Friday 18 September 2015

Lolita fashion book - Translation 1 (Sweet Lolita)

It's Friday and I am finally done with the first part of translating Misako Aoki's book "Lolita fashion". YAY! To be honest I have been done translating it for a while now, but too busy with my uni and job stuff to actually post the translation here. It did take quite a while to translate the article and it was pretty challenging to keep the structure and all the information intact while trying to make it sound good in English. I really hope it is understandable and doesn't sound odd. XD

Before posting the rest I would first I like to state following:
The book is Misako Aoki's copyright, this is just a fan translation.
I did not translate the contents of the book exactly as they are written - word by word. I translate in a manner that allows the text to keep it's original poetic feeling and nuance (I hope).



Lolita fashion book part 1
Sweet Lolita

About sweet lolita style



The style 'sweet lolita' is centered around the aesthetics of pastel colors like pink and light blue. It embodies a sweet, cute and girly atmosphere. It is thought that the style came to be called 'sweet Lolita' around 1990. At that time the 'gothic lolita' style was already established and defined by its black clothing. The style was often associated with degenerates and began to have a bad feel to it, therefore sweet lolitas wanted to break the prejudices of the 'gothic lolita' style and point out the difference between the two lolita styles. They wanted to divide the lolita genre and differentiate themselves from the gothic fashion trends. They started calling the new style as 'sweet lolita' and defined their style as "the opposite of gothic lolita fashion, a pure, angel like fashion". From that time the sweet lolitas have preserved the ideals and aesthetics of sweet lolita and kept the original ideas alive. 

Nowadays a common theme is sweet lolita are original prints with motifs such as sweets and animals. Some popular motifs are cookies, chocolate and other sweets inspired prints. Prints with plush animals are also very popular. Dresses and skirts in the sweet lolita style tend to be designed with lots of lace on the bodice and skirt parts. Wide white or pink sleeves with lace decorations for a romantic feeling are also in demand right now. Finding a friend with the same dress and 'twinning' together is another characteristic of sweet lolita. Getting together 3 friends and doing a 'triplet' coordinate is also popular. 

A sweet lolita coordinate:


Sweet lolita is a cute and pop lolita style with pastel colours as its base. Let's make a colourful, cute and POP coordinate~ I choose a dress with a print of animals and sweets. A coordinate with print x print (layers of prints) can be hard to pull of, but really cute; so let's take the challenge and try! 

In sweet lolita blouses with big round collars covered in lots of frills and ribbons are popular right now. 
Hair accessories and socks also come in many different patterns and have different motifs. There are many people who match the socks so they are from the same series release as the dress. As for the hairstyle, let's make an arrangement with layers, a head-bow or a bonnet can be layered on with additional ribbons and bows. A colorful wig also suits the sweet lolita style very well. 

Put on a fluffy pannier under the dress to give it a big puff, it helps to emphasise and show off the print of the dress. Bags with a theme of ribbons, hearts, sweets, chocolate and the like are a good choice to match this type of coordination. Also plush toy bags like a bear or a rabbit add another layer of cute to the girly feeling of the sweet lolita style. They also serve as the focus point of the outfit, so I really recommend combining them in your style. 

Point 1 
The color of the bow was chosen to match the point color (detail color) used on the details on the dress. It joins the whole outfit together. 

Point 2
The hem of the dress is cut in half circles and shaped like shells. This is a popular design. 

Point 3
The choice of accessories comes from the main color of the dress. In this case it is pink x sax blue. 

2 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for the translation! I have the book myself but I'm not able to read it so having this translation helps a lot.

    I can't wait to read the other parts, you are the best!!

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  2. Waaah thank you so much for the translation *__*

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