Posts Tagged ‘gothic’

It’s apt that I write a Global Gothic column for Lip Service, since La Carmina is always travelling. I’m always moving in and out of rooms.

Some people consider temporary accommodations to be poor substitutes for home-sweet-home. I disagree. In Hong Kong, my Roomorama short term apartment immediately filled with warm memories. Such as:

1) Laughing at cheesy pop groups on MTV Asia.
2) Watching horror DVDs late at night — and squirming in fright.
3) Putting away treasures from Mongkok shopping trips in the clever storage space.
4) Drinking bubbly while overlooking the harbor view.

I’m excited to share the Goth fashion and culture I discovered in Hong Kong and Macau. Photos and stories to come next month, as well as on my blog!

I recently joined Lookbook, and realized that many of my favorite outfits (and memories) are tied to my travels. Such as this Seattle library photoshoot, from my trip to the Aural Vampire / Black Veil Brides / Dommin / Birthday Massacre concert. (More photos)

In front of Seattle’s famous bubblegum wall, before the DespairsRay show. I’m wearing a Lip Service steampunk skirt from the Step In Time collection. (More photos)

While in Los Angeles, I did a Blablahospital modeling shoot in the Hollywood Hills batcaves. (More photos)

Harajuku, Tokyo is where my heart is. I wore Baby, the Stars Shine Bright for the Dutch Pepsi filming. (More photos)

This is one of the outfits I wore on the set of NHK’s New York Wave — they filmed a TV documentary about my work in cute cooking. (More photos and info about my book, Cute Yummy Time)

But home is where your cat is! Basil Farrow loves to pose for photos in Vancouver. (More cuteness on his Scottish Fold blog.)

PS: Thank you to fellow Lip Service blogger, Steff Metal, for interviewing me about entrepreneurship for Grymm and Epic.

Got any questions about travel, or the outfits pictured? Email or Tweet me, and I’ll be sure to answer. Or let’s be friends on Facebook?

** Click to add La Carmina on Facebook, or push the button below.

XXX LA CARMINA XXX
http://www.lacarmina.com/

Ciao, Italia! La Carmina has lots of Gothic Globetrotting ahead this year. Sebastiano and I will be in Italy in June… on a sponsored trip! From June 9-11, Seba and I will be special guests at Firenze4Ever III. It’s an extravaganza for top fashion bloggers around the world, presented by designer boutique LuisaViaRoma.

If you’re in Italy with a fellow Lip Service model, you might as well do some traveling, right? Our wonderful friends at Hostelbookers are hooking us up with hotels all over Italy — meaning Seba and I will be in Venice, Rome, Milan and Florence this June.

Of course, the first question on my mind is… what’s Italy’s Gothic scene like? I had the pleasure of interviewing my Twitter friend, Lady Aphasia, about the best Goth shops and parties in Milan. Here are her suggestions.

La Carmina: Tell me a bit about yourself.

Aphasia: I’m a woman in love — in love with my job (events organization), with life and with music. I’ve always lived in Milan, even though I’m half French.

La Carmina: How did you first become interested and involved in Goth underground fashion and subcultures in Milan?

Aphasia: It’s always been so, since I was 14 and I discovered bands like Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxie and so on. Milan it’s a little town compared to London or L.A. but we don’t miss anything if you know where to look for.

La Carmina: Can you tell me how the Gothic scene in Milan originated and evolved? Are there aspects that are distinct to the scene?

Aphasia: I guess it began at the end of eighties, where there was also the punk scene. Milan has been divided in groups: trendy ones, punk, gothic, metal and glam. Even the districts of the town were delineated by these groups. Music from UK and USA was like an overflow, so many discos and alternative pubs opened.

Now it’s a bit different: all alternative peoples meet in a few places, they get along quite well. But there are only a few pubs and discos. Now new wave and gothic has a quite of overlap with other cultures, like industrial.

La Carmina: How would you describe Gothic fashion in Italy?

Aphasia: You should check yourself, it’s very heterogeneous, you can find aristocrat fashion and cyber goth in the same group. During the last few years, Gothic & Lolita has become famous. Unfortunately there aren’t many shops, most of them sell cosplay outfits. You can find goth and loli accessories without many troubles, but for dresses, the web is still the best way.

