Each subculture has a base around which it builds. Bikers and cafe racers have a motorcycle, surfers and skaters have a board, rastamans have religion, teddy boys have clothes, and punks have music. But the original meanings change over time. The subculture of the Goths grew up as a subspecies of the punk movement, all the differences of which were reduced to a predominantly black color in clothes and gothic rock as their favorite music.
The latter, in fact, played a fundamental role in the formation of the subculture. But over time, the unusual aesthetics of the subculture came to the fore, and many Goths of the new wave came into it for the sake of beautiful clothes and a bright appearance. Moreover, the Gothic style had a noticeable influence on haute couture. But first things first.
Image is everything
Unlike many other subcultures, the Goths have a birthday and a creator. In October 1967, music critic John Stickney used the term "gothic" to describe the music of The Doors. In the same year, music historian Kurt Loder called the Velvet Underground's new All Tomorrow's Parties "a mesmerizing gothic rock masterpiece." Nevertheless, the style of gothic rock itself was formed much later - in the late 1970s and grew out of post-punk.
The atmosphere at concerts of such post-punk bands as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magazine and, of course, Joy Division began to be called gothic. In addition to the original sound and theme of the lyrics, they were distinguished from other post-punk bands by their unusual appearance, which fans immediately began to copy. The recipe for creating the look of the first wave of the Tru-Goth is simple and uncomplicated: disheveled hair, thickly drawn eyes, pale skin, abundant piercings and total black in clothes.
At first, fans of gothic were even called dark punks - dark punks, since their style differed from punk exclusively by the predominance of black. One of the rare garments typical of the Goths of the first wave were mesh sleeves, which were worn by both men and women. Many Goths continued to wear the Iroquois, which they modified by shaving their hair off the sides of their head. But most just made do with tousled hair.
Films about death and the other world have always been one of the sources of inspiration for the Goths. For example, The Addams Family. Photo taken during the Donnington Music Festival, UK in 2003.
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Typical first wave Gotess in the London Underground. Long disheveled hair, whitewash on the face, black eyeliner, red lipstick, an abundance of silver jewelry and, of course, total black.
Sometimes love in music unites representatives of different subcultures. These teenage girls came to the Slipknot concert in London together, despite the fact that one of them is goth and the other is - punk.
Three Goths sit on the porch of a house in Whitby, British Yorkshire. The photo was taken in 1992, when the gothic subculture was experiencing a rebirth, going beyond one musical genre.
By the end of the 1980s, the popularity of gothic rock began to decline, but this did not stop the subculture from developing, and its aesthetics from becoming more complex. In the style of clothing, there has been a clear bias towards vintage clothing in the spirit of the Victorian and Elizabethan eras. The Goths have their own set of symbols: the ancient Egyptian ankh, crosses, silver jewelry (silver is the color of the moon and night) and a ban on gold jewelry (gold is the color of the sun and day). Appearance and a closed model of behavior is ready to begin to be perceived as a passive protest and a departure from generally accepted norms.
Due to the fact that it was the appearance, behavior and worldview that came to the fore, music for the Goths became only an accompaniment. Therefore, in the 1990s, the gothic subculture finally went beyond rock. Dark metal, death rock, post-punk now existed in parallel with gotabilly, dark electro, EBM, darkwave and other styles that combined the aesthetics of Goths with non-rock music. And the classic Goths were divided into antique Goths, Cyber Goths, Gypsy Goths, Steampunk Goths and Vampires. Outside of the Western world, the Gothic subculture began to mutate altogether.
Mysterious GosuRori
The gothic subculture with its beautiful costumes, atmosphere of decadence, doom and sadness came to the court in Japan. Tokyo became one of the Gothic capitals, and the subculture itself immediately gave a number of local offshoots. From a mixture of gothic rock, glam rock, J-rock and metal, the amazing visual kei style was born. Its essence is that the object of creativity is not only music, but also the appearance of performers.
