Posts Tagged ‘Gothic fashion’

Death and the Gothic go together like … two things that go together. Much of our modern gothic fashion is modelled from the idea of memento mori, and the trappings of Victorian mourning ritual. I thought it might be interesting to research the two:

Memento Mori, translated from Latin, means “remember you will die”, or “remember your mortality”. A memento mori is an object or talisman a person keeps with them, or a depiction or painting drawn to remind them of their own mortality.

The phrase dates back to ancient Rome, where a servant would shout the words to the General as he paraded through the streets of Rome in his Triumph (a parade to honor his victory in war). The servant’s job was to stand behind the general and remind him, even though he was on top of his game, tomorrow he could die.

When Christianity swept across the world during the Medieval period, so too did a fascination with death and divine judgement. Memento mori appear in funeral artwork on the tombs of noblemen – including the gruesome cadaver tombs, where the funerary artist depicts the decaying body of the deceased.

Another popular Memento Mori scene from the 15th Century was the danse macabre. In this scene, a dancing Grim Reaper summons souls from all stations and walks of life to dance alongside him. The danse macabre reminded people of the inevitability of death, whether they were a king, a child, a worker, or a slave.

When it came to mourning those who had already passed, the Victorians had some of the most unique and sombre rituals. In a society bound by strict rules of etiquette, it’s no surprise funerary and mourning customs had strict rules and customs. Victorian Mourning consisted of two stages:

Deep (or Full) Mourning: The length of Deep Mourning depended on the age and sex of the person who died and your relationship to them. Men wore an armband to signify their Deep Mourning, but women were thought to be in more emotional turmoil than men, so were subjected to special rules.

If your husband died, leaving you a widow, you would remain in Deep Mourning for a year and a day. You would wear clothing made only from black crepe – a dull fabric with no shine. All your adornments, including your handkerchief, gloves and parasol, had to be black.

You would draw the curtains, and stop every clock at the time of death. You cover all mirrors, in case the deceased’s soul becomes trapped in the glass. You stand guard over the body until it is buried. You cannot leave the house except for church and to visit relatives.

Half Mourning: After the period of full morning finished, half-mourning began. In half-mourning, grey, white and purple were permitted, although trimmings, jewelry and accessories would remain black.

Victorians took the idea of memento mori to a new and macabre level, often carrying lockets and items of jewelry containing hair from their dead loved ones. These pieces usually contained jet or other black stones.

They were mad about post-mortem photography, where the deceased would be posed in a portrait, dressed in their usual clothes and made to look as though they were still alive. Photographic equipment had just being invented, and was considerably cheaper and quicker than painted portraits, so the Victorians took every chance they could to pose for a photograph.

In most post-mortem photographs, the dead are shown in a serene sleep, but in some, given that the portrait sitting might be the family’s only opportunity for a photograph, the body will be propped up, dressed and made-up, eyes held open with glue or clamps, or painted on over closed eyelids, and surrounded by the family. Children would be posed with their favorite toys, giving a more lifelike scene. Unlike memento mori, these pictures were thought of as memories, not reminders of mortality.

Read More:

• Memento Mori from Wikipedia
• The Museum of Mourning Photography
• Victorian Death Rituals by Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens in Ancestry magazine
• Victorian Death and Mourning – a Flickr set
• Art of Mourning Blog

Memento Mori Fashion

Get the look of a Victorian lady in Full Mourning with some of Lip Service’s dark designs:

• a Princess Tears Blouse or Dark Delphine Jacket from The Blacklist, to keep off that graveyard chill
• Victorian Long Dress from the LS Step in Time collection
• a piece of mourning jewelry from Art of Mourning, to remember your departed lover
• Lace-up long gloves
• conjoined skull memento mori ring from Blood Milk Jewelry

Tonight’s schlock-tastic creature feature was brought to you by my spiky haired co-conspirator Dan Barrett.

There is a pretty well-known legend around these parts. You’re reading this so I guess you probably want to know what it is. Well, it ain’t so much a legend as it is a happening, but we likes to call it a legend so as to not scare the tourist folk.

