psyched and I immediately wanted to feature her as one of my “Little White Dress” stories.
To give everyone a little bit of background, Lolita (ロリータ・ファッション rorīta fasshon) is a fashion subculture from Japan that is highly influenced by Victorian and Edwardian children's clothing and styles from the Rococo period. It’s all about cuteness overload, and there are a lot of types of Lolita Fashion. I was very into Sweet Lolita, but Ashley is a more of a Victorian Lolita girl.
She told me she started doing cosplay early on and, when she saw some Lolita girls at one of the comic cons she went to, she started to get interested in the fashion. Just to be clear here, Lolita fashion has nothing to do with cosplay, because dressing up as a Lolita is not role playing.
I am still not sure how popular Lolita fashion is in the US, but, in Japan and East Asia, it is a pretty big thing. Despite my love for Lolita fashion, I never had the courage to actually dress up in a full set of Lolita clothing because I was worried people would give me weird looks on the street. Now I think of it, it is actually a lot better to dress up as a Lolita in Asia, since people would not act as aggressively as people here in the US. When I was doing the shoot with Ashley we kept getting people asking if they can take a picture with Ashley, which we both found very annoying and disrespectful. But, as Ashley said, the urge to dress up in pretty Lolita clothing trumped these awkward acquaintances. “Keep calm, and Lolita on”, right?
We did two shoots altogether, one at the Boston Public Garden and the other at the Boston Public Library Restaurant where we had an afternoon tea together. Ashley’s Victorian Lolita style fits these two locations a lot, it almost felt like other people were wearing the wrong clothes. The first outfit we featured was her white Lolita coat from Alice and Pirate, and her bonnet with flowers she glued on herself. Second outfit we featured was her off-white JSK (Jumperskirt) with the stunning detailed gate print and her amazing Vintage hat.
Q&A with Ashley
Q: What do you do?
A: I am a Biostatistician. I work on HIV AIDS clinical trials. Besides that, I have a Youtube channel that is mainly focused on Lolita fashion, cosplay and dressing up. I also play Dungeons and Dragons once every week at Cambridge, and I just started DMing a game (became the Dungeon Master of the game).
Q: What do you enjoy the most in life? And what does it mean to you?
A: Wearing Lolita gives me a lot of joy. I made friends, went to tea and museums with other Lolita girls. Having that community and creative outlet is very important to me. Every time when I wear Lolita clothes, I just have that feeling of, “Ohh it’s super pretty, yay!” It’s gorgeous, and it makes me happy. Lolita fashion made me grow into a more confident person, but most importantly it provided me a community.
Q: When was the first time you wore a white dress, what occasion?
A: It was my first communion dress, I was 6 or 7. I didn’t like dresses much until I went to the comic con after college and discovered Lolita Fashion.
Q: What does a little white dress make you think of?
A: Purity, youthfulness. I usually don’t wear something pure white, I think off-white is better for me to mix and match.
Q: What is the piece of garment you think every girl should have?
A: A dress with pockets! Because it’s practical and girly.
If you are interested in knowing more about Lolita fashion, feel free to check out Ashley’s Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/mischievouspixi
