Tuesday, November 30, 2010

a muslim lolita's dilemma

*thought I might want to write something about this. It's been long since the Muslim Lolita blog is updated*

In my humble opinion, lolita fashion could work with the Muslim clothing guidelines, as lolita is a very modest fashion. I said 'could work' because there are some outfits that are deemed unsuitable to be worn by a Muslimah, as they might be too form-fitting (thus defeating the purpose of covering the aurat) or having inaproppriate motifs (crosses - like most of Moitie's dresses *sigh*. Some stricter Muslims also do not approve of animal motifs in clothings, especially dog motifs. But I do think that IW's Puppy collections are very adorable though). Apart from that, I don't think there are any problems regarding wearing lolita as a Muslimah. You can wear a long-sleeved blouse with a normal JSK (you can opt for a cardigan if you think the JSK is too form-fitting), and wear a cute matching hijab, and maybe a little bow on your hijab to lolify it further. One thing though.

What the hell am I going to do with my legs????

Here's the dilemma. You see, other lolitas will choose either to wear a pair of OTK socks, knee-high socks or tights (or even ankle socks if you prefer) before slipping into their favourite tea parties or RHS or mary janes. As a Muslimah, while OTK socks and their counterparts may seem to cover them legs enough to warrant them as Muslimah attire-friendly, they have one problem - they show the shape of your legs. And that's a no-no, because you are still deemed as not covering your aurat.

covers your skin all right, but the shape still shows, love.

So for about 3 years, I wore lolita with dress pants or slacks to complete the Muslimah look. For 3 years also, I refused to show my lolita coords to public (aside to a number of people who I'm positive do not have any inkling on lolita fashion). You see, the lolita community generally disprove of pants in coords (other than the obvious dandy/ouji/kodona...but those are not lolita really). I've seen one post on egl a few years back, and from what I saw these people are less forgiving when it comes to pants in lolita. Maybe you could say that pants + skirt combination generally looks off and impractical (although more people are starting to adopt the dress + pants combo in their casual coords nowadays...in my country at least). Still, I do not have any choice other than wearing pants with my lolita dresses (people have suggested tight jeans or leggings, but those definitely defeat the purpose of covering up the aurat, no doubt), so I just went on with that. Most of the times, I dare not label my coord as lolita (this was before the emergence of the Muslim Lolita group).

NOT LOLITA YO

Even when I reveal my coords for the world to see, I'll make sure that the legs part are carefully cropped so as to avoid revealing any glimpse of pants (or socks for indoor shoots)

EEP! What are those two cylinder-like things under my JSK???

After months of lurking on egl, I suddenly discovered something awesome. A fellow Muslim Lolita, Noor Al-Kattan (sugar_noor on daily_lolita... she's the icon of Muslim Lolita really ^^) posted a lolita coord on d_l, and instead of pants, she wore boots!

I've been pondering over the idea wearing boots to cover up my legs really. You see, unlike OTK socks or tights, some boots are loose enough and do not show the shape of the legs. Perfectly OK for a Muslimah.

Noor's sweet Lolita

Awesomeness

While this certainly excites me (yay for showing full coords to the world!), I have another problem: lolita boots are expensive and cheapskate me can't afford them. BAWWW!

But that didn't stop me. Why baww over expensive lolita boots when you can buy normal boots and lolify them? But then, boots are expensive on their own (read: more expensive than shoes) and I can only spend RM50 over a single item (major lol). Still, I scoured Times Square and Sungei Wang, hoping to find a nice loliable lace up knee-high boots which are not too form-fitting in either black or white - preferably white - which cost less than RM50. Gila impossible! But thank God, somehow I found one (although not in white)!

All hail awesomeboot (ignore smudged background...don't even bother to guess)

Personally I think the boots suit certain lolita styles well (gothic and classic: maybe, pirate: of course!). Too bad I can't find a sweeter white coloured boots - I prefer white because my current wardrobe mainly consists of sweeter dresses. But I was very grateful to find this one really. Finally, something to wear with my new Bodyline JSK!

sorry them boots are far from visible in this coord pic XP

My next mission would be finding an appropriate white boots (hopefully under RM50 also). I heard that Danga Festive Street Mall has a couple of shops selling damn cheap boots (kes tak laku). I need a pair for the Malaysian Lolita Club's fashion runway - planning to wear my handmade Children's Tea Party JSK (from this "project registration") and twin with Chark on that day. If you find any please do tell me! :D :D

Boots are a Muslim Lolita's best friend XD
Alice

6 comments:

boxOFjuice said...

Nice boots! I think the last pic there is pretty awesome :D Definitely one of my favs among your outfits.

Mykki said...

Awesome boots! That's such a great idea, but I can imagine wearing boots during the hot summer months might be...eh...yeah. ^_^

I never imagined how hard it must be to dress Lolita as a Muslim. Kudos to you for making it work. I think that's pretty amazing.

Anonymous said...

OMG ! i just what you are talking about!!! I really think ur coordinations are great and even though you are wearing pants your dresses look great i really think its awesome you actually mind the fact your legs are not to be shown while you are wearing the hijab i have seen many lolitas with a hijab who actually could not care less about this fact!!! i actually am into kodona and as i also wear the hijab i actually am very limited when it comes to wearing shorts or capri pants so i often wonder about how it would look if i was not to show any of my legs but as i see you are doing so well it inspires me the boots idea is great even though you dont get to show your socks but i was said that as long as its under your knees its ok to wear socks (very unsure about this information i was told so by my mom o__0 )

BTW your coordination with the red dress is awesome !!!!!

^___^

Maya Arielle said...

Leana: Thanks! I tried to coordinate it differently to see if the JSK suits my boots XP
akumaxkami: Thank you :D Well, it's practically summer all year long in Malaysia, so I really have to endure it anyway. But that's not a problem, since I've gotten used to wearing layers of clothes in the middle of a very hot day XP. And thank you very much :D
Anon: Cool! A kodona lolita! I would love to see your coords :D I try to adhere to the clothing guidelines as much as I could :) I believe that different Muslim school of thoughts have different opinions when it comes to clothings and aurat, maybe that's why some of the other muslim lolitas do not mind about showing their legs. Yeah, I gotta agree, when you wear boots you can't really show your lovely socks, but you can still show a little part of them especially if the boots are not very long. That will do I guess XP. Thank you for your sweet comment :D

+Aira+ said...

OMG!!! cant believe i just read this now!! orz.. i suck.. darn pc had to go n die 4 about 2 weeks...(=.=) btw Tim as usual epicness hands down!! this should go on the Muslim Lolita blog u know!!!!

bibiddybobiddy said...

OMG! I am a Goth Lolita, but was afraid of loosing my identity when I revert to Islam... now, it seems I don't have to give up my style, just modify it! YOU ROCK SO HARD GIRL!!!!! AWESOME!!!!