Goth Update... Throwbacks? Futures?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Noir*Boudoir
  • Start date Start date
N

Noir*Boudoir

Guest
I was just flicking through the new styles at Lip Service (which I haven't done for a while), and I thought I'd log a couple of the trends over here, as an update to the themes we discussed.

You can find them here

Observations:

- they've finally 'fessed up on their EGL rip offs. They've simply gone for a slightly more ruffled up new collection blatantly called <i>Lolita Pop</i>

- hmmm, shades of Cyberdog appearing in some new strappy mesh lines called 'Black Dog Sweaters'

- One particular style of the DIY trend (screen-printed and added straps) comprehensively lifted for 'Risen from the Ashes'.

-Fur trends are collided head on with 80s retro in two collections.

- Nu-metal. Again, a repeat of the new EGL marketing. They've just called it 'Black Metal'. 'Name it and they will come...'

<i>Still there</i>
- Most of the standard fetish inspired lines
- Plaid. Augmented with zips and vegi leather. I don't know how many of these lines they've done over the years, but they've just done some more...

<i> On the way out</i>
- Hollywood Geisha, going by the reductions. They may just have overdiversified this line in the end. (two 'geishas' spotted at a recent club trip, so those who like it will continue...)
- Some of the 'medical clinic' pvc. Well, 'Medical' was the Rubber Ball's theme *last* year, so maybe the fad is passing for those who are less, er, actively interested in it.

<u>Meanwhile, back at the ranch</u>

In London club and pub land (not that I've been hanging out much, I've been having the quiet life), and in some buying patterns, there's been a goth trend or two that have been totally susceptible to the current fashion trends:

- <i>Great Gatsby Gothic</i> - pink, green and white chiffon, furs (vintage or shop bought), decadent make up, air of heiress about to blow inheritance on baccarat table, fondness for electro 80s pop-tinged gothness. If one wears too much make up/uses too much dye, one begins to look more like Deborah Harry than Faye Dunaway (no bad thing, but there <i>is</i> a difference).
See: Club Kinki at the Millennium - plenty aspiration to Flapper-meets-Burlesque-in-Pin-Up-Weimar. With no regard for chronology!

- Dead Man Chic - seen the Jarmusch film? If not, watch it. Appreciate the exquisite cinematography, beautiful music, picaresque story and occasional extreme violence. Trendy goths have noticed the cowboy/ethnic fashions and have started to turn it into their own version. More Lone Star Western desert gothic (ie. find a skeleton in the desert and play with cinema and memory*) than the Nephilim's original spaghetti western flour-dusted version.
Spotted so far: black cowboy hat worn with some 80s metal accessories and...very little else... Black cowboy boots. Black feather in the hair, with road warrior style minimalist costume.
Prediction: the new 'gangsta' looks like it might be cowboy, alas... potential to merge with semi-aborted pirate goth look (80s stripe influenced), due to the Depp connection...


Sorry, no pics for now.

Me? I was talked into buying a 50s styled latex pencil skirt...

:mad:

* film 'Lone Star' highly, highly, highly recommended. How good films about American identity *could* be.
 
For anyone not up on it, Lin did a fantastic treatment on Goth this past October.

Please look in the Vintage Q&A section. There is a lot to read and see! I have tacked Parts I and II to the top of the threads. The threads are closed so no one can post anymore to them, unless you want me to open up II again Lin.

Interesting the heavy overlap sprinkled with generous doses of 80s. Do you think perhaps for all intents and purposes goth really started in the 80s, that 80s are somewhat going back to the roots?

Chris
 
<i>unless you want me to open up II again </i>
well, maybe I can add the text of this update to there at some point, after we've finished nattering about it.

What you're saying about the 80s birth is fairly true, I'd say. In musical terms, Goth as a more coherent movement only started emerging recognizably in the early 80s.

Although to be honest, Goth did feed, fashionwise, off that dark dolly hippie-dom that I come across in quite a few of my fashion finds from the 60s-70s. (And let's face it, honorary deity, Leonard Cohen has been around that long, right?)

It's not so much 'high' mid-later-80s gothic that the trends are feeding off now (back combed hair, big heels, lace, shoulder pads, flounces), but the more punk-ified early 80s blend, before New Romanticism flopped around so much it turned completely wimpy. It's a strong Euro-Electro-sculpted and glittery glam pop memory that *some* goths are having of the 80s right now. Which is a consequence of what's happening in the mainstream, to be honest.

Then I suppose you could say the metal end of the market is also a 70s-80s revival of of some sort, but a different kind.

<i><u>Gothic trends I have yet to see, but would be really curious to see someone try...</i></u>

*Ultra-authentic-goth* - gothic styles drawing on the fashions of *real* high gothic culture of the 18th-19th century. High waists, the tortured look of a Mary Shelley innovating a proto-sci-fi romantic novel, lace, early corsetry and the Grecian look gone bad... Possibly a haunted Italian artefact clutched in terrified hands.

*Hejab Goth* - one for someone to innovate daringly within their existing dress rules perhaps. Required:
-black chador with lacey finger-loops to keep billowy but anchored over other costume (I've seen these, you can get them in slinky material from Saudi Arabia). Plus black lace gloves.
-high wedge shoes. The heels on some of the conservative ladies of Esfahan... doesn't take much extra to use in this context!
- fish net tights (in fashion, early 90s Iran)
- black tooled-leather half-face mask - traditional wear in the Persian Gulf area.

<i>So</i> much room for some unprecidented innovation here... But everyone's going to keep wearing plaid...
 
Ultra Authentic Goth - well, that would require some historical study on the part of the wearer to be authentic. Unless you mean just a heavy flavor of it, but then we are back at the psuedo dracula look, right? or what is the name of the look that looks like dead aristocracy? Or people will be raiding theater groups costume stashes.

Or are you meaning more that some well known clothing label will dole out with a line of it that is less stagey and more suited to modern wear....thus another interpretation and bound to become cookie cutter.
 
<i>that would require some historical study on the part of the wearer to be authentic</i>

we-ell, yes but I'm not sure that many goths do *anything* authentic in the academic sense of the world. I'm just proposing it as an alternative to the fantasy high victorian that's usually adhered to. So, take 50 years off and try a new era, basically. I see men in frock coats and pseudo-romantic poet wear, plus the occasional highwayman's coat, but as far as I can tell, the women don't access that area at all.

I'm not totally against mass-produced knock offs - it happens to everything in time, and occasionally, I might want to buy them :P . I just think it would be nice to have some really way out source material introduced into the mix...
 
Just found this picture archive from the V&A - a 'goth night' with a heavy bias towards 'old goth' and the victorian fans. An interesting snap shot

[link]http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/fashion_motion/gothic/5338-lbox.html[/link]
 
If you want to see those looks catch on big time (of what you said above)...make a little website and take pics of your friends and say "this look has been seen heavily on the streets of ___name your town--" and is a new underground fashion movement.

If you act like it is, then maybe someone will see the website and think it is so, or start copying the look and the whole thing will snowball and catch on.
 
You know, the journalists at Melody Maker (RIP) used to do *exactly that*!!
Ah, them were the days.

Now you need to appear in 50 gossip magazines in one week to have an influence on street style...

I am fond of the clubs as a place where interesting things are slinkily strutting their stuff in semi-closetted glamour, though.
L
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top