“But in the decade since then, the scene has taken on a life of its own. “The Gothic and Lolita scene first came in existence in the late Nineties with the explosion of visual kei bands, Japanese rock bands who were characterized by their New Romantic clothing and makeup,” Sanders explained. For instance, Yuka, age 18, teams crochet tights with a dress of graffiti patchwork motifs, and lists her own funeral as a fashion inspiration, and fermented beans as her current obsession. And these prove to be as arbitrary as the emergence of the trend itself. It has little text except for a few bullet points on each subject’s point of fashion and current obsession. The pictures were taken by Masayuki Yoshinaga, and the book was edited by Katsuhiko Ishikawa. Page by page, “Gothic & Lolita” showcases teens posing in their over-the-top, doll-like or dark getups, from corsets and spikes to lacy Victorian dresses, tutus, bows and wigs. “What often seemed on an immediate level ‘bizarre’ cultural excess has in fact its own internal set of rules and logic.” “The idea for ‘Gothic & Lolita’ came about after many years of visiting Japan and seeing firsthand the incredible energy of street fashion in both Tokyo and Osaka,” said Mark Sanders, a consulting editor at Phaidon. The most recent kid craze of donning Gothic and Lolita garb is now the subject of Phaidon Press’ latest style tome, “Gothic & Lolita,” which photographically documents this scene of medieval getups in Tokyo and Osaka. Japanese teens have a reputation for embracing trends with cult-like fervor.
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