The original Goths weren’t the members of Joy Division (haha) but the Visigoths and Ostrogoths – the East German tribes who invaded and ultimately decimated the Roman Empire. Today, Deutschland remains a Gothic hotspot, albeit in the black-lipstick-wearing, subcultural sense.
Which dark fashion trends are currently taking over Germany? Let’s probe my friends Holger and Jen, who worked on the recently-released Schillerndes Dunkel, a lush reference book on dark culture. (Except for the book cover, all photos below are by Holger of Seventh Sin Photography.)
LA CARMINA: Can you describe the Goth fashion scene in Germany today? What looks, brands, accessories are popular?
HOLGER: The “Goth Fashion Scene” here in Germany is very much dominated by brands like Aderlass and the XtraX collections, which predominantly serve the younger Goths. But there is also an increasing number of people who are getting tired of that “off the rack” look. At the last Wave Gotik Treffen we saw an increasing number of a) smaller brands vending their own original designs and b) self made outfits . It seems Steampunk is making a strong showing, and any sort of Victorian and historical costumes are coming back into style at the festivals.
JEN: Lip Service is also popular here – especially the Blacklist line – but harder to find and up to twice as expensive as it is in the States.
LA CARMINA: Germany is known as a center for Goth culture, and home to several famous dark music festivals. Why do you think the culture flourishes here in particular?
HOLGER: M’era Luna, Amphi and many other festivals are highly commercial and just serve the Goth Pop-culture. Wave Gotik Treffen is still different: with no sponsors and no profit, it still tries to maintain the “Treffen” (meeting) character by featuring unknown artists. There are also a growing array of independent events around the Treffen, such as the Victorian Picnic, the Spiegelpalast Program and the Blaue Stunde.
JEN: Germany definitely has a stronger and larger Goth scene than the US. Germany is simply a smaller country with a higher concentration of cities, so it’s easier for organizers to draw people in to events and get exposure for alt sub-cultures. Scenes which originated in other countries such as Goth, Punk or Techno seem to be taken more seriously here in Germany. People treat them as more of a lifestyle which makes these trends last longer.
Another factor in the popularity of Goth could also be the modern history of Europe. From WWII through the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the break up of the Soviet Union and the birth of the EU, Europeans have more recent experience with vast political/socio-economic changes than the average North American. Many people who came of age during or after the nineties seem to share a certain cynicism and lack of identification with new world order. So music that refers back to a supposed mythical and heroic past is understandably appealing, similar to the way that Post-Punk songs about a doomed future and inevitable hopelessness appealed to the those who came of age in the eighties during the Cold War.
LA CARMINA: How have you seen the fashion evolve in Germany over the years?
HOLGER: Many trends in Germany are growing and mixing. Beside the uniform and military styles, which are getting away from Army Shop and moving to fashion brands such as Uniforme Design, there is definitely a big influence coming from Visual Kei and Lolitas, although those two groups are not really part of the scene in Germany yet. Cybergoth is still a big trend, although now as it is fully commercial, most of them look alike.
JEN: When I first came over to Germany about 5 years ago, I guess that was at the end of the Batcave revival: fantastic makeup and Mohawks and iros, a drawer full of ripped stockings on each limb, and minimally a kilogram of safety pins holding the whole outfit together.
The military look remains strong, everything from fatigues to outfits in the style of SS uniforms, of course without the actual Nazi symbols because it is forbidden by law to wear those here. My German friend said that, in his opinion, dressing up like a zombified SS officer is one of the darkest, most provocative things you can do around here and that’s why people are attracted to it. That said, the zombie-Nazi look has become less popular in the last two years.
There’s been an influence of Japanese Lolita but with a European flair: Ero-Loli is more popular than Classic, Sweet or Gothic Lolita, maybe partly due to the fact that most European girls have a very different body type than the average Japanese girl. Some pay attention to every last detail creating an outfit straight out of Gothic Lolita Bible, while others incorporate one or two elements of Lolita style into their own look.
