In IFFTI Annual Proceedings 2 (pp. 401-426). International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes.
ABSTRACT
“This paper examines the emergence of the alternative fashion-based Gothic and Lolita movement in Mexico, and its development from its Japanese streetstyle foundations. It investigates its intentions, motivations, symbolism, and intertextual cultural and religious associations, particularly connected with the festivities and rituals of Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The focus is on the prevalence of the distinctive aesthetics of La Calavera Catrina in the Mexican expression of the subcultural Gothic Lolita identity.
The iconic image of a grinning female skeletal character, adorned by a huge, feathered chapeau, is ubiquitous in Mexico. Known as La Catrina Calavera, she was created some time around 1910 by the Mexican political satirist and lithographer, José Guadalupe Posada, and made famous by the radical Mexican artist, Diego Rivera. The figure of Catrina, la calavera (‘the skull’), has since become a mascot of Día de Los Muertos, Day of the Dead.
Día de Los Muertos is a time of remembrance and celebration of those who have passed to the afterlife, and a chance for the souls of the deceased to revisit their loved ones in the earthly realm. As such, rituals pertain to both the memorial and the presence of the ancestors.
Associated with the Catholic feast days of All Saints and All Souls, as well as Hallowe’en, Día de Los Muertos has also evolved from pre-Hispanic traditions. The customs of the festival have thus emerged from the syncretism of colonial and indigenous belief systems.
Resonating from this hybrid landscape is the subcultural fashion-based identity of the Mexican Gothic Lolita. While the Mexican incarnation draws from the Japanese model and continues to weave together sartorial sensibilities of the Rococo, Romantic, and Victorian eras, historical mourning dress, twentieth century goth style, and neoromantic, neogothic fashion movements, it has also evolved to reflect its own cultural flavor.
The Mexican Gothic Lolita style introduces a novel eclectic fusion, influenced by local indigenous, historical, and contemporary sources, and inspired by Mesoamerican, Spanish colonial, Catholic, Gothic, Baroque, and Hispanic iconographies, motifs, and spiritualities.
This unique manifestation of the Gothic Lolita is supported, in Mexico, by an independent, creative, handmade fashion industry, yet to be co-opted into mainstream culture, which lends itself to the do-it-yourself aspect that enables its individuality to flourish. As such, the Mexican Gothic Lolita transforms and rearranges semiotic elements of the original style to make new statements.
This research stems from my completed doctoral thesis, which utilized ethnographic field studies and surveys, undertaken in Mexico, and online, in order to recognize the contributions of the subculture’s participants, to hear their voices, and discuss their inspirations in context. Also explored were the ways in which the Mexican movement reflects, and differs from, the philosophies of the original Japanese movement.
This paper addresses some of those aspects, while analyzing complex symbolism embedded in the innovative subcultural expression of La Catrina Lolita.”
Gothic Lolitas in Mexico (2017, July 23), during El Baile de Las Rosas, Hotel Palacio San Leonardo, Ciudad de Puebla, Puebla, México. I’m second in from the right!
Kathryn A. Hardy Bernal 