One thing I repeatedly kept thinking to myself while I was writing my blog, was that there is such a varied world of design out there, and everything is so different, that how do our lecturers even know where to start when they tell us if our work is any good or not. Take Picasso for instance….some of his stuff looks like it was done by a bloody five year old who’s been given their first set of poster paints, and yet it goes for millions. Modern paintings, ones which are hung in the Tate gallery and are simply a drop of paint on a white canvas…I mean…WHAT THE HELL?!?! If I did that, and tried to sell it to some gallery, or a famous art collector I know exactly where I would get told to shove it. So yeah, what I’m trying to say is, how can people claim to teach art and design, weather it be fashion or fine art, when the whole concept of art itself is subject to the individuals opinion. Sure you can teach us the basics, like the way typography works, and how to use a sewing machine, but when society has the balls to put a person in front of us, and tell them to grade our work…then that sets off warning bells in my head. How can one persons opinion tell me weather I’m going to fail this course or not. I could have gone to some other university, and have them tell me my work is brilliant, and mark me top of the class, while you say its crap and fail me. It just doesn’t work like that…art is subject to the individual. It’s like asking someone ‘what is art?’ you just can’t do it. But yes….life is soooo fucking unfair like that though isn’t it. We all just have to deal with it.

Then we come back to my blog…I guess that is the whole point of it, to show my individual take on art and life in general. It is my blog, and therefore my thoughts. I can’t sit in front of a computer and churn out meaningless crap, just because some berk on the examination board put it down on the syllabus, its going to have to be a part of me to mean anything. Every time I create something, something that makes me feel good about it, something I know I tried hard on…it almost makes me feel as if a part of me has been taken and put into it. Now THAT is art. When you create something so special to you, so profoundly beautiful in your minds eye, that it feels as if your very soul is being taken away and put out for the world to see, laid bare before the critics eyes…now that is art, and I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.

La Vie En Rose is a full-color bimonthly magazine devoted entirely to Lolita fashion. If you don’t know what Lolita fashion is, a quick summary of it would be “a Japanese street fashion becoming popular around the world that involves wearing modest, high-quality clothing with roots in Japanese street fashion and the Victorian, Edwardian and Baroque ages.”

This magazine is the only english printed magazine aimed towards western lolita’s which is produced outside of Japan. This is the type of market that my magazine is aiming towards, and this shows that there actually would be a market for it in the first place. They break even on every magazine they produce, but sadly, the magazine is having to stop printing, due to finacial difficulties.

Avant Gauche a website dedicated to Gothic Lolita (AkA: Elegant Gothic Lolita, EGL, Gosu Loli, Loli Goth.)

Please put away all your preconceptions: this Lolita has nothing to do with Nabokov and his pedophillic Humbert Humbert, nymphets or pornography. Gothic Lolita is a fashion from japan where sometime in the mid nineties fashion explosion young ladies took to dressing like Victorian Porcelain Dolls wearing cute voluminous frilly and lacey knee length dresses, frill top socks and Mary Janes the look was champion by J-pop and Visual Kei stars like Kana, Mana from Malice Mizer, Aya from Psycho-le-cemu and the author Novela Takemoto.

Gothic Lolita is still going strong in Japan where every weekend in the Harajuku district of Tokyo sweetly dressed young women congrigate to chat and giggle and have ther pictures taken by beguiled tourrists. Now mainly thanks to publications like Fruits Gothic Lolita has come to the attention of the world Outside Japan.

Urgh, seriously, what the fuck are we even meant to be doing on this class anymore? I feel like I should be doing shit loads of work, I WANT to be doing shit loads of work, but it just isn’t happening….because I haven’t got a fucking clue what we are actually meant to be doing. How special is that.

A 500 to 750 word essay….yes ok….but on what exactly ? Our blog….but again…yes ok…but what about? The blog itself, or something in the blog? Something relating to the way we use our blog? Or one of the subjects we chose to cover, be it design..or something totally unrelated.

 Throughly confused about the entire project right now, and its frying my creative mind into a pile full of steaming grey mush suited more to a brainless office job than an artistic career. Why do I have such a distincitve feeling that I am going to fail this year? And in a rather dramatic way aswell. Like jumping off a multi storey building along with a couple of contrete blocks so you end up killing a couple of bystanders on the way.

We all know this advert is awsome……so there. I put it in my blog.

