The Irish Lolitas embrace all things Gothic when it comes to fashion but, for them, dressing up is not just at Halloween, this is how they express themselves most days of the week some of them wearing Lolita "to the shops for a jug of milk".
Coming from all corners of Ireland, the group meets once a month and are grateful to have found each other; "meeting so many like-minded people has allowed myself be me".
Not a costume
Despite onlookers on the street repeatedly asking them if they are "in a play" or "dressing up" the Lolita community dress in this elaborate way for themselves. The subject of a brand new RTÉ Player documentary, Living Lolita, Sarah Rowe from Dublin explains:
"There are so many people who can see Halloween as a day when they can dress how they'd most like to see themselves. That sort of happiness should not be confined to a single day of the year...
"We are not dressing as dolls or dressing in a costume. Costumes are objects of imitation and we're not objects, we're not imitating anyone, we're real people and this is how we dress".
"What drew me to Lolita was the way it made me feel, for the first time since I was a kid, I felt excited to choose out and wear my own clothes. Like every woman, I did not appreciate men staring at me or making inappropriate comments and Lolita was a way for me to block that. People occasionally still try to pass remarks but now it can be funny to watch them try and process what they see.
So whatever you decide to dress as this Halloween, take a leaf out the Lolitas book; if you're not going to fit in you might as well really stand out.
Living Lolita is part of DocLand, a series of short-form documentaries made exclusively for the RTE Player. Watch it here.
