For Brit Alcock, 28, choosing to wear a doll-like cupcake shaped dress and colourful wigs is an expression of her inner self.
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It's not attire she wears all the time, as it can be "tiring" to perfect the Lolita Fashion look, but something Ms Alcock likes to don regularly to coffee or a movie.
I understand why people stare, it's very different to everyday clothes but for me its self expression.
- Gabryel Katte
On Saturday, the Lolita fan held a workshop at Wollongong Library to inspire and network with other like-minded people.
"When I was younger I was really quite shy and I had a hard time making friends," she said.
"I thought alternative fashion was a good way to start a conversation with people and so it just really brought me out of my shell. It let me express myself through clothes when I had a hard time expressing myself through words."
Ms Alcock explained Lolita was a street-style originating from Japan with three main sub-styles of "sweet", "classic" or "gothic". It's largely influenced by Victorian and French Rococo fashion.
It's a style she has loved since a teenager but didn't fully embrace it until moving to Japan for three years in 2014. When arriving back in Wollongong in 2017 she found the city was beginning to also embrace different ideas.
"So much more of the culture I am interested in, lots of pop culture and alternative fashion, Comic Gong moved in and the CosPlay Society started up," Ms Alcock said.
"When I moved back here I was really excited to jump into it."
Gabryel Katte, 21, has been wearing Lolita for four years and would love to see the scene in Wollongong grow as big as the "hectic community" in Sydney.
"I understand why people stare, it's very different to everyday clothes but for me its self expression," she said.
"When we wear Lolita out we get a lot of stares and I don't even think it's that weird of a fashion.
"I want people to be to be more accepting of something that's a little bit more conservative than being okay with everyone showing their skin."
Both Ms Katte and Ms Alcock are also part of the CosPlay Society run from the University of Wollongong, and hope to foster a growing community of like-minded Lolita fashion fans in the Illawarra.