International Lolita day is a tradition that started back in 2005 on a Yahoo group and then onto the EGL community on livejoural by a user kittyhot. It all started off with this post:
—+—Loliday is an international, biannual event. It is supposed to take place the 1st Saturday of December, for ladies and gents to sport their warm Winter
outfits, and also the 1st Saturday of June, for the Summer outfits. The reason it’s not on a specific date is so that it falls on a Saturday each time. When memos are sent out to the group, the exact date for the upcoming Loliday will be announced as a reminder.
Originally we wanted this to take place on Sundays, to coincide with the day Japanese lolies got together in Tokyo, but we Westerners come from a different culture than the Japanese and this poses a small conflict. In Japan, Sunday is the only day there is no school, and it’s their “free day”. In Western cultures–Christian-based ones in particular–Sunday is a holy day, and many people are supposed to stay at home, while Saturdays are the “free days”. At least, this can be said for the U.S…I’m not as sure about Europe and other countries. (Feel free to clarify this if you live outside the U.S.) As such, it would be more appropriate for us to hold outings on Saturdays.
THE PURPOSE OF LOLIDAY IS TO:
1. Educate the world on what Japan’s gothloli and lolita fashions are all about.
2. Have a special day just for dressing up in lolita, and nothing more.
3. Meet other lolies in our area.
4. Keep photoalbums of and record the progress of gothloli and lolita fashion around the world.
—+—Ok so…why have Loliday in the first place?? Shouldn’t EVERY day be “Loliday” for a REAL loli?
Well, yes, hardcore lolies are probably going to dress lolita even when there is no special event taking place, and that’s great. Wear whatever makes you happy because fashion rocks.
But the point of Loliday is to get a LARGE amount of lolies dressing up on the same day for no reason other than to strut their stuff. No anime convention cosplay, no fancy meetup or teaparty (although you can plan some if you like), no concert, no particularly special occasion at all–just a regular day for hundreds of lolies and oujisama (princes) to dress up.
Ok, I’ll be honest: one of the reasons I think we should each visit the nearest major city is in hopes that a few of the cities will develop their own unique hangout places that become popular with gothlolies, but that’s kind of a pipe dream. The main reason is just so that we aren’t scattered around the world in small groups or singles, because part of the purpose of this day is to feed upon the power of numbers. If you’d rather stay local and hold an outing for a group of your friends, that’s fine too. But my point is, if people see us in groups instead of alone or with a friend or two, they’ll start to suspect something’s up, that it’s more than just one or two random teenagers lost in Lalaland.
The first weekend of June kind of snuck up on us, so our meet up was only hastily put together a day or two beforehand. We only had a couple of people make it from the Adelaide group and Tilly from the Melbourne community which was really nice. We met up at the Rundle Mall’s balls, took a couple of pictures, grabbed lunch and did some shopping.
We finished off the afternoon at Morning Glory with some Pura Kura.
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