It all started a year ago when a few goats went missing from the Peterson farm. We thought it was nothing, some stray coyotes or what have you, but then more livestock started disappearing. Six months passed and two dozen farms had been hit by this, uh, “epidemic” as some might put it. It had the whole town befuddled until one day, when a goat’s body turned up. Six months of nothin’ and then a damn dead goat out of nowhere?

That’s pretty darn odd.

And to make things weirder, there were no signs of foul play, save for a small hole in the neck. None of us had ever seen anything like it. But slowly, more and more animal carcasses were found, and they all bore the same mark. The body was perfectly intact, except for that one tiny puncture. It was all pretty freaky-deaky until some travelers from Puerto Rico came to town some weeks later and told us about a monster they had encountered down their way: the Chupacaba.

Now, they tell me the name literally means “goat sucker” and I guess that makes sense. This thing evidently just sucked the goddamned life right out of our goats. Anywho, they also told us, according to their legends of the Chupacabra, it has two small arms with a three-fingered clawed hand on each, two strong, almost reptilian, hind legs, again with claws, and quills down its back, which it uses to fly. Its head is oval in shape, similar to one of them “grey aliens”, with terrifying protruding red eyes and an elongated jaw. They informed us the way the Chupacabra kills is with a long telescopic device protruding from its fangs, and this makes a perfectly round puncture wound in the victim…

We all agreed the killin’ part hit close to home, but I’ll be damned if that first demon-looking part didn’t sounds a little wonky. And no one in town would have believed a word of it either; that is, until old Mrs. Perkins saw the thing. Mrs. Perkins is old, go figur’, and rumored to be in the early stages of senility (No real debate there, if you ask me, but I guess you didn’t.) but she swears up and down to all things holy she saw the exact creature the tourists described, more or less. Except she declared it had the head of a woman, with blood red hair and long fangs (Uh, like I said, senile). She said it snatched one of her billy goats in its talon-like clawed feet and flew off into the trees when she chased it away with her broom. For the most part, we simple folk believed her; her not being one to lie and all.

So, the other day, we decided we wanted to catch this varmint once and for all. We did what any gun-toting, god-fearing people would do: we planned a stake-out at the ol’ Perkins farm. We herded most of the town’s collection of goats and miscellaneous four-legged creatures that produce meat to the field behind her barn and, for several nights, had groups of us waiting around the edge of the place, in different locations, with pitchforks and cages, waiting for the beast to show its telltale hell-spawned red eyes.

On the third night, the fiend finally materialized. It swooped down out of the shadows like a demonic bat from hell (you seen that Meatloaf cover? JUST LIKE THAT, and I swear it on my name), eyes of fire gazing out of its pale skull. It hungered for warm flesh, but on this night it would not have it; the trap was already set. At the sound of the whistle, we exploded from our stations, a furious mob whose goal was to seek vengeance for the dead. The creature fled in haste back through the woods, and we proceeded to give chase on foot. My two companions and I held our pitchforks to the sky as we hunted it; some of the other men had lit torches to provide light and to extend a charring welcome to the beast, should they be the first to meet it.

We remained in pursuit for perhaps a half-mile before the thing was finally cornered in an opening in the woods. The ‘cabra was fierce, and it bore its glistening fangs as we kept it at bay with our array of sharp sticks and tools. It was a terrible beast indeed, and the description given to us by the unsavory travelers was somewhat accurate. It had a dark, almost reptilian appearance, but oddly its head and face were similar to that of an eastern European woman, but with giant, rounded horns atop it. But let me tell you, those incisors and opticals were straight out of a damn Dracula novel. As bizarre as it seemed to any of us, we collectively realized that this was an honest to god, real life chupacabra and not just one of them coyotes with advanced stages of mange!

