Last year, I purchased a lolita skirt for my cousin Megan.
Megan is not a lolita. Megan, however, has an abiding love for full skirts (which flatter her shape beautifully, I must note), pink, food in general, and desserts in particular. Sweet lolita offers, therefore, clothing which would combine all of those things in one frilly package.
This purchase of this skirt was the result of months of waiting for the skirt to go on sale and a fair bit of e-mailing back and forth with her sister to make sure the skirt was something that Megan would want and to make sure that I was getting the right skirt. Technically, the skirt was a graduation present, but Megan had a high-stress senior year, so I decided to give it to her when I visited for Christmas and give her the option of opening it whenever she wanted.
She loved it. I was pleased both with her affection for the skirt and how it fit her. I dedicated three separate blog posts to ideas for how she could wear it. One day, I would love to take her along to a lolita meet-up so she can get a taste for the style that birthed the craziness of the skirt, and I have been told that she would be interested in going to a meet.
But I don't care if my cousin becomes a lolita or even wears the skirt in anything resembling the lolita style.
That is not to say that I wouldn't love it if my cousin did become a lolita. I'd love to have another rufflebutt in the family, someone with whom I could go shopping for frilly girly things in stores and to whom I could send links to dresses I nerdgasmed over. I am very close to my cousins, especially Megan and her sisters, and it's a thrill whenever we find something new to share. However, I want them to be free to discover their loves on their own, just as I have discovered mine.
This is something I've often thought about when sharing my crazy clothing choices with friends or family. I'm not one of those people who tries to take ownership of what I wear, as if the style were mine and mine alone. However, neither am I the sort of person to push the people I care about into something that I enjoy simply because they might enjoy it, too.
I want the people around me to understand my craziness, but just as I want them to accept my strangeness I should accept theirs.
This is something I've often thought about when sharing my crazy clothing choices with friends or family. I'm not one of those people who tries to take ownership of what I wear, as if the style were mine and mine alone. However, neither am I the sort of person to push the people I care about into something that I enjoy simply because they might enjoy it, too.
I want the people around me to understand my craziness, but just as I want them to accept my strangeness I should accept theirs.
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