Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.10.2013, Blaðsíða 25

Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.10.2013, Blaðsíða 25
25 Culture B O R G R E S TA U R A N T  P Ó S H Ú S S T R Æ T I 9  1 1  1 0 1 R E Y K J AV Í K T E L : + 3 5 4  5 7 8  2 0 2 0  I N F O  B O R GRESTAURANT . I S  W W W. B O R GRESTAURANT . I S “Out of this world!!!” “It certainly was the best of the many places we dined in Reykjavik!” FrequentFlyer513 - New York City, New York - Trip Advisor CBondGirl - Calgary, Canada. Trip Advisor MADE IN ICELAND www.jswatch.com With his legendary concentration and 45 years of experience our Master Watchmaker ensures that we take our waterproofing rather seriously. Gilbert O. Gudjonsson, our Master Watchmaker and renowned craftsman, inspects every single timepiece before it leaves our workshop. THE FRESHEST FISH ....AND IDEAS! SKÓLAVÖR!USTÍGUR 14 - 101 REYKJAVÍK - 571 1100 A"er years of study, strings of awards and having led kitchens of some of Reykjavík’s most esteemed restaurants, Gústav still sees him self as just a kid from up north, with a life- time passion for fish. of art to remind yourself that there are narrow-minded idiots out there and that you rise above their ignorance.” For the Iceland Lolitas, approval isn’t a real problem, but finding each other was a convoluted process. When Sigga was studying abroad in Japan, she posted a message online, be- moaning the fact that she didn’t know any other Lolitas in Iceland. Mya, who was actually living in the U.S. at the time, saw the post and quickly con- tacted Aino: “I told her, ‘Quick! There’s an Icelandic Lolita who’s lonely and abandoned!’” “It was a match made in heaven when we started talking,” says Sigga, a former fashion design student now studying Japanese at the University of Iceland. Things progressed easily once everyone was in the same country: the community has now expanded be- yond an online group and has regular monthly meet ups in member homes and local cafes. “The only trouble here in Iceland,” says Aino, reminiscing on her favourite group outings in Finland, “is that we can’t have picnics.” “Maybe if we had a big tent we could have a picnic,” Sigga suggests. “Lolita camping!” Making the cake Lolita, which takes its inspiration from Victorian and Rococo aesthetics, be- gan as a street fashion in Japan in the 1980s, and has since gained worldwide popularity. While there are many dif- ferent styles of Lolita—including Sweet (a frilly, child-like aesthetic), Aristo- crat (a more “mature” style, with long skirts and corsets), Classic (English garden party meets Lewis Carroll) and the Gothic (dark, rich colours, puffed sleeves, and elegant, Victorian-styled details), which the Iceland Lolitas’ pre- fer —Mya is quick to point out that it is absolutely possible to “do it wrong.” Aino, Mya, and Sigga obviously share an aesthetic, but their own taste and stylistic preferences are clear. For instance, while Mya and Sigga are wearing “brand” clothes, Aino is wearing a frock of her own creation: a pinafore dress made from black checkerboard fabric with all manner of cakes happily striping across it. To this, she’s matched a sheer tie-collar shirt, opaque black lace tights, and a pair of white patent leather Mary Janes. A tal- ented seamstress, Aino loves unique and textured fabrics and makes most of her own Lolita clothes. Her dresses, along with made-to-order bonnets from the U.S. and stacks of elegant ki- mono, fill a large wardrobe standing in the entrance of her apartment. Contrasting with Mya’s demure, cream-toned outfit, Sigga is dressed in black from head to toe. Her own pinafore has a Victorian-style tie bod- ice and is patterned with dark red and pink roses; she’s tied a modest black lace headdress (much like a wide, rectangular headband) atop her hair. Both she and Aino are wearing hair- pieces—clip-on bangs they bought online from a Korean wig company and which, they show me, comb quite indistinguishably into their real hair. As the ladies explain, although Lo- litas each have their own styles, there are a whole host of rules—strict rules— that one must adhere to in order to be a proper Lolita. The basic elements of a Lolita outfit, I discover later after some intensive Googling, include headwear, a bell-shaped skirt or jumper which covers the knees, a blouse, bloomers and/or petticoats, high socks or tights, and closed, rounded-toe shoes. “Co- ordinating a Lolita outfit is a bit like making a cake,” explains the website lolitafashion.org. “You can take away or replace a couple of ingredients, but if you take away the butter, the sugar, and the milk, it just stops being cake.” When I ask how they get their skirts to be so poofy, all three women stand up, as if on cue, and lift their skirts to display ornate petticoats and bloom- ers. “This is the only time you’ll see Lolitas do this type of thing,” Aino laughs. “If someone has a really good poof, sooner or later, there’ll be a Lolita peeking up her skirt.” Forget Nabokov It might be tempting to see Lolita cul- ture as nothing but dress up, but Aino, Mya, and Sigga all see it as something legitimately meaningful and deeply integral to their growth as individuals, and if the name “Lolita” brings to mind over-sexed underage girls, á la Nabo- kov, think again. (I’m told that this con- notation simply didn’t occur to the first Japanese practitioners.) Lolitas vehemently eschew modern fashion trends, which they perceive as being unnecessarily revealing. “It’s a modest style that lets you be super, su- per feminine without looking cheap,” explains Aino. Additionally, Lolita basi- cally reverses Western female beauty aesthetics, exaggerating the hips, and minimizing the breasts. “The dresses tend to flatten you on top,” said Aino. “It can be difficult for Western women, we tend to be quite boobsome. But if your breasts are too obvious, you just look like a ‘50s housewife.” Where modern fashion focuses on sexiness, Lolitas instead devote themselves to elegance, both in fashion and daily life. Tucking away another pancake and cream, I’m reminded of Oulipian constraints: poems composed accord- ing to mathematical equations, books written without using the letter ‘e.’ Lo- lita culture is beholden to all sorts of rules and formulas and internal scru- tiny, but it is also fanciful and playful and, as they freely admit, incredibly hermetic—replete with acronyms and terms and status symbols which are virtually unintelligible to the uninitiat- ed. The three women cheerfully bandy about sentence-length brand names and spritely vocab while describing coveted haute couture dress styles, which many Lolitas rabidly track down as collectors’ items. I’m left with the fashion equivalent of a sugar high, dizzily grasping at the kaleidoscopic words and phrases as they float by: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright. Puppet Circus. Vampire Requiem. Twinkle Mermaid. Alice and the Pirates. Sug- ary Carnival. Revolutionary Revolution. Colorways. Fragrant Rose Memories. But, lest you think Lolitas are in any way exclusionary, the ladies also point out that they welcome men as well as women. One of Lolita’s main celebrities is a man: Mana, a Japa- nese musician and designer who has his own clothing brand and coined the term “Elegant Gothic Lolita.” And there are plenty of regular “Brolitas,” as well—both transgendered women and also men “who just really like to wear dresses.” Provided that you are an earnest and rule-abiding member, Mya says, you’ll be accepted in the Lo- lita community: “If you’re doing it right, we want you.” “Coordinating a Lolita outfit is a bit like mak- ing a cake, but if you take away the butter, the sugar, and the milk, it just stops being cake.”
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