FANTASTICAL LOLITA STYLE WOVEN INTO LIFE.
Fantastical Lolita style woven into Houston couple’s life
With a sly halfsmile, Collin Quinlan daintily picks up a pink frilly dress for his wife’s approval. “What about this?” The corner of his mouth is twitching up, but he’s not giving anything away as he surveys the table of pastel finery in front of him.
“Get that on my body right now!” Stevie Quinlan squeals in delight, reaching out to admire the oversize bows on the name-brand steal.
“I already bought it,” Collin tells her with a giant grin.
Stevie rewards his grin with broad smile of her own.
When the Quinlans met at an Atlanta ice rink in 2013, they bonded through a mutual fascination with an over-thetop Japanese style known as Lolita — which has been described as something akin to “Alice in Wonderland” meets “The Addams Family.”
Four years later, that fancy, frilly fashion is still the language of love for the Houston couple.
While Collin enjoys helping plan outfits — known as “coordinates” or “coords” in the Lolita world — Stevie spends upward of 20 hours per week moderating and overseeing events in the local Lolita community.
Greater Houston boasts roughly 500 active Lolitas, by the Quinlans’ estimation. But not all of them wear their coords every day to work; it’s just the “lifestylers” who do that.
“It’s an incredibly diverse community — it’s fashion that anyone can get into,” Stevie said. “I feel like it’s still growing in popularity.”
The look is a mash-up of Victorian frills and bright Japanese fashion sensibilities mixed together for an ornate “Alice in Wonderland”-like vibe.
It’s an exacting style, requiring exquisitely matched petticoats, legwear, headwear and an elaborate “main piece,” or dress. Each outfit has a theme, and some can take months to put together.
The Quinlans have a whole room dedicated to storing their boxes, bags and dressers of Lolita finery. Between them they have more than 100 wigs.
“My closet is worth more than my car,” Stevie said.
Sometimes when the Quinlans banter back and forth about their best coords, it’s hard to tell if they’re speaking a foreign language or Lolita slang — surfing through common vernacular such as “OP” (a onepiece dress) or “JSK” (jumper skirt).
Despite the unwanted literary connotations of the name, Lolita is not a fetish and doesn’t bear any relation to the notorious Vladimir Nabokov text.
“It’s a lost-in-translation sort of thing,” Stevie said of the “Lolita” term. “To people in Japan, it’s just a cute name for a girl. It’s only in Western society that people attribute it to the book.”
Stevie, now 29, got into Lolita through a love of anime, or Japanese animation, which is a fairly common entry to the Japanese fashion scene.
For instance, Amye Cortiaus, a 21-year-old staple of the Houston-area Lolita community, discovered the fantastical fashion world after her father introduced her to anime.
“Many children have dreams of becoming princesses and princes when they are older, and Lolita fashion gives us the ability to fulfill those dreams as adults,” Cortiaus said.
It was also a way to bond with her family, especially after her younger sister Emma, now 17, followed in her footsteps toward anime and cosplay culture.
Although it requires a similarly precise attention to detail, Lolita is not a type of cosplay — and calling a coord a “costume” will elicit gasps of horror from certain hardcore Lolita fashionistas. But for many in the local community, cosplay — like anime — is an overlapping interest.
The Quinlans spend most of their fashion time in the realm of Lolita, but cosplay is an important second love. “We got engaged in cosplay,” Collin said.
In 2014, they’d already moved from Atlanta to Houston but decided to hop a flight back east for Anime Weekend Atlanta. Collin planned the wardrobe, fashioned after Stevie’s favorite anime series, “Slayers.” She played Lina Inverse; he played her longtime love interest, Gourry Gabriev.
“We were doing a photo shoot, and all of a sudden he’s like, ‘Stevie, I’ve got something to tell you.’ ”
He whipped out a custommade heart-shaped pink sapphire ring — designed to match her favorite coords — and got down on one knee.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing? You’re going to make me cry, and I’m going to ruin my makeup!’ ”
Although Collin played a male character in their adorable engagement shoot, that hasn’t always been his role. A former runway model, the New Jersey native started out his Lolita life in frilly dresses. Later he switched almost exclusively to “boy style,” or ouji. And then he came out as transgender and started identifying as a man. About a year ago, he started on testosterone.
“By the time we moved to Texas, I was going by male pronouns so everyone I’ve met here, they only knew me as a man. And it’s funny because one time I put on a dress for a party, and people were like, ‘What the hell, Collin?’ ”
Though the community has offered support, the Quinlans have strived to be part of the backbone — or whalebone corset — for the local Lolita scene.
“As much as the community can be accepting, we want to be good enough for the community,” Collin said. “We want all the events we host to be good.”
“No, perfect,” Stevie cut in. “We want them to be perfect.”
There are regular Lolita meet-ups, including berrypicking gatherings, tea parties and swap meets like the one where Collin scored Stevie her pink Angelic Pretty-brand dress.
“I just enjoy promoting my community and getting them out there,” Stevie said. “I want the world to be like, ‘Oh that Houston community, they’re doing such great stuff.’ ”
Of course, outside conventions and meet-ups, appearing publicly in Lolita fashion can be a fraught endeavor.
“We get harassed by all sorts of people — young teenagers, older men sometimes make inappropriate comments, sometimes even older women,” Stevie said. “Sometimes when you’re dressed so weird, people don’t treat you like a person anymore.”
But the hassle is well worth it, and the Lolita world has indelibly shaped the course of their lives.
“It’s just a part of who I am,” Collin said. But it’s also a part of who they are as a couple: the Quinlans. Lolita. Frills, fashion, love.
And just as some people grow out of relationships, some fashionistas age out of Lolita. But the Quinlans don’t see that in the readings of their future.
“It gives me a kind of purpose,” Stevie said. “I’m going to wear this ’til the day I die.”
IT’S AN INCREDIBLY DIVERSE COMMUNITY. STEVIE QUINLAN