The origins of this article lie with a lecture that I am about to give.

This, in itself, is a curios

point, as one can't help but notice the problem of giving a lecture about a movement (if one
can call Harajuku fashion a movement) before writing a single word about it. To put it
differently, I'm somewhere in the middle of an intellectual (whether or not I am an
intellectual is a different question) journey, lying, as of now, in a middle point, trying to
discern whether going left or right, whether to come back or stray ahead. As such, the span
of this article will probably go to many ways, will cover grand narratives and then will focus
on some trivial questions. This is part of the deal.

My main focus will be "Lolita fashion", which is, still, my area of specialty in regards
to Japanese Street Fashion. It is not my specialty because I'm a long time partaker in the
fashion, but mainly because it is the culmination of a year-long academic study of the
fashion. As of writing this article, I've read two books, four dissertations and about twenty or
so articles about it. This is not to say that my knowledge is definitive – as I'm going to suggest
throughout this article this definitiveness idea is far from the truth – but to say that what I'm
about to argue can be considered somewhat theoretically informed.

A common question that popped up, as of late, was whether Lolita Fashion can be
considered feminist. There was a nice series of videos by Last Week Lolita News, and there
were articles and dissertations trying to find some feminist meaning in the act. It is not
surprising, to find such questions being raised in our post-modern post-feminist and post-
colonial discourses, discourses that I hold dear to my heart, even more so than the fashion
that I'm currently writing about. Yet, and this is an important "yet", the question also suffers
from a few (to my eyes) very important problems, striving, perhaps unsurprisingly, from what
is bound to happen in a feminist appraisal of a different culture – ethno-centrism.

Now, to tell the truth, up until now I threw a few big buzzwords from the academic
communities, and I do want to shortly explain them as they are important to the rest of this
essay. Post-modernism, to put it succinctly, is the idea that there are no big narratives, or, at
the very least, that they are slowly but surely disintegrate. With big narratives the idea is not
only that such stories as those of religion are losing their apex, but also such narratives as
the scientific endeavor. This is not an easy claim, and like with most of the critical
movements in the social sciences and the humanities it is considered quite controversial.
Post-feminism, on the other hand, is a collection of different, yet each more controversial
than the other, that basically argue against the division of male and female, man and
woman, he and she, and either argue that feminism did its job, and we now don't need it
be'cause there are no more differences between the sexes, or, in another famous strand,
that there are no more genders anymore (another sub-set argues that we're not, as of yet,
there, but on our way to achieve that and that, for the meantime, we celebrate different
ideas of gender as noteworthy and important). This movement should not be confused with
the famous ideas of Butler, who disregards identity completely. For the post-feminists there
is an identity, a real one, but it is not connected to gender. Lastly, for our present purposes, is
the idea of post-colonialism. With this term one can mean quite a number of things, from
the period that comes, or that even came, after the age of colonization; to the idea, which is
the one that we will pursue here, that we now have "soft colonialism", in which states and
nations transmit their culture globally, in order to colonize, and to influence culturally, the
nations of abroad. What should be kept in mind, though, in a very Bhabhaian way, that both
oppressors and oppressed do such a thing, partake in such a process. For our purposes, both
Japan and the West colonize, softly but surely, each other. This is an important point.
 I want to now to take a quick detour and ask a different question, returning to the
terms just defined throughout the essay. When we buy a Lolita (or gyaru, or larme, or MILK),
what kind of Japan do we have in mind? Now, this is not an easy question, because most of
us, if at all of us, don't think about Japan when we consume and/or wear the fashion. When
we do think about it, though, we tend to have a certain freeze-frame of a certain part of
Tokyo, whether it is Harajuku, or Shibuya, or them both. This frame, frozen in time, is a
certain romantic utopia of this inhomogeneous nation. In this version, Japan is an idyllic
place in which many a people wear and consume fashions that we tend to think, or, more
commonly, that we do think, are far more common than they are here (whether here is
London or Manchester, Berlin or Frankfurt, Tel Aviv or Nazareth). This is not a surprising
claim, as the fashion did originate in Japan, especially in the Harajuku and Shibuya districts,
and, not least of all, that most of the culture surrounding the fashion is Japanese, or at least
modeled after it.

But Japan is not only Harajuku and Shibuya, and, as can be attested by many a
research on the continent, not all Japanese even speak the same language, or have the same
codes of conduct. True, there is a homogenization movement, but, it should also be stated
that this is an intra-colonialist move partaking in the inside machinations, whether human or
not, of the melting pot that is Japan.