We had to catch it so we could sell it to science and get some money for beer and guns. When cornered, the thing seemed to almost be afraid of humans, and it didn’t attack us freely as it did with the sheep and goats. Maybe the smell of our hillbilly blood was too foul, or too full of moonshine. In any case, one of the boys threw a stone at the sucker and it started screechin’ and becoming violent. It picked up a fallen stick and started slashing at anything in its path. It knocked Jimmy to the wayside and clocked Roger real good; he started bleeding from a gash near his receded hairline. The creature evidently got a whiff of that, and descended upon him, tearing away the remainder of his face. The group was so taken aback we let down our guard just long enough for the monstrosity to scamper off into the abyssal shadows of the nighttime forest.

We really shouldn’t have let our defense flounder. The attacks on livestock have since diminished, but have not entirely ceased. And the worst part is now, every few days someone goes missing. It seems the creature developed a taste for human blood on that night. May god help us the next time we come face to face with THE CHUPACABRA

September’s installment of Lethal Style celebrates the three Cs: cheese, camp and cleavage! Also to a lesser extent, the curious case of the chupacabra!

The phrase of the day is tongue-in-cheek. It’s used to describe all the blood boilin’, flesh crawlin’, spine tinglin’, spooky kitsch world of horror hosts. Sitting on their Victorian velvet couches, playing with severed heads in a laboratory, and rising out of their cardboard coffins, they were as “gravely disordered” as the mid-century terror flicks they showcased. Most often starring reptiles and insects mutated to gargantuan proportions, thanks to science gone haywire, running amok in the streets. All in fiendishly good fun with a heavy emphasis on camp. Double entendres and tight fighting garments were commonplace for the female hosts, while it was bad puns and pseudo Transylvanian accents and/or mad scientist jargon for the gents.

Vampira set the standard for female horror show hosts with her post-mortem pinup flair. Soon, many would follow in her ghastly footsteps, though none would reach the same commercial success Vampira did. At least not until Elvira made her mark on the entertainment industry as “Mistress of the Dark” in the 1980’s. She’d often display her assets in a manner naysayers could easily classify as vulgar. Alas, the negative connotations related to overtly sexualized female flesh were disarmed with one liners and smart ass over-the-top black humor.

This month we embrace our corny joke crackin’, low cut dress wearin’, B-movie obsessed alter egos named Ghoulia and Kat Aver. We ain’t got shit to prove to the world, because only assholes insecure with their own chosen identity take themselves too seriously. And allow me to take this moment to offer up some of the most immature, but probably empowering, fashion advice ever: Haters gonna hate, it’s their job! So disregard the bullshit and behold the power of cheese.

Plus, those that are honest to “God” true cheeseballs are never this self aware. If you don’t have the ability to laugh at yourself, worry not, everyone else is already doing it for you.

Exhibit A

The guy who wears a claw ring on each finger, a fedora on his head and sports a skull in a jester hat tattoo on his arm. Also owns various permutations of the Three Wolf Moon shirt, not because he really loved that Internet meme and wants to be “ironic” for the sake of sharing a chuckle with his fellow Internet culture obsessed nerd friends. No, he’s an “otherkin” and possesses the soul of a wolf trapped in a human body. You’ll often see him busting his best “come hither” pelvic thrusts when Combichrist’s “This Shit Will Fuck You Up” packs the dancefloor with people that, yet again, don’t know any better. And yes, he always goes home alone. But not before he asks if you want to come over and see his knife collection, while spilling his $3 well drink down your blouse. There are at least 5 in every club.

But Exhibit A will never have the sense to be introspective enough to look inside himself and lighten the fuck up, because he’s a fucking wolf….mmmmkay. And by “wolf” I mean joke. So I guess, what I wanted to say (though apparently I am unable to in under 1,000 words) you can learn to take a joke or become a joke.

And therein lies the difference between “good cheese”(usually of the retro-nostalgia variety) and rotten stinky cheese (usually of the outside of B-movie context trans-specied wolf variety, trying to talk to you about Battlestar Galactica as you’re trying to order a goddamn vodka cranberry).

Stylin’ it up like a late night creature feature hostess ain’t about tryin’ to make tattered spiderweb lace something it’s clearly not (dainty, ladylike or in good taste); it’s about embracing the graveyard trash in you.

So are you ready for some of Lippy’s finest ghoulish garments?

