The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

I have recently purchased my first two Pullip dolls (as a cheap alternative to Dollfies
which I aspire to one day own…). * I have made Lolita clothes for my friends’
Dollfies and I intend to make clothing for my own dolls. I do this because it’s fun, it
offers a sense of escapism and in a small sense my doll is my alter ego made
manifest… so I would desire to dress it up in outfits that would appeal to me in
real life. †
Extending the childhood phase by collecting and playing with dolls can
be, as “Hine” has claimed, a manner of escaping the real world but also a
means of creating or regaining a sense of control. Pearce, in her discussion
of collecting miniature examples of real things, multiple versions of oneself
or, as “Hine” has put it, one’s “alter ego”, sheds more light on this impulse:
A characteristic expression of the urge to manipulate the world through collecting
is the decision to concentrate… upon miniature things…. The collecting of
miniatures, in the sense of things represented by much smaller copies of
themselves, is… common…. The collection is clearly… [an] attempt to create a
world in miniature in which the collector has ultimate control. 99
She also suggests that collectors “construct a special private world which
they can [escape to and] control directly”. 100
* Pullip dolls are also the ones I collect (Fig. 74). The alternative, Dollfies, cost thousands of dollars
each.
† Personal communication between “Angelic Lolita” and “Hine” (Auckland, New Zealand) on
MySpace, www.myspace.com/botticelliangel_nz, 19 January, 2010.
Page | 159