The main takeaway from the preceding part is that Japan is not homogeneous. The
reason for me allocating so many words to this idea is that from now on, in a very croyanic
manner (croyance being best summarized with the phrase "I know it is false but I'm doing it
anyway), I'm going to assume that it is homogeneous enough so I'll be able to suggest the
next blocks in my argument. This one is that asking whether Lolita Fashion is feminist
presupposes that we and the Japanese understand feminism the same way.

So here's the question. What does feminism mean? My favouritefavorite definition

argues that "feminism is the radical idea that women are people". This definition has three
parts that I want to shortly present: 1) "radical", because most people, don't agree, at least
in practice, with this idea. 2) "womenWomen", because that's the focus of the movements,
this is not a collection of movements catering to a male idea, not to mention or to male
needs. True, there is the hope, and for some even the assurance, that feminism can, and
actually do, help men. But as every Gender Studies syllabus will show, it is not that simple.
Now, While focusing on women is not a bad thing, by writing about women's fashion I'm
doing the exact same thing,. butBut it should be asserted upfront, in a very feminist manner,
that feminism is not neutral. 3) "areAre people", because, being people, they deserve, and
should actually get, the same rights, the same opportunities, and the same happenstances as
men. But There is one single point that is missing from this wonderful definition, a point that
disentangles everything I defined so far: it doesn't state a place, and it doesn't give a cultural
context. The idea of natural rights is not widespread the same way in the world. Some
people, even in "enlightened" counties act forcefully against it, while others, in "failing"
countries might cherish them. The Enlightenment ideas of natural rights are considered to be
universal, as can be attested by the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, but as
certain new studies suggest it is far more complicated than that. To put it differently, we have
here a post-modern, even if not post-feminist, kind of feminism.

The japan of our analysis, the one we hold in our minds, even the ones most
Japanese believe they have is not a new thing, it is a modern invention (just like any other
nation, Hobsbawm argues so poignantly), a feat of the will to modernize so no other country
will colonize it. That was the goal in the Meiji period, and its effects are pronounced to this
day. One of them is the idea of creating a new kind of family, and a new kind of gender roles
allocation. And so, the idea of the "shuojo" is born. Shoujo, a term that up till then was
reserved for young girls, was given a new meaning, one that is genderless and sexless. The
shoujo was like nothing else, a clear aberration in the best of ways: she was noble, she was
spiritual, she was body-less, and her love was with affections and nothing else. She had a
particular culture, with a unique handwriting, unique dialect, and unique narratives. She also
prove inadequate during the American occupation. And so she vanished.

During the late sixties and the early seventies, she was born somewhat again, with
the idea of catering one's marketing especially for a certain demographic. This, combined
with the economic growth of the period, for once, and the invention of new mediums of
expression, led to the revival of a relic long lost. Whether it was in anime (Rose of Versailles)
or in the creation of Kawaii Culture, it was something that can't be ignored.

This is the context in which I want to situate the next part of our journey, because,
even though the shoujo was created by men, as part of an inner colonialization, it became
one of the leading marks of Japanese individuality. Kawaii Culture, and Shoujo, are the part
and parcel of the Japanese culture of today, no lesser than the long school year, the tea
ceremony or the Haiku Poetry of many centuries (or perhaps millennia?) of written and
performed art, music and so on.

I want to remind, just for a moment, our question, and see if we can say something
new as a preliminary answer. Is Lolita Fashion a feminist endeavor? I think that we can
answer, at least for now, with the add-on question of "according to whose standards". What
do I mean with that? As the retelling of a particular bit from the Japanese history showcases,
at face value, there is nothing feminist in the fashion and in partaking within it. It is coming
back to a culture that was created by men for some male agenda, and as such it brings no
feminist argument.

But it is, yet again, not that simple. Lolita Fashion, with all its drawbacks, is still a
fashion that strives on female solidarity,. it is, in other words, still a community. And as a
community we should judge it, as it is in those communities that it gets its meaning. To put it
differently, Lolita Fashion is not feminist by itself, but one should scrutinize the ways that the
wearers utilize and appropriate it in order to give it meaning. And it is in this meaning-giving
that the Japanese and the American of Last Week Lolita Fashion differ.

