Sugar and spice (and everything nice?): Japan’s ambition behind Lolita’s Kawaii aesthetics

Abstract

The global media and marketing phenomenon of Lolita fashions has charmed many with their kawaii (cute) aesthetics. This study argues that the kawaii aesthetics not only allows one to perform non-conforming femininity playfully, as previous studies have suggested, but it also embodies racial and national ideologies. This study uses an intersectional, transnational approach to investigate the retail catalogs of Lolita brands and fan publications. Findings reveal that Lolita marketing in Japan artfully appropriates whiteness through the kawaii aesthetics, which renders whiteness/Westernness less threatening and covers up Japan’s ambition to surpass the West with a spectacular and innocent mask. When kawaii aesthetics is repackaged for the Western market, the over-representation of whiteness is replaced by a fantasy of cross-racial sisterhood, subtly celebrating the superiority of the East Asian race. I call for an awareness of the appropriation of whiteness outside the United States and an intersectional reading of ‘postfeminist’ glamor.