Okay, so the "chokers in lolita" discussion has gotten bigger than I thought a throwaway comment would be.
So I went through an unspeakable google search to try to get some ideas of what makes a choker usable and non-usable in lolita. Thankfully, if you just want good examples, Lolibrary has your back.
First of all, I want to say that a good coord can be completely necessary for the necklace to work. If you just look at some chokers on this list, they don't inherently read as lolita. However, a terrible choker necklace can also pull a good coordinate down and make it stop reading as lolita. It's important, when studying lolita pieces, to remember that they're worn in the context of complete outfits. There's many things that need the coord to read as fully lolita, but there's also things that will never read as lolita, no matter how good the coord.
So, let's start with the good option. This is pictures of pieces from lolibrary, as well as things with a style that I've seen working in lolita pieces. It's not fully representative of everything you can wear in lolita:
One thing I want you to note here is that there's a feeling of quality. These are pieces of jewelry, with high-quality thick and textured lace.
And here's the board where I had to search up terms that will require me to throw away this laptop and start a new one because I"m pretty sure it's going to be in my browser history making a smell like when a bird dies under your house:
Now, let's be clear on something: I don't make these boards just to demonstrate a concept. I also make them as research so that I personally can understand the concept better. I knew there were things that lolita fashion didn't want to be associated with (which included anime and catgirl; not all of it was generally accepted as mainstream bad), so I collected images of <x> choker necklace. Then, I did another mood board with the results of things that I knew were properly associated with lolita. I was not actually searching out things that proved my point. I was forming my point as I did the research.
But, with this information, I'm going to draw some conclusions:
Good (for our purposes) choker necklaces have ruffled and detail that goes down. Bad (for our purposes) are more likely to have large ruffles on the top.
Quality really, really matters here. This is an item that's close to your face, and so will be seen close up. You can compare the apparent quality of the two boards and see. Raschel lace and tulle ruffles both read as not good, while embroidered mesh lace and venise lace both read
The level of detail is important. You want your accessory to feel like if it was a picture that you could keep zooming in on, you'd find more details revealed the closer you get.
Just don't put text on your choker. I've had to look at and censor a ton of these and there's just no way you can put text on your choker that doesn't lead to it resonating as...something not lolita.
Anyway, why are chokers really great in lolita, when they're done right?
It's because they do a really good job of filling an additional detail into your coordinate, especially near your face. You can wear one and still have space for other longer necklaces. We don't wear v-neck necklines in lolita fashion, so a lot of mid-length necklaces (standard length for a lot of normal people) have the focal point of the necklace hit right at the top of the dress, which hides it. So yes, they're great.
However, lolita fashion does a lot of work to separate itself from various kinks, from looking cheap, and from looking like anime cosplay. So, when picking your accessories, those are connotations to avoid. I tried to make a compilation of what that looks like, so you don't have to google it. I did it so you don't have to.
Now I'm going to go burn my browser history.
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