Is that a resounding FUCK YES that I hear?

The 26-119 Webutane Returns Full Length Dress with its open shoulders, dramatic swallowtail sleeves and lace up sides is perfect for slinking down shadowy corridors, candelabra in hand. As a matter of-fact, it could be easily mistaken for a piece straight out of Vampira’s closet.

Your posture and your drinks should be both STIFF! If you’ve caught a glimpse of Vampira’s iconic walk in Plan 9 from Outer Space, you’ll see just what kind of an entrance a rigid stance can make. A posture collar helps to keep your chin up high and neck extended, which pretty much forces you to move like a really elegant corpse. I make it sound enticing, don’t I?

While it might be physically impossible to replicate Vampira’s inhumanly tiny waist, I always have to make a case for corsets. They’re just so “dreary ghoul” (that’s uh, “very cool” in cheesy horror host speak). Did I reach my deliciously bad pun quota yet?

Devil Doll ‘Do

When attiring thyself in a face framing, feathered neck corset, there’s only one place for hair to go. And that’s up. Victory rolls immediately sprung to mind, since this particular retro do is vaguely reminiscent of devil horns by design. And so I deemed such a hairstyle charmingly appropriate for a monster-centric tale. The instructions below are reprinted with permission from Miss Meagan Kyla, my favorite glamour ghoul, Auxiliary Magazine fashion stylist, hat-maker extraordinaire and of course dear friend. She wrote the tutorial on rolls much better than I ever could. I used to force her to do my hair at gunpoint in such a way when we lived across the street from each other in Buffalo, NY. I thought that only her words would do this edition of Lethal Style justice.

You will need:

• Hot rollers -Will give your rolls their proper height and curl. The roundness of the top curls shape the hairstyles and defines the rolls. Meagan recommends hot roller sets that have several sizes of rollers.
• Curl boosting spray- When sprayed onto dry hair, it helps to hold the curls and give them a shiny finish. This product should be lightly sprayed onto the hair before the hot rollers are used. Doing so will protect your hair and give your hairstyle hours of hold.
• Bobby pins- Choosing pins closest to your hair color is preferable. They will be used to secure the rolls on top of your hair and may be visible from certain, odd angles. “Hiding the pins will become an art form with this hairstyle”- says Meagan.
• Hair Spray- Will be used to finish the styling and help smooth fly-away hairs.
• Accessories (optional)-I opted to forego my usually beloved hair flowers, bows and clips, since I chose to wear rather busy neck décor. I might have a soft spot for selective tackiness, but I ain’t tryin’ to look like a damn Christmas tree either.

Note: To get the hair off the back of your neck, try a French Twist.

The Girl Behind the Monsters

Paying homage to great horror hosts of the past certainly doesn’t mean copying them to a T. Plus, the only person I’ve seen get away with Vampira’s super strong, super arched eyebrows was Vampira. Amen!

General Prep Work

You will need:

Moisturizer, Primer, Concealer, Matte liquid Foundation, Foundation Brush, Translucent Powder, Powder brush, Eyeshadow primer

1. Wash your face with a cleanser formulated especially for your skin type. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry with a soft cloth. Prep your skin with moisturizer before applying concealer in order to ensure a smoother, flake-free application.
2. Before proceeding any further, allow your skin to properly absorb the moisturizer. This should take about 10 minutes.
3. Since foundation worn alone often has a nasty habit of settling in the fine lines around your mouth, near your eyes, and on your forehead, I highly recommend using a primer after you’ve moisturized your face. Utilizing a small amount of primer helps to fill in unflattering expression lines, pores, and scars, thus allowing foundation to actually do its job!
4. Nix blemishes and skin discoloration by gently patting concealer over the trouble area. Follow by blending with your ring finger.
5. Apply a matte liquid foundation which best matches your skin tone to your face and neck with a foundation brush (a full dome shaped brush works beautifully). Start by applying small dots in the center of your face and then moving outward.
6. Set everything in place by finishing off with a thin coat of translucent powder. Use a full, round shaped powder brush for optimal results.
7. Prep your lids with eyeshadow primer to neutralize the colour of your lids, which in turn makes for brighter more vibrant shadow. It also prevents said shadow from creasing.