La Carmina: Has the fashion scene changed a lot?

Aphasia: Yes it is, but because of internet, now you can see and choose clothing, and get input from the foreign scenes.

La Carmina: Can you recommend some Milan / Italy-based Gothic clothing brands, designers and shops?

Aphasia: For alternative shops, goods, clothes etc. you can’t miss Corso Porta Ticinese. It’s a street in the middle of Milan that will bring you to Duomo. This part of the town is where alternatives people meet, and there are many types of shops, low-cost bars and pubs.

La Carmina: What is the Italian Goth clubs scene like?

Aphasia: One of the most important alternative/goth club is the BLACK HOLE. This is my favorite; it’s not in the center of town but not far either. Zoe Club is the bigger alternative club in town. Then there’s the Shelter Club: this one is out of Milan, not easy to reach, but important for dark and new wave culture. Black Circus is good too. At these events, you will see dark, loli, goth, cyber styles all together.

La Carmina: What do you predict for the dark fashion / scene in Milan and Italy? Is it growing, changing?

Aphasia: I love Japanese brands so it’s quite difficult to answer. But things are always changing –  it’s always so, isn’t it?

La Carmina: Thank you, my dark Lady, for the interview. Sebastiano Serafini and I can’t wait to check out Milan’s darkest haunts. As always, I’ll have photos and stories for you on my Goth culture and fashion blog.

Ciao, ciao!
XXX LA CARMINA XXX
http://www.lacarmina.com/

(The first 2 photos are by La Carmina. The last 3 photos in this post are courtesy Shelter Club.)

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.

"Danse of Death", by Michael Volgernut, 1493.

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:

At first glance, this looks like a normal photo, but this fireman is dead. Behind his left leg, you can see a stand which is holding him up. (As if his creepy, white eyes didn't give it away)

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:

In this picture, you can see the girl's pupils have been painted on, and the stiffness of her hands, which would have been held in place with lengths of wire. The stand behind her feet would run up her body with clamps at her neck and waist, and her clothing would be open at the back.

• 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

La Carmina and her “latest victim”, Tokyo-based actor / model / stylist Sebastiano Serafini, kick-started 2011… with a blood-drenched Hollywood Invasion! Our Los Angeles trip included photoshoots, TV meetings and hosting Goth parties, such as Bar Sinister New Year’s. But a major highlight was crashing Lip Service headquarters and putting on fangs for a Steampunk Vampire photoshoot.

Our shoot was for Vampyrotic, a magazine to “celebrate our dark sanguinary desires in gorgeously captured photos and video.” We crept into Servitu, a private Los Angeles dungeon, with our mastermind photographer Mich (who took all photos in this post).

But let’s rewind a little bit. We began the day at Lip Service headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Sebastiano and I were like spooky kids in a candy store: so many clothing samples to try on, from red furry jackets to cage skirts! We met Mickey and Bryn in the red office, and got an exclusive preview of the upcoming designs.

The behind-the-scenes tour made me feel like Alice in Wonderland. Sky-high shelves containing fabric rolls and and boxes of trimmings!

It was impossible to narrow down our clothing choices for the shoot, so we ended up taking several sacks with us (including borrowed top hats and stomper boots). Mich fitted us with vampire teeth, which you first soak in warm water, then press to your canines until they firm up and stay in place.

Servitu Studios was a funhouse of torture equipment, including restraints, medical examination chairs, rusty cages, and a “vacuum bed” that vacuum-packs a person into latex. (Sebastiano: “Should we try?”) We settled on the dark aristocratic chair by the window and filled our wine glasses with blood. Our outfits are mostly coordinated from Lip Service’s Step in Time Steampunk collection.

We changed into Nocturnal Rendezvous and Circuit City garments and climbed to the rooftop. Dusk was falling and the sky was radioactive blue. Perfect for a Power Rangers pose.

Domo arigato gozaimasu to Mich, Mickey, Bryn, Maria and everyone at Lip Service for having us as models. I’ll post more photos from the Steampunk Vampire fashion shoot on La Carmina blog, in addition to scandalous Los Angeles Gothic fashion and party photos… come take a drive-by!

† Dark Wishes †

LA CARMINA