Tiny Parts of Who We Are: A Thought-Piece on ‘Anarchy Angels: Inside the lolita’s bag’ and Radical Analogue Reclamation.

I’ve always been a big fan of ethnography. During both my undergraduate and postgraduate degree at university, I studied the subcultures I was a part of and therefore fascinated by quite extensively. There’s just always been a deep sense of curiosity in me that I will admit has, in recent years, been somewhat snuffed out by the way in which we use social media nowadays. 

EGL fashion, I have always felt, sits at this weird cross-roads between analogue sociality and digital sociality. Perhaps this is because our lifestyle involves the ownership of physical assets of personal sentimental value which have been collected through years of research and intentional hunting rather than through the immediate gratification of trend-based culture. We also, therefore, are often particular and intentional by nature, in general and as well as in terms of our other hobbies or interests. This is perhaps why so many of us within this fashion community display many traits of ‘lifestyle lolita’. 

It was therefore with deep fascination that I picked myself up a copy of the new ‘Anarchy Angels: Inside the lolita’s bag’ by Ophelia of online EGL blog Cynical Neo-Princessism. A piece of physical media which photographically documents the contents of the bags of a variety of EGL fanciers in the various fashion communities which Ophelia is a part of. This project feels very personal and intimate without being voyeuristic or sensationalised in any manner. There it does not make you feel particularly close to knowing the person to whom the bag and the artifacts within belong, but it does highlight that each owner has a unique way of experiencing and expressing the EGL lifestyle, even within the minutia of the contents of their handbag. 

The zine itself, by existing, becomes part of the EGL lifestyle selection of ‘must-have’  as a collectable, physical-media hard-copy documenting the wearers of EGL fashion in the West at a specific point in time - a cultural time capsule in its own right in the same way as was (and still is) Gothic and Lolita Bible and other such publications from Japan. 

Of course, us Western EGL wearers are eternally grateful that these scans were uploaded online, otherwise how on earth would many of us have learned about EGL in the first place? It does feel like a full-circle moment, however, to have a piece of physical media produced in an era where we are all more inclined to turn to online sources of documentation of subculture. Something you can hold again. Something you can cherish. Something you can put in your bag and bring to a meet-up, should you wish to.