Eyes

The application technique is identical to August’s Victorian mourning inspired piece Plague Widow albeit presented here in a more autumn appropriate palette of muted gold and lush cranberry.

You will need:

Rounded edge brush, frosted gold eyeshadow, eyeliner brush, chocolate brown eyeshadow, small blending brush, cranberry eyeshadow, small fluffy brush, ivory eyshadow, black eyeliner, black mascara (or falsies)

1. Using a rounded edge brush, apply a frosted gold (you want a shade reminiscent of antique gold rather than in your face BLING BLING gold) eyeshadow across your entire eyelid from lashline to crease.
2. Dab a tiny amount of chocolate brown eyeshadow onto your eyeliner brush and draw a line which follows the natural crease of your eye. Making the line as straight and precise as you can is key! Using the same brush, blend the color outward. This technique is called cutting the crease.
3. With the help of a small blending brush, blend cranberry eyeshadow up and outwards. Make sure to blend the cranberry into the chocolate brown you added to your crease in Step #2 to avoid harsh lines.
4. Highlight your browbone by sweeping some ivory shadow directly under your eyebrows with the help of a small fluffy brush.
5. Line your bottom lid, starting from the outer corner of your eye, slowly making your way toward the inner corner with black kohl eyeliner. Most of the color should be concentrated in the outer corner. I find it’s easiest to put on eyeliner after eyeshadow and before mascara.
6. Curl your eyelashes with an eyelash curler and top off with 2 coats of black mascara. You can add falsies if you feel light paying an extra tribute to Elvira and Vampira’s “creepy peepers”. To do so: Add adhesive to the back of the eyelash strip. Grab a false eyelash with a pair of tweezers and adhere to the outermost part of your eyelids, keeping them as close to your own lashline as possible. You know that they’re in the right place when they’re sitting right on top of your natural lashes. Gently hold them down in place with your finger for about 30 seconds or so until the glue dries.

Cheeks

Vampira’s naturally razor-sharp Scandinavian cheekbones were as barren as a freshly dug grave. Contrary to her pallid predecessor, Elvira did not shy away from bold 80s reddish-fuchsia blush. And your very own ghostess with the mostest, Vanity Kills, prefers a barely there light flush. As if she hardly had any heart beat at all.

You will need:

Apricot blush, blush brush

1. Place a small amount of apricot blush on your blush brush and gently swipe blush starting at the apples of your cheeks up towards your temples. Blend, blend, blend!

Lips

Lips take a backseat as the lids, hair and neckwear hog all the glory and attention.

You will need:

Flesh-toned lipliner, Pinky-peach lipgloss

1. Use a flesh-toned lipliner to fill in your lips, starting at the center of your natural lip line and moving toward the outer corners. Otherwise your lipgloss will run like Lindsay Lohan from a drug test.
2. Finish off with a generous coat of pinky-peach lipgloss. Beginning in the center of your upper lip, gently press the gloss wand into the flesh of your lip and then proceed to roll it over the entire top lip area, working toward the edges. Repeat the process on your bottom lip. Remove any excess product by placing a finger in your mouth, closing your lips around it and then removing the aforementioned finger.

Credits :

Photography: Zach Rose

Model:”Your Ghostly Hostess”/”El Chupacabra”: Vanity Kills

Shot on location in Difficult Run, VA and my apartment in Washington, DC

<3

Vanity Kills

Good evening, creatures of the night! I’m La Carmina, and I’m devilishly delighted to be writing a new monthly column for Lip Service Webzine called “Global Gothic.”

Who I am (other than a Lip Service fan and spooky kid)? I run a blog about alternative/Gothic fashion and lifestyle, particularly in Japan (think Gothic Lolita and Visual Kei ). I wrote three books on Japanese pop culture/food, including Cute Yummy Time (about turning your food into adorable characters) and Crazy, Wacky Theme Restaurants: Tokyo (think vampire waiters and cross-dressing maids). And I host TV shows on the subject of food, fashion and travel.