Steampunk is definitely a rising trend here. Last year at the Wave Gotik Treffen we saw a handful of people wearing gorgeous hand-crafted steampunk-influenced outfits. This year, there were a lot more as well as at least three vendors offering exclusively steampunk clothing and accessories at the WGT market.
LA CARMINA: Where can you see the most fashionable German Goths? Can you recommend some events, websites, or club nights?
HOLGER: Wave Gotik Treffen, the Blaue Stunde or events by Viona-Art. She organizes a Victorian picnic at WGT in Leipzig, and romantic dance nights a few times a year in Belgium.
JEN: I would add anything organized by Peter Matzke, and for people who are more into the Cyber side, the Schlagstrom parties in Berlin. Most big cities in Germany have an online calendar with alternative events at http://www.schwarzes-leipzig.info
LA CARMINA: Tell me about the Schillerndes Dunkel book project. How did you become involved? What do you hope to achieve? (Cover photo by Silent View; model is Madame de Solitude.)
JEN: Schillerndes Dunkel (which could be roughly translated as Shimmering Darkness) is probably the largest full illustrated reference book on the dark scene. The book is broken down in five sections: Early History, Genres and Sub-genres of Dark Music and Culture, Developments in the Scene Since 1990, Fashion, Aesthetics, and Lifestyle and finally Themes and Discourses. Our contributing writers include: international artists such as Genesis Breyer-P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic Youth), John Murphy (SPK, Knifeladder) and Klive Humberstone (In The Nursery), journalists, academics, DJs and event organizers, as well as scene members themselves. The text includes not only people’s personal remembrances and stories but also serious discussions about the different genres of music and culture, as well as various sociological, political, media and economic aspects of the scene. Additionally, there are over 800 illustrations, many of which are being published for the first time ever: photos, album covers, paintings, flyers and event posters even some Zines and pamphlets from the pre-Internet era.
HOLGER: My involvement was three-fold. I wrote my “Into the scene in 1978″ part, a short article about Japan (which was dropped due to space limitations) and participated with a couple of stage shoots of bands mentioned in the book. I also contributed two galleries of art, fashion, and club photos from Germany and Japan, and am supporting marketing and networking activities.
JEN: Our friend Alexander Nym is the editor of Schillerndes Dunkel. I volunteered to help Alex research the book and scan the massive amount of analog photos that had been contributed for the project. As we sat around the office over the next few weeks keeping typical Goth hours (i.e. in the office mid-day and working into the night) and probably making the rest of the Ploettner Verlag crew crazy with our selection of music, we started talking about various aspects of the scene in Germany and in the States: where it all started, where it’s going, the differences and similarities. A few of those conversations evolved into the article that I wrote for the book about commercialization and consumerism in the dark scene.
Now I’m working for Ploettner Verlag, the publisher, in maintaining the website, coordinating bookings, and traveling to festivals and concerts around Europe with the rest of the team to promote the book. We’re hoping to get started in the next few months on translating the book into English and even thinking about a second volume to include all of the wonderful artwork, photography and articles that we ran out of room for in this book.
So far the book has been very well received. Alex and some of the other authors have been touring Germany giving readings and leading discussions about some of the issues raised within Schillerndes Dunkel. We love to hear from our readers online as well. You can find a discussion board on our Facebook Fanpage where you can interact with the authors and other readers. The point of this book was not only to document this decades old movement, but also to provide a starting point for conversations and further discourse.
Many thanks to Jen and Holger for the interview! If you’d like to see more German Gothic, check out Seventh Sin Photography and the Schillerndes Dunkel book. And you can always find me, your vampiric tour guide, on my blog: www.lacarmina.com/blog
† Dark Wishes †
LA CARMINA
Finally, it was time for Subway to Sally. I took a spot in the middle of the crowd while my husband went off to take photographs. What an amazing show – Subway to Sally love to create an atmosphere with pyrotechnics, fog and interesting lighting effects. They played some new songs, and all of my favourites, “Fueurland,” “Besser Du Rennst,” and “Sieben”. I loved being amongst a German crowd to see such a popular German band – people sang and held hands and danced in circles and had a great time. The vibe was just amazing.