For the Japanese, by partaking in the Kawaii Culture, they express their individuality
in a communal society. To put it more succinctly, the Japanese society is far less
individualistic than the Western ones. In such a community, it seems like this is the uttermost
level of feminism, there are individuals. But in many other ways, this is a break with
everything that came before. This allocation of the shoujo culture of the turn di siècle is
partaking in a revival of a thing that is both highly regarded and highly disregarded, a thing
that one wants to forget and to remember, something that is highly conflictual, highly
ambivalent. And so we get to the community, to the idea, quite quixotic, of sitting on the
famous bridge of Harajuku and partaking in a new way of life, creating a new community,
away from the home, often against the wishes of one's parents. Is it a feminism? I can't tell
for sure. It is, surely, very different from the way feminism is understood in the West.

This alternative order is even further complicated, when one considers the way the
fashion industry works in the aforementioned districts, or, at the very least, the Street
Fashion Industries of these districts. It was already commented that the industry works from
the bottom-up, from the buyers to the designers. Focus groups, the identity and the role of
the sellers, the magazines themselves, it is all, quite surprisingly for a Western enthusiast,
coming from the girls themselves. This is, again, the sign of what can clearly be termed, a
new order. But the powers coming from state and from other parts of the world do change
the fragile balance of powers. It doesn't mean that one should avoid participating in the
community and/or the industry, far from that, but one should always keep in mind the
effects of her involvement.

On the other hand, we have the communities of abroad, which are much less
theorized about in regards to the Lolita Communities within them. One is ought to ask what
place does such a fashion have in regards to the idea of the post-colonial. In other words,
when I am wearing a dress, am I colonized or colonizer? To put it frankly, I put my money on
the answer "both". This is a clear example of the idea of soft colonialism, and as such it
comes with all of the terms complications. In a world in which it is not clearly cut whether
someone is colonizer, colonized or both, what place does have the idea of feminism?

I want to conclude with a different case study, still Harajuku but in a different way. I
base my analysis on the work of Mary Christopherson. In her article "The Power of Cute:
Redefining Kawaii Culture as a Feminist Movement" she wrongly, for my taste, attributes
certain aspects of Kawaii culture to second wave feminism in the States, but, rightly, analyzes
the way Kyary Pamyu Pamyu plays with the ideas of femininity in its Japanese versions of
Kawaii and shoujo centered on her clip "Ponponpon". Her main thesis, which I will suggest
upfront, is that by combining ugly and cute Kyary redifenies what it means to be Kawaii.

She does it quite mischiviousely. Firstly, by presenting a very kawaii clip. The color
palate, the childishness of the shirt and baggy trousers, the rod, the amount of food, both
plane and "junk", the clip screams of what seems like an overdose of cuteness. Only adding
to that are the lyrics, which, while being extremely cryptic and almost meaningless, are full
of such lines as "Children… you make me happy", and the idea of taking a trip in a merry go
round.

Yet, unsurprisingly considering what I've just said, there are other dimensions to
what lies beforehand. The brains, the eyes being vomited, the black ravens. Kyary, for whom
this is the first clip, is working to redefine the binary opposition between cute and disgusting,
pretty and ugly. One can go so far as to call this cultural text a deconstruction of the genre of
kawaii. Whatever one will argue, though, one can't dismiss the unique aesthetic of Kyary's
clip. And this aesthetic calls into question the designation of what is shoujo, and of who is a
shoujo. This is not an easy thing. If a shoujo can be "this disgusting", what differentiates her
from the shounen, or the Japanese boy?

As if to drive this point home, Kyary presents a black woman as part of her clip. Here,
though, is where Japanese culture is most clearly shown to be not only a (non)colonized but
also a colonizer, at least in cultural, soft, terms. The reason for that is that by using a black
woman, who is defined as nothing except for her blackness, grotesqueness, ugliness, she has
no redeeming quality. And as if to drive the point home, this woman has no face, only body.

Kyary is highly regarded in the blogosphere and in the Harajuku scene, often being
termed the "Harajuku Princess", or "the Japanese Lady Gaga". Whether these terms fit her
or not, there is a certain critique in most of her works. This critique, perhaps, albeit different
from the earlier critiques I've mentioned, is, nonetheless, non-the-less fitting. It is a different
type of critique, a different type of feminism, yet one that is quite different from what we in
the West tend to highly regard. While at times, maybe even often, problematic, I believe that
it is of no lesser quality, and surely of no lesser sophistication and prowess.