One of its offshoots was the "Gothic Lolita" style, which is sometimes also called Gothic & Lolita after the eponymous quarterly magazine. The peculiarities of Japanese pronunciation turned gothic Lolita into “gosu Roryta” or simply “gosu Rori” (in Russia, the spelling variant “GosuRori” is more often used).
Initially, the Lolita style appeared as an opposition to the gyaru (distorted girl) subculture. If the gyaru created the image of a glamorous bitch, whose whole life is devoted to branded clothes and sex, then GosuRori is a kind of unapproachable lady of the Byron era. All Lolitas, and this subculture in Japan has many branches, dress in the style of European ladies of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, in the early Victorian and Rococo style. Gothic Lolita differs from everyone else in that her dresses are black, and her makeup should give the impression of soreness.
The costume of a typical GosuRori consists of a long black skirt and a corset or lace dress, decorated with ribbons and frills. Gothic Lolita hairstyle should be as complex as possible, so representatives of the subculture often use wigs. The look is unthinkable without an umbrella, a hat and shoes on a double platform. Despite the fact that initially the GosuRori subculture was a protest against the consumer society and its values, in the 1990s, Lolitas began to willingly spend large sums of money on designer clothes. In particular, Vivienne Westwood became GosuRori's favorite brand.
Typical GosuRori dress from Moi-meme-Moitie with Gothic stained glass print. The success of the Japanese musician and fashion designer Mana's brand has spawned a dozen companies specializing in clothing for Gothic Lolitas.
Mana, as one of the creators of the style, continues to have a huge influence on him. For example, Moi-meme-Moitie offers not only black but also white dresses for GosuRori, and the Gothic spirit is conveyed by black ribbons and prints.
Typical Gothic Lolita, filmed in the Mecca of Japanese informals - Tokyo's Harajuku district.
There are also brands specializing in EGL clothing - Elegant Gothic Lolita (elegant gothic Lolita). One of the first brands in the new market segment was the Moi-meme-Moitie company of the famous Japanese guitarist, fashion designer and fashion model Mana.
Lovely friends
The rapid growth in the popularity of the Gothic Lolita subculture among Japanese women led to the fact that its counterpart appeared among Japanese men. Their style is called EGA - an elegant gothic aristocrat. The abbreviations EGL and EGA were coined by the Moi-meme-Moitie brand to refer to specific lines of clothing, but quickly spread throughout the style. Followers of the EGA style wear frock coats, vests, top hats, jabot shirts, long raincoats and platform shoes.
And if the Gothic Lolita remained a purely Japanese phenomenon, then the aristocratic Goths became popular in the West. They are sometimes called Victorian Goths, and their appearance does not differ much from the followers of the EGA-style: three-piece suits, top hats, canes, raincoats and other elements of the venerable gentleman's wardrobe of the mid-19th century. The style of Victorian Gothic, in contrast to the Gothic Lolita, is more mature: long lace dresses with corsets, veils, hats.
Unlike GosuRori, Victorian Gothic women prefer pale skin, like representatives of other areas of the subculture. While EGL and EGA hang out mainly in Tokyo's Harajuku district along with other representatives of Japanese subcultures, the aristocratic Goths try to imitate the 19th century lifestyle with its picnics, poetry evenings and walks in nature.
Black business
Such a large role of aesthetics for the Goth subculture led to the fact that a whole industry arose around the Gothic fashion. One of the first companies to target the Goths was Alchemy Gothic, an English jewelery maker back in 1977. Since in 1977 there was no talk of any formed subculture of the Goths yet, they were guided rather by all post-punk lovers.
But the X-tra-X company, created in 1991 in Ulm, Germany, from the very beginning specialized in the production of clothing specifically for the ready-made. It was followed by such gothic brands as Kambriel, Rose Mortem and Heavy Red. The Goths also have their own manufacturers of cosmetics like Urban Decay, and in 2000 the gothic glossy magazine Gothic Beauty appeared. But, of course, mainstream brands could not pass by the gothic theme either.
