The history of International Lolita Fashion Day
Hi everyone! ILD is tomorrow (Saturday, June 6, 2026), and since it's been such a long time and I'm feeling nostalgic for ye olden days, I thought I'd give you a little history about its origin in 2005.
Back then, I (as
kittyhot) proposed a silly idea: what if we had a "holiday" where we all dress up in lolita fashion for no reason other than to potentially run into each other on the same day?
It was not yet popular to wear lolita fashion on an everyday basis. People mostly wore it on weekends or to meetups, so ILD was meant as an "excuse" to wear lolita fashion "for no reason."
I was also trying to recreate what I thought was happening in Harajuku on the Meiji Bridge at the time. I knew that many gosurori gathered there on Sundays to just hang out, so I thought if we all dressed up and hung out at a mall or something, we'd accidentally find each other. I'm so glad y'all did not take my advice.
During its creation,jrocker_kei suggested that we make it a bi-annual holiday and have one day in summer and one day in winter to show off our seasonal coords. We decided on the first Saturday of June and the first Saturday of December.
I then created a Yahoo! Mailing List where I set up a photo album and automatic reminders for these days each year. Lots of people from the comm joined, but no one ever uploaded any photos, so I assumed the idea was dead and abandoned the mailing list. I was shocked to see that it had still survived on Facebook years later (I avoided joining Facebook for a long time.)
Over time, it became popular to host meetups for "loliday" or #ILD, and that's how we know it today. I'm glad the comm turned it into something much better than my original dorky idea.
But, in keeping with the original spirit, if you normally only wear Lolita fashion for special occasions or have yet to visit your first meetup, I encourage you to wear it on ILD even if you don't have a meetup to go to. It's supposed to be a day where you just wear it "for no reason"—other than your love for the fashion. (I'm oldschool and still support the weekend lolita. I will die on this hill.)
This is just meant to shed insight into the pupose of ILD as a whole, as well as its history. I'm proud that so many of us came together to make it happen, and I'm so happy that it ended up becoming a lasting part of the community!
Links of interest:
❧ Feeler post (warning for cringe): https://egl.livejournal.com/3076552.html#cutid1
❧ Second post: https://egl.livejournal.com/3081983.html
❧ First Loliday announcement: https://egl.livejournal.com/3893971.html
❧ Last snapshot of the Mailing List archived on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20080222010019/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loliday/
❧ Notes from my personal LJ, which I have reluctantly made public again (more cringe): https://kittyhot.livejournal.com/127510.html
Back then, I (as
kittyhot) proposed a silly idea: what if we had a "holiday" where we all dress up in lolita fashion for no reason other than to potentially run into each other on the same day?It was not yet popular to wear lolita fashion on an everyday basis. People mostly wore it on weekends or to meetups, so ILD was meant as an "excuse" to wear lolita fashion "for no reason."
I was also trying to recreate what I thought was happening in Harajuku on the Meiji Bridge at the time. I knew that many gosurori gathered there on Sundays to just hang out, so I thought if we all dressed up and hung out at a mall or something, we'd accidentally find each other. I'm so glad y'all did not take my advice.
During its creation,
jrocker_kei suggested that we make it a bi-annual holiday and have one day in summer and one day in winter to show off our seasonal coords. We decided on the first Saturday of June and the first Saturday of December. I then created a Yahoo! Mailing List where I set up a photo album and automatic reminders for these days each year. Lots of people from the comm joined, but no one ever uploaded any photos, so I assumed the idea was dead and abandoned the mailing list. I was shocked to see that it had still survived on Facebook years later (I avoided joining Facebook for a long time.)
Over time, it became popular to host meetups for "loliday" or #ILD, and that's how we know it today. I'm glad the comm turned it into something much better than my original dorky idea.
But, in keeping with the original spirit, if you normally only wear Lolita fashion for special occasions or have yet to visit your first meetup, I encourage you to wear it on ILD even if you don't have a meetup to go to. It's supposed to be a day where you just wear it "for no reason"—other than your love for the fashion. (I'm oldschool and still support the weekend lolita. I will die on this hill.)
This is just meant to shed insight into the pupose of ILD as a whole, as well as its history. I'm proud that so many of us came together to make it happen, and I'm so happy that it ended up becoming a lasting part of the community!
Links of interest:
❧ Feeler post (warning for cringe): https://egl.livejournal.com/3076552.html#cutid1
❧ Second post: https://egl.livejournal.com/3081983.html
❧ First Loliday announcement: https://egl.livejournal.com/3893971.html
❧ Last snapshot of the Mailing List archived on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20080222010019/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/loliday/
❧ Notes from my personal LJ, which I have reluctantly made public again (more cringe): https://kittyhot.livejournal.com/127510.html