Hello Everyone,

Welcome to The Invisible Vision Project’s Blog.

In the title of this blog, as you can probably tell, it’s about fashion. The topic of fashion is not something I (usually) write about in my blog, (This is the first time I’m writing about it, but hopefully, not the last!). I don’t consider myself as someone who knows a lot about fashion. But, as a young adult woman, I will say the least: I do love fashion (I mean, who doesn’t?!), even though, I also don’t think of myself as fashionable, meaning, I don’t necessarily always catch up with the latest fashion trend and design on the market, but, I do consider myself as well-dressed.

However, with the topic about fashion, this is going to be a little different. This is, a reveal and (or maybe a confession?) of me expressing my very HUGE and DEEP passion for unique/and subculture fashion.

And, you may be wondering: what do I mean by subculture fashion? There may be many kinds and forms of subculture fashion. But, the kinds in which I’m sharing with you here, it’s a fashion trend, particularly very popular in Japan called: Gothic Lolita Fashion, The Visual Style and Cosplay.

Gothic Lolita fashion, is a kind of subculture fashion, this fashion style adopts (a kind of) Edwardian/and Victorian era style of clothing, it often gives an impression of being “dolly” (particularly for women’s style). Gothic Lolita fashion have also (somewhat) played a part in Japanese pop culture, and is sometimes (but not always) associated with a movement in Japanese music called the Visual Kei (The Visual Style), which is a form of VERY expressive visual representation in clothing, make up, and hair style (creating an exaggerating ‘dark and demonic look’). To me, I would describe/and represent myself as a Gothic Lolita, and or simply as Goth(especially to go with the Visual Style). But FYI: Back in the days when I was VERY into and passionately express my subculture fashion look, I’d claim to be the “Gothic Queen.”

But, the story of my unique taste for fashion doesn’t end here. I also have another piece to share, that is, my love for cosplay. The term cosplay means costume play. Basically, it means dressing up in characters usually appeared in or from a Japanese anime (note: anime may be similar but is actually quite different from cartoons, or comics. And sometimes, especially in western society, people do dress up as cartoon or comic characters on Halloween or during comic conventions). Personally, I love seeing other people cosplay, and I have been a huge Japanese anime fan for a VERY long time. But, I sometimes feel slightly disappointed/and discouraged when I cosplay; because, I kind-of feel that I may have ‘destroyed’ the perfect image from the original anime. But, I still enjoy and find it fun to cosplay in characters I adore! And, having fun is so important in cosplaying!

After having shared with you this much about my passion and love for unique dress and fashion, you may ask: Do I really go out like this?! Well, the answer is: not usually, at least, I haven’t feel confident and comfortable enough to dress in subculture fashion and go out. There is something I haven’t told you about, and that is, since my Vision Loss acceptance journey I made about 2 years ago, I have been refraining myself from dressed in subculture fashion. There’re reasons for this. What I find about subculture fashion is that it stands out, a lot; which is true, because, it is different from the norm, so obviously, people will look, stare, and may even question why I dressed the way I did(this had happened to me in the past). And, because I am now visibly presenting myself as a blind person since I now use a white cane when I go out, that itself also stands out. So, I haven’t yet figure out a way to cope with two things that just seem to stand out so much! But, I’ve been trying my hardest to overcome this. I think, no one should be judged, just because they have a disability, or just because they dressed differently than the norm. But, this is going to be a process, a rather slow process to adjust. Now, I’m way more confident and comfortable in using the white cane, and it will be another process in getting use to dressed up in subculture fashion and find a “place” for where my white cane (my disability) fit into this image. Hopefully, someday sooner, I could find my confidence back and am able to comfortably and confidently present myself to the world the way I should and want to be presented!

So, this concludes today’s blog. Thank you so much for reading to the end.
And, most importantly, I hope now you’ve learned something new about me!

By: The Invisible Vision Project