lolita media library: An Nguyen and Jane Mai’s So Pretty/Very Rotten

General info

As the front cover says, it contains “comics and essays on Lolita fashion and cute culture”. The title comes from a quote in Novala Takemoto’s 下妻物語 (Kamikaze Girls).

About the authors

Jane Mai and An Nguyen are comic artists and illustrators who met during college in New York. Mai is currently based in Brooklyn, NY, USA and Nguyen is based in Ottawa, ON, Canada. Nguyen often goes by her pen name, saicoink.
Jane Mai official website | An Nguyen/saicoink official website

Novala Takemoto (a prominent Japanese author and novelist associated with lolita fashion) also contributed to this book in the form of an interview. His interview was translated by Helena Stenberg, owner of the (defunct) indie clothing brand Kinki Kitty and someone I’ve long admired for her fashion making and Japanese skills.

There is also a Spanish language version of this book! The title in Spanish is Bellezas malditas. It was translated from the English by Regina López Muñoz.

How it’s related to lolita

The entire book is a discussion of various aspects of lolita fashion and the participation in it.

Comments

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in lolita, and especially for anyone who arrived at lolita fashion from somewhere other than Japanese culture. It has well explained background information and history, and puts into words a lot of things I have felt but didn’t think very hard about. I am especially glad that it discusses the more draining aspects of participating in lolita. It’s not all sugar and rainbows, though it certainly looks like that from the outside, and I think even we like to pretend it is or we probably wouldn’t dress this way.

What is special about this book for me is that many discussions are from an introspective, self-reflective standpoint. Maybe I just don’t know the right people but I feel there’s a dearth of introspection and self-awareness in the American lolita community, and why I felt so refreshed reading this book. There’s a lot made of interpersonal drama in the lolita community, especially online, but that is not the focus.

Pink lolita putting up the horns. It me.

I especially loved these couple of pages. I am glad that the book spends some time on lolita’s roots in the underground music scene. I like keeping that part of it alive by going to local music shows wearing it. They’re celebrating who they are and what they love, and so am I.

I am also incredibly happy that there is now at least some English and Spanish language literature that covers the topic of lolita fashion properly, and explores it beyond "look at these weirdos with their frilly dresses" and "look at these things you can buy". There's a treasure trove of novels, essays, and other literature on lolita fashion in Japanese but most of it is currently inaccessible to most of the world. That is why I began this lolita media library series, and I am glad that someone else sees this gaping cultural hole in our community and is not only introducing already existing Japanese media into the wider international community, but creating their own high quality content that other non-Japanese lolitas with no Japanese background can enjoy.