@TalnSG
Ah yeah, I see what you mean. I agree to some extent with what you are saying. Do you think that if a Lolita designed and made his/her own clothing (that isn't an obvious replica), this would be a style rather than a costume? Or combined Lolita with other elements?
PVC/Leather can sometimes (but rarely) be encorporated into Lolita, particularly with the 'ero-loli' look. I've seen a few examples were leather works well in this instance but I can't recall seeing any decent examples were PVC was used.
The girl in the picture is what the Lolita community refer to as 'costume' or 'cosplay' Lolita. They define it like this:
Quote:
Cosplay Lolita, or 'Costume Lolita,' is not a subset of Lolita fashion, but it is still important to know the difference between Cosplay Lolita and the actual fashion.
Cosplay Lolita is often looked-down upon because it's usually seen at Anime Conventions being worn by those who don't really understand Lolita fashion and are happy to throw-on a costume quality ebay dress for the weekend. A lot of the time Cosplay Lolitas believe that Lolita is a costume instead of a fashion movement.
Cosplay Lolita generally doesn't conform to the actual standards of lolita fashion and usually includes very low quality materials, such as thin cottons or shiny fabric, synthetic raschel lace, satin ribbon, square-dance petticoats, cat/costume-ish ears, and poorly done corset-style lacing, stompy goth boots, lace gloves, low-quality coloured wigs, leg warmers, stripper-esque high-heels, low-quality lace parasols, maid outfits, and short, un-modest skirts. Cosplay lolita takes the lovable elements of Lolita fashion such as bows, lace, frills, and pushes them to the extreme, usually covering a dress with too many of these things, and entirely removing the classy image that most Lolita fashion tries to convey.
Make-up for this style can be anything from Mana-esque white-face, heavy eye-liner, thick goth eye shadow and black lipstick.
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Do you feel you have to encorporate certain lifestyle elements related to the style in order for it to count as a style rather than a costume?
Thinking about it, I find it hard to distinguish the definition between costume and style. Personally, I think Lolita (when not 'cosplay lolita') is a fashion, but it's hard to explain why.