Moreover, the funeral dynamics attracted fashion designers even earlier than post-punk lovers. In 1977, the German fashion designer hosted the Soirée Moratoire Noire party: the invitation in the “dress code” section bore the inscription: tenue tragique noire absolument obligatoire (black funeral dress is absolutely obligatory). However, the truly gothic style broke into the catwalks only in the late 1990s - early 2000s. Collections in the Gothic style were presented by Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Philippe Plein, Yohji Yamamoto and many others.
Lagerfeld went further than others, who made Gothic his personal style. In 2002, the "Kaiser" lost 30 kilograms and completely changed his image. Since then, the German fashion designer has worn leather pants or skinny black trousers, three-piece suits with a stand-up collar, leather gloves, and long raincoats.
The craze for Gothic aesthetics led to the term Haute Goth - "High Gothic". It was first used in 2002 in The New York Times by writer Sintra Wilson. The gothic influence on modern fashion is expressed in the combination of the timeless total-black with materials typical of the subculture such as silk, velvet and leather, as well as with classic ready-made makeup and accessories.
Gothic aesthetics inspire people as far from the subculture as Charlotte Free. The model opted for total-black and gothic makeup during Paris Men's Fashion Week in January 2015.
Model Esmeralda See-Reynolds after the Louis Vuitton ready-to-wear show at Paris Fashion Week in October 2014. Even more gothic in makeup and appearance.
The famous party girl and blogger Dominican Lily Gatins simply adores black and regularly amazes everyone with unusual costumes. At Paris Fashion Week in September 2014, she came in the form of the Maleficent witch.
In September 2016, at New York Fashion Week, R13 unveiled a Gothic-inspired collection. Black color, pale skin of models, bright makeup, chokers, bracelets - from the general gothic spirit, only huge spiked boots, more characteristic of punks, were knocked out.
Moreover, the creators of the Gothic collection R13 were clearly inspired by the first wave of Goths with their simple solutions, such as torn clothes, jeans and a minimum of decor.
London-based designer Dilara Findikoglu has built her entire brand on a mix of punk, goth and metal fashion with added political and feminist slogans and prints. Backstage of Dilara Findikoglu's runway show at London Fashion Week 2016.
Due to the attractive aesthetics of the subculture, the Goths eventually split into Tru-Goths and Posers. For the former, the main thing in the subculture is music and the ideology of passive protest. For the second, style. The latter, in turn, scold those Goths who buy ready-made clothes, and do not sew custom-made Gothic costumes. In England, even a derogatory definition of mall goth - "hypermarket goth" was formed. The latter is especially common for adolescents, because, unlike other subcultures, the Gothic has gone beyond the younger generation.
Gothic aesthetics are also appealing to the generation of 40s. They are ready to spend thousands and thousands of dollars and euros on their appearance, festivals are held for them, where the entrance is closed to "goths from the supermarket". There are even corporate goths who recognize the consumer society and make a living by working in the office.
So that they can emphasize their belonging to the subculture even in the workplace, there are a great variety of Gothic accessories: earrings, cufflinks, belt buckles and hairpins. Such is the irony of fate. The subculture, which was born out of youth protest against the consumer society, gradually became a part of this society - moreover, this is the most stimulating consumption.
The most amazing thing is that with the growing popularity of the subculture, more and more myths began to arise around it. Goths were criticized for popularizing death and inciting young people to commit suicides, accused of destroying moral foundations and morals, and sometimes just in a harsh manner demanded "explain for gear." It all ended tragically - with a series of attacks by hooligans on the Goths, some episodes led to severe injuries and even deaths.
The most famous was the murder of Sophie Lancaster in 2007 in the English city of Buckap. In honor of the girl, a festival of gothic music was organized, memorials appeared around the world, several songs were dedicated to her, and her parents created the SOPHIE foundation (English Stamp Out Prejudice, Hatred And Intolerance Everywhere - "Get rid of prejudice, hatred and intolerance everywhere"). Alas, this hunt did not bypass Russia either: in Izhevsk in 2008, in Omsk and Krasnodar in 2010, Gotess girls were killed. Everyone thinks that the Goths worship death, and death overtakes them just for the love of original clothing.
Anton Shiryaev
