It was a wet day in mid-November when Pauline finally had the clothes she needed to make the outfit she had been dreaming of. It was the stubborn shoes that just wouldn't come in, though all the other garments had been in her closet for the past two weeks. The postman dropped off the black-tipped Mary Janes that morning, just as she was leaving for class. She was so excited that she hurried back upstairs, and, at the risk of being late for econometrics, changed into the full outfit. She stood admiring herself in the mirror for a few stolen moments, liking the affect of the drop pleats and full skirt that tapered the waist. She'd never worn a long skirt like that before, but it seemed appropriate for what she had in mind.

She arrived on campus and swept through her first two classes, and impatiently awaiting the four-hour wait until her next class. Generally it was long and uneventful, and fluctuated between reading at the student center to wandering through hallways, trying to look as if she belonged somewhere. There was a feeling of homelessness when there wasn't anywhere specific for her to go. Humans were always rushing back and forth from place to place on tight schedules, and there was something otherworldly and uncomfortable about having the world stop turning. It was how she found the Founder's Hall.

It was an unused hall with a broad, colonial fireplace, rows of stiff chairs, and in the corner, a white piano. Pauline had never learned how to play the piano but she had always dreamed of playing, especially classical pieces like Debussy and Chopin. That was how she had thought up her outfit - the perfect thing for a young heroine to wear as she played the piano to herself, sending eerie notes through the still building.

At long last, in her perfect ensemble, playing the part in her own little story, she sat the piano, fingers resting on the ivory keys. The only sound was the rain beating on the glass outside. She didn't even hear the boy peeking in the door, watching with curiosity at the strange fairytale he saw, her eyes seeing something else, as she soundlessly played the song no one could hear.

The story that Pauline builds her coordinate around is her own creation, a sort of real-life dress up if you will. But while she is sucked into her own world, she is also being observed by the mystery boy. And while he is watching her, we, the readers, are watching them. That is what I mean by the literary device of story within a story. Now you may ask, when exactly did we stop talking about fashion and start talking about literary devices?

To put together a coordinate that has a depth to it, I feel that it is best to put together almost a miniature film or play. This might be my inner writer and filmmaker coming out to play, but that's my method: a set, a story, a character, a wardrobe - that becomes my reality. The lolita appreciates beauty in all its forms, and the beautiful things we appreciate as assimilated into us. Every image we find beautiful is tucked away inside of us, an inspiration we will draw on later. I believe that in the lolita, the sense of visual beauty is highly developed. Because of this, these things affect us more strongly than other people, and therefore it manifests more strongly. I consider fashion to be a medium through which I express my ideas and quiet daydreams, and my current color palette is lolita. There is some emotion or energy I can only express through lolita fashion. To say it is only a few pieces of clothes - fabric and stitches - undermines the creative ability inside of them. This might not be true for everyone, but this is my personal interpretation of how coordinates come about. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the creativity behind lolita fashion.