—Goths were probably the firsts to start an all-black wardrobe culture, but no, you are not correct if you assume that Gothic means just black, rather, they can mean maroon, dark blue, blood red or even green. Let’s take a tour of how gothic fashion came into being and how it has evolved over the years.
What is Goth?
The goth subcultures came into being from the dark, horrific yet romantic scenes of music, literature, architecture, literature, music, and style. In the modern-day, the goth fashion has exerted a powerful influence on fashion trends, runway and street style.
Influences behind the Goth subculture
During the Middle Ages, from the 13th to the 16th century, Gothic architecture took Europe by storm, with their detailed and captivating designs of art. The buildings were spooky and tall with pointed arches, spires, and tall windows.
Today, the many pretty churches and cathedrals that we see around, that look similar to the fairy tale castles, those creepy-looking buildings inspired the authors to create dark and ghostly scenes. During the late 1700s, came a new genre of literature, the gothic fiction, combining both the horror elements and dark romanticism.
In the later part of the 1970s, it was the phase of aggressive punk, and saw the rise of the gothic rock, which was comparatively calmer than punk, and gave messages of loneliness and sadness, giving joy and support to the audience, in return.
The Goth fashion
By celebrating the dark aspects of life, Gothic fashion started in the early 1980s. The rebellious and dark punk aesthetics, combined with Victorian romanticism created the goth fashion. While the Victorian dressing introduced pale skin, elegant long frilly dresses and tight-laced corsets, the Punks gave gothic jacket women’s, spiky accessories, and dark makeup.
In the early 1980s, Yoji Yamamoto took the runway by storm by introducing elements of traditional. Or traditional goth, and later, designers like Alexander McQueen, Jean-Paul Gaultier introduced their take on it.
Gothic clothing, accessories and makeup
Goths love wearing clothes like leather jackets, corsets, goth trousers, fishnets, and long robes and dresses, layered skirts or even miniskirts. The clothing is usually black, brown, maroon, blue or purple, and are made of satin, velvet, silk, nets and laces.
They usually wear new rocks, Doc Marten, military boots, big and chunky unisex boots, and prefer high heels over the others. Black or burgundy nail polish is also one of their favourites. To decorate the rooms, gothic candle holders and goblets are their preferred choices. The preferred gothic accessories include belts and buckles, spiked chokers, occult jewellery, totem lockets, chains, piercings, and sometimes even precious stones like ruby too.
Ancient Goth vs Modern Goth Style
The early gothic fashion was sophisticated yet uncomfortable. The upper-body garments were fitted and would highlight the curves and provide an hourglass figure, like tight sleeves and corsets. The lower part was designed with special care, long, and flowy.
Men preferred wearing goth trousers and shirts with ruffles and laces. They wore black high heeled shoes or dark flat boots, but would often be seen wearing bloodred colours too. While men had bleached hair and bangs, women either left their hair loose or tie it up into buns.
The minute deets of gothic fashion are playing a big role in contemporary fashion and even influences other fashion subcultures. It is simple and comfortable, but has not-so-normal and mature fits, cuts and silhouettes. People choose to wear minimal accessories, maybe one or two occult pieces. Tattooing and body piercing, have grown more popular.
Modern gothic pieces include coats, blazers, baggy pants with chains, miniskirts, slip dresses, miniskirts, and so on. The skin is not so pale now, with subtle yet dark eye makeup. A wide variety of shoes like Doc Martens, thigh-high lace-up boots. Studded and buckled shoes, and pointy shoes are seen as the preferable choices of the goths. People try various hairstyles like choppy hair which is black or bleached in pastels or decorated with hair accessories.
