The Art of Casual Cute

Getting dressed up in lolita is a lot of fun - but it's a lot of work and not the most comfortable, and it's really not appropriate for every situation.

Many lolitas then turn to other more casual cute Japanese fashions. There are a number of labels out there for styles under this very wide umbrella (for example, himekaji, otome-kei, Larme-kei), but they're all about being cute in a very wearable sense.

Ank Rouge

The transition between dressing in lolita and dressing casual cute can be tough for those who entered the general world of fashion through lolita. Lolita is a very structured, rule-centric fashion, while other fashions tend to be much more open-ended. For this reason, a lot of lolitas feel lost when trying to create outfits outside of the rules and confines of lolita fashion.

Lolita Posing 101

Something I hear often from lolitas is that they have no idea how to pose when a camera is pointed at them. They feel they look stiff or awkward or any number of unwanted adjectives.

Getting photos taken, whether by a professional photographer or with your camera propped up with a timer set, is an aspect of lolita that is difficult to avoid.

While I'm certainly no expert, I've had a lot of experience with posing in lolita, due to the fact that 1) I've been into lolita for a very long time, 2) I enjoy having photos taken of me when I'm wearing it, and 3) modeling, whether print or runway, obviously requires knowing how to pose.

I'm mostly going to cover lolita-exclusive posing, rather than what you can find with a simple Google search (this is a great article, for example), although I'll share some basic tips that I personally use all the time.