ID magazine, created in 1980. A contempory fashion magazine, featuring not only fashion designers, but photographers and contempory artists aswell.

Shoxx Magazine is a Japanese Visual and Hard Shock and Visual Kei magazine published by Ongakusei. It is published once a month and features some new and the most popular bands in the Visual Kei scene.

The Style
Lolita fashion draws much of its inspiration from Rococo, Victorian-style and Edwardian fashion and often aims to imitate the look of Victorian porcelain dolls. Gothic Lolita applies the aesthetics of Gothic fashion to the childlike, pretty Lolita fashion. The word Gothloli comes, quite naturally, from a combination of Lolita and Gothic fashion.

Gothic Lolita is the best-known of the various “Lolita” looks. Other categories include “Classic Lolita”, which is often more mature-looking and contains more muted colors and floral prints and “Sweet Lolita” which is identified by childish pastel colors and cute prints.

Gothic Lolita style is usually a combination of black and white, often black with white lace and typically decorated with ribbons and lace trims. Skirts are knee length and may have a crinoline or petticoat to add volume. As in mainstream Japanese fashion, over-knee socks or stockings are popular. White or black tights are also common. Child-like shoes or boots such as Mary Janes complete the look. Frilly, ruffled or lace-trimmed Victorian blouses are also popular with Gothic Lolitas and designs are usually modest, sometimes with long lace-capped sleeves and/or high-necked blouses.

Some additions may include mini top hats, parasols, and lace headdresses, which resemble wide, elegantly decorated headbands. Other popular Lolita headgear are ribbons, lace or bows, an alice band with a bow or sometimes even a bonnet. Hair is sometimes curled, or a curled wig is worn to complete the porcelain doll look. Blonde and black are the most popular hair colors, though as the fashion continues to develop, other colors (such as brown and red) are increasing in popularity.

The lolita style began in the 1970′s with brands such as Milk and Pink House making outfits that resembled Little House on the Prairie. Angelic Pretty opened in 1979, Baby opened in the 80′s, and Moi-meme-Moitie opened in 1999.

History 
Mana, the former leader and guitarist of the visual kei themed band Malice Mizer, is widely credited for having helped popularize Gothic Lolita, though he is not a founder of the style. He coined the terms “Elegant Gothic Lolita” (EGL) and “Elegant Gothic Aristocrat” (EGA) to describe the style of his own fashion label Moi-même-Moitié, which was founded in 1999. Other influential figures in the scene include the singer Kana, who often modeled for Lolita related fashion magazines, and Mitsukazu Mihara, who drew the first eight covers of the Gothic & Lolita Bible.

‘Lolita’
Although “Lolita” is a reference to Vladimir Nabokov’s famous novel, and Lolita is often worn by teens, followers of the style do not consider it overtly sexual. In fact, in Japan, many Lolitas were unaware of the connection to the book until it was introduced to them in the Gothic & Lolita Bible as a suggested read. Instead, adherents present themselves as children or traditional porcelain dolls and consider it necessary to look “cute,” “beautiful,” or “elegant” rather than “sexy.” Some people object to the style, finding the child-like look on a teen or adult immature or even offensive, but Lolitas defend their choice of clothing as modest and elegant, and therefore far less offensive than some clothes that their peers choose to wear on a daily basis.^{[citation needed]}

Japanese culture places a higher value upon extremely youthful appearance and behavior, and some adult women buy large amounts of products, such as Hello Kitty goods, that are typically marketed only to children abroad. Lolita is possibly a more visible extension of this phenomenon.

Gothic and Lolita culture
In Japan it is mass-marketed, though not widely worn, but has visibility particularly in the streets of Tokyo and Osaka, on television, in manga (see Paradise Kiss) and computer games. The fashion is being picked up worldwide, thanks to the foreign publication of Japanese magazine anthology FRUiTS, where the outstanding style actually blends in with the other quirky teen trends in Japan. More “faithful” adherents to the style take many influences from the Rococo and Victorian periods of European history, believing it to be in the nature of a Lolita to be respectful, polite, and demure at all times; even less extreme adherents are often known to attempt to cultivate interest in hobbies or activities considered appropriate to high-society ladies during these periods, such as needlework, opera, classical and baroque styles of music, painting, sewing, and the traditional observance of high tea. For the most part, however, most Lolitas live a day-to-day life very similar to any average person.