Ever since I was young, I’ve been collecting stamps on my passport. Now, I’m very fortunate to be able to fly around the world for work. (You may have seen me recently on Travel Channel, taking Andrew Zimmern of Bizarre Foods to a horror prison theme restaurant.)

Whenever I have a day off, you’ll find me browsing local Goth clothing stores and nightcrawling at EBM/industrial parties. So the aim of this column is to shine the spotlight on dark, alternative fashion in various parts of the world. What is Singapore’s Goth scene like? What do people wear to clubs in Berlin, or music festivals in Australia? Let’s globe-trot together and get the scoop… beginning with Osaka, Japan.

In May, I was in Osaka and lady luck was on my side… Black Veil (one of the longest-running and largest Goth events in Japan) was celebrating its 10th anniversary with an all night ball. Japanese Goth female fashion tends to be an alluring combination of spooky and cute. I saw decadent feathered eyelashes, gems around the eyes, and grandiose trailing headpieces.

The men cross-dressed flamboyantly, or wore ruffled shirts and top hats that would befit an undead Victorian aristocrat.

Neon wigs, subdermal implants, elaborate tattoos… Every avenue of alternative beauty is explored in the Osaka Goth nightlife.

Where else do dark ones congregate? Fu-ki, ex-vocalist of Visual Kei band BLOOD, opened a heavy metal bar called Midian in Osaka. (Address, directions and more photos are here.) On any given night, you’ll find spike-haired and pierced rockers headbanging to Black Sabbath, downing cocktails with names such as “Black Rose,” and scandalizing newcomers with boy-on-boy action.

The best place to shop for Goth/Lolita/Rock/Punk clothing is in the Shinsaibashi district, especially the Amerikamura area. (I’ve posted an Osaka Gothic Lolita shopping map here.) My favorite Japanese Gothic/Lolita brands have boutiques in this area, including Atelier Pierrot, Black Peace Now, and the indie designer Dangerous Nude. There’s always fashion inspiration to be found in “Triangle Park”; just take a seat and watch the Goth/Punk youths strut by.

I’m excited to bring more Global Gothic coverage to you every 4th Wednesday of the month. Please feel free to connect with me via Twitter and Facebook — I always love to hear from you. You can also see my Harajuku adventures, Goth outfits, silly Scottish Fold cat videos and more on my daily blog: www.lacarmina.com/blog

† Dark Wishes †
LA CARMINA

You’ve had a chance to meet Jillian Venters, Lip Service Webzine’s newest colunist. Now, enjoy an excerpt she selected from her book to share with all the other Fashion Freaks, complimented with beautiful illustrations by Jillian’s husband, noted fantasy artist Pete Venters. Thanks again to Jillian and Harper Collins for letting us share with you.

You can read more about Jillian and check out the dates of her book tour on her Lip Service Webzine profile feature.

Jillian (aka The Lady of the Manners)  has been graciously providing advice and tips on her website, Gothic-Charm-School.com, since 1998. Now her essays on the lifestyle and etiquette of the subculture have been compiled into her new book, Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide For Goths And Those Who Love Them. In this practical guide to good manners, dark decorum and etiquette, Jillian answers questions such as how to dress with a dark flair while going to job interviews; if there is such a thing as “too old” to be a Goth; how to deal with questions and comments from non-Goths; and how to communicate with parents who might be concerned about the new black and spooky wardrobe their child is sporting. The Lady of the Manners also offers detailed answers to some of the more commonly asked questions that Non-Goths may have.

In this excerpt addresses the long-standing love/hate relationship between Goths and the mainstream media. What’s a Goth to do when they find themself the new darling of fashion? As always, The Lady of the Manners has the sensible answer, colored with her trademark wit.

What to do when Goth becomes the darling of the fashion industry

The mainstream fashion industry seems to have a recurring fondness for borrowing from the Goth subculture. Every couple of years, the stores are full of velvet jackets, fl owing skirts, and
lace blouses. So what should any self-respecting Goth do in the face of this? Wait for the clearance sales, of course!

