Fashion Rebel With A Cause

Some of my favorite outfits from Milanoo! Edited in Photobucket

After doing my post on The Walk and my own person clothing style, I started think about why it is that I dress the way I do, and choose to pursue and create my own sense of style, instead of simply following what's "in." Obviously, the short answer to this is that people, myself included obviously, tend to buy and wear what they like, or what fits their personality. While this is true, I believe that there are deeper, more ideological reasons (uh uh, my academic training is coming through). I believe that in my case, I dress a particular way because, as I had mentioned before, I don't like to fit into preconceived categories, or stereotypes. In other words, this is my way of being rebellious. This line of thought lead me to think of how different fashion styles can be used to rebel in more non traditional ways.

When most people think of using clothes and fashion as ways of rebelling, they naturally tend to think of the more obvious fashion styles, such as Punk, Emo, Goth, Grunge, etc. However, it's the less obvious trends that I want to consider in this post, using myself as the main case study. In analyzing this concept of rebelling, we must realize that there are different forms of rebelling. For instance, one can rebel against, an institution, a belief, a way of organizing, etc. Even the notion of"rebelling against society" can have different meanings, as "society" as an abstract term can encompass and signify different things to different people in different contexts. With this in mind, I now going to explain how I use my style to rebel.



As I have mention before, for me, rebelling is about going against stereotypes, and preconceived ideas. This attitude didn't develop until I was in high school. Throughout all of elementary and middle school, I always tried to conform and keep up with what the "cool" kids were doing, in the hopes that I would be able to join their cliques and clubs. It wasn't until I was in high school that I really began to appreciate myself, and strive to define my own personality. For me, what I wore became the outward expression of my personality. On the one hand, I have always gone for the pulled together, tailored look as my personal style because it is simply what I like to wear.

In high school, people always expect you to act a certain way based on how you look. So, in order to fight whatever preconceived ideas people might have about me based on my outward appearance, I began dressing in nice jeans, pants, and skirts with designs and patterns, high-heeled shoes, and dressy tops; basically dramatically different from how almost everyone else dressed.

My ever growing interest in Lolita clothes began when I read Kamikaze Girls for my Modern Japanese History course during my junior year of college. Through Gwen Stefani, I had gotten first dose of harajuku style and clothing, but I never really knew much about the individual styles themselves, until I read Kamikaze Girls. I believe that my interest in Lolita clothes is similar to those of Momoko, one of the main characters of the novel, in that the Lolita style represents a return to a bygone era. For me, it's the elements of Victorian fashion that attracted me to Lolita clothes, especially with my interests and academic studies mainly focused around late 19th and early 20th century history and society. In this sense, Lolita fashions represent a rebellion against modern society and an attempt to recreate a world of grandeur and elegance, before mass culture, similar to the aesthetic movement that developed during the late 19th century.

Well, to make a long story short, I like what I like, and I wear what I like, even if it's not quite what everyone else is wearing. That being said, I do make a conscious effort to not dress stereotypically, or in the manner in the manner of the majority of my peers.