It seems that the farthest back you can view EGL on the Wayback Machine is 2011. Like I mentioned in my previous post, many companies are choosing to purge old data. I fear I must start going through these posts quickly If I want document all the information before it is no longer available.
Well, to be honest, I don't recall much of the story of EGL origins because it was before I ever discovered lolita. I was first entranced by the wonderful, whimsical world of lolita 15 years ago back in 2004. However, the oldest remaining post on EGL is back from January 1, 2000, and is posted by none other then Tyler, the amazingly talented designer of American indie brand Lily of the Valley, or LotV for short. The post documents a meetup in Philadelphia and to my delight, when i download blurred photos, some of them are reverted to their original state!
I do, however, remember stories of a much older EGL Reddit page, which from there, one of the members created EGL. Eventually, the original creator diapered and abandoned the page, leaving a handful of members to petition Livejournal to transfer ownership so they could revive and moderate the growing community. Back then, we did not yet have the egl_comm_sales or daily_lolita. All posts pertaining to sales, meetups, daily coord snaps and local discussion were all found in one place on the one and only EGL community.
Unfortunately it seems as though there are only 5 total remaining posts from the year 2000, four of which were in January, and one in October, and none of them have any working photos. Though to be honest, Livejournal has become such a mess, I'm not sure how well you can even trust the dates on posts anymore.
One post I found from January 1, 2001, had several comments, all dated as late as 2010! Either way, I suppose I'll add the photo from that post, which inquired about a certain Putumayo jsk.
Another post dated December 16, 2001 (but has comments dating 2006) is asking which fairy tale inspired prints will be released next. Well, lucky for them, almost every single brand has had their hand in that cookie jar, most notably Baby/AatP and their countless Disney collabs. However even AP has hopped on the Disney collab train since the 2010s, along with Haenuli and her various fairy tale prints including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
And then finally, I see it, the holy grail piece of history I've been searching for...
The historic post from the one who started it all. Dated December 30, 2001.
I think I will leave this here for now. From January 2002 on posting frequency begins to pick up exponentially. I'll try my best to update weekly. I want to document as much as I can before everything is gone. I regret not starting on this sooner. It's been so many years since I started the fashion, and there is so much that has changed and gone. I'm not sure if anyone else is interested in something like this, but I'd at least like to keep this blog running so that years from now, I'll still have something to look back on. Because if we do nothing, no one will have anything too look back on.
Screen grab off the Wayback Machine from April 2011, the oldest view currently available. As you can see from the image, EGL once was a thriving international community, complete with monthly themes and contests.
I was able to find this older screen grab from August 2009 via the EGL wiki fanpage.
Well, to be honest, I don't recall much of the story of EGL origins because it was before I ever discovered lolita. I was first entranced by the wonderful, whimsical world of lolita 15 years ago back in 2004. However, the oldest remaining post on EGL is back from January 1, 2000, and is posted by none other then Tyler, the amazingly talented designer of American indie brand Lily of the Valley, or LotV for short. The post documents a meetup in Philadelphia and to my delight, when i download blurred photos, some of them are reverted to their original state!
I do, however, remember stories of a much older EGL Reddit page, which from there, one of the members created EGL. Eventually, the original creator diapered and abandoned the page, leaving a handful of members to petition Livejournal to transfer ownership so they could revive and moderate the growing community. Back then, we did not yet have the egl_comm_sales or daily_lolita. All posts pertaining to sales, meetups, daily coord snaps and local discussion were all found in one place on the one and only EGL community.
Unfortunately it seems as though there are only 5 total remaining posts from the year 2000, four of which were in January, and one in October, and none of them have any working photos. Though to be honest, Livejournal has become such a mess, I'm not sure how well you can even trust the dates on posts anymore.
One post I found from January 1, 2001, had several comments, all dated as late as 2010! Either way, I suppose I'll add the photo from that post, which inquired about a certain Putumayo jsk.
Image posted by LJ user artemiscangee
Another post dated December 16, 2001 (but has comments dating 2006) is asking which fairy tale inspired prints will be released next. Well, lucky for them, almost every single brand has had their hand in that cookie jar, most notably Baby/AatP and their countless Disney collabs. However even AP has hopped on the Disney collab train since the 2010s, along with Haenuli and her various fairy tale prints including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
And then finally, I see it, the holy grail piece of history I've been searching for...
I think I will leave this here for now. From January 2002 on posting frequency begins to pick up exponentially. I'll try my best to update weekly. I want to document as much as I can before everything is gone. I regret not starting on this sooner. It's been so many years since I started the fashion, and there is so much that has changed and gone. I'm not sure if anyone else is interested in something like this, but I'd at least like to keep this blog running so that years from now, I'll still have something to look back on. Because if we do nothing, no one will have anything too look back on.
This is such a wonderful project!! I don't remember how I found this, a link on FB maybe, but I think it's very important to hold onto the roots of egl and its online presence. I don't really know how Blogspot works, but I plan on keeping this link in a bookmark and checking back periodically to see what else you have unearthed from the early days!
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