Oh, all right, that was a bit on the short and flippant side, wasn’t it? But that doesn’t mean it’s
a wrong answer. The Lady of the Manners has seen this sort of thing happen before, and mainstream fashion’s fascination with black lace and velvet usually lasts for about three months. If you can hang on that long, the clearance racks, thrift stores, and re-sale boutiques will be filled with all sorts of lovely things.

Of course, that’s only one part of the dilemma. Whenever the gothic style becomes more popular, complete strangers will increasingly stop you in the street to ask questions, usually about what you’re wearing and where they can find something just like it.

No, you may not snarl or snap at the well-meaning trendy people. Not even if you’re having a particularly bad day. However, your answers don’t have to be overwhelmingly helpful either. The
Lady of the Manners has answered recent “Where did you get it?!” questions with “I found it at a thrift store” or “Oh, I don’t remember. I’ve had it for years and years,” which leaves the trendy people blinking confusedly.

Now, the Lady of the Manners can see some of you getting very fierce and uncomfortable with the idea that people can scamper down to the mall and, with a bit of determined spending,
disguise themselves as a Real Goth. “Tourists!” The Lady of the Manners can hear you cry derisively. “They’re just doing it because it’s trendy!” There, there, it’s all right. Have you gotten
that out of your system? Now, pay attention. Yes, it’s true, there will be more people disguised as one of us for a little bit. However, just because someone is wearing head-to-toe Gothic Victorian
ruffl es doesn’t mean her disguise is perfect. People dressing that way because it’s the latest trend never seem quite comfortable with it; they have that faint but unmistakable air of someone
wearing a costume, someone who is following what the media tells her to do instead of dressing that way because that’s who she is. It’s a subtle but unmistakable distinction.

Every time popular culture or fashion borrows from the darker side of the subcultural map, some people get very cross and territorial about their look and their scene. The Lady of the Manners finds such fervor endearing but on the whole not terribly helpful. You see, each and every person involved in the Goth scene had to start somewhere, and some of those people discovered their bat wings later than others. Yes, roll your eyes at people wearing “Gothic Fashion Savvy” T-shirts, but don’t automatically dismiss everyone who dabbles in darker fashions.

As an example, the Lady of the Manners merely has to point to the proliferation of skull-festooned clothing, jewelry, and home decor items that have become readily available. How much power can a symbol retain if it is so (if you’ll pardon the phrase) defanged that it is turning up in teen accessory stores across the land?

The Lady of the Manners does not believe that a person must provide proof of his or her subcultural “cred” before being allowed to own skull-festooned goodies. Not at all. But the Lady of the Manners does admit to occasionally having to quash an impulse to ask complete strangers what drew them to the skull necklace, shirt, or rain boots they’re wearing. Was it because they are interested in the symbolic meaning of the skull (or skull and crossbones)? Was it because they thought it was “edgy” and “fashion forward” (buzzwords the Lady of the Manners despises)? Or was it simply that they are big fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies? The Lady of the Manners would like to think that the ever-growing crop of cute skull merchandise is a sign that mainstream society is finally accepting the Goth and other alternative subcultures. (Trust the
Lady of the Manners on this, Snarklings. The way mainstream society shows its acceptance is through readily available consumer goods targeted at one’s particular subculture.)

While the Lady of the Manners is completely in favor of taking advantage of the fashion industry’s seasonal dabblings in darkness, the Lady of the Manners is also all in favor of being an informed
consumer. Do some research, read reviews, and take a close look at items before purchasing them. Just because something is made by a name brand doesn’t automatically make it any better than the old standbys; in fact, sometimes it means the quality is worse because those name brands are trying to cash in on what they think is a short-lived trend.

Want to get your begolved hands of a copy of Jillians book? Find a retailer on the Harper Collins website

Excerpt of Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide For Goths And Those Who Love Them by Jillian Venters courtesy of Harper Collins. Text copyright (c) Jillian Venters 2009. Printed with kind permission of Harper Collins and Jillian Venters.