Goth

Context

The goth subculture originated in 1980s England, deriving from post-punk, and is often associated with the color black. Visually, influences from 19^th century gothic literature and horror films are apparent. The goth look is known for its black clothing, pale skin, and black hair, however, throughout the fashion style there are influences from punk (piercings, studded leather) , deathrock, and even the Victorian era (lace and corsets). Goths will typically listen to gothic rock, industrial, death rock, post-punk, darkwave, ethereal wave, neoclassical, and gothic metal. Gothic fashion contains a multitude of different branches or variations, most notably, tradgoth, romantic goth, cyber goth, fetish goth, hippy goth, Victorian goth, and medieval goth.

Clothing

I went for quite a traditional goth look with my clothing, keeping to a theme of all black. To acknowledge some of the punk influence I wore my leather jacket, just like I did for the punk look. To incorporate some of the feel of fishnet tights so popular within gothic fashion, I wore a mesh black top underneath the jacket, inkeeping with the translucent feel. Goths are also very big on tights, particularly ripped ones, the look of which I imitated by destroying a pair of leggings using my scissors and ripping them. In terms of footwear I used my black creepers – creepers were at the forefront of any gothic shoe market I found in Camden Market, and made a nice addition to the bold outfit, inkeeping with the theme. To show yet more punk reference, I included two piercings, one in the septum and one on my lip in silver, as is traditional goth when it comes to accessories. 

Hair and Makeup

For the hair I used a long, black wig, in order to emulate typical goth hair. In one closeup, I flipped it, so that my shaved side was visible, imitating a sidecut often found on goths, although theirs would be bald shaved whereas mine was not. In terms of makeup I literally drew my eyebrows on and colored the outlines in with a black eyeliner pencil, making them as harsh and arched as I could without my naturally quite straight eyebrows showing through – goths typically shave their eyebrows off and draw them on in very arched thin shapes. For my eyemakeup I used a lot of black creating a massively dramatic wing with liquid eyeliner, also lining my bottom lashline pulling the line slightly downwards to give me more space to highlight the area with white and elongating my eye. I brought black and gray eyeshadows up to my eyebrow blending them as seemlessly as possible, keeping it darkest in my eye socket so as to add a lot of intensity to my eyes and contrast well against my pale skin, for which I used a foundation quite a bit lighter than my natural skin tone to add to the contrast. The black lipstick is also very trademark goth, incorporating the black and adding further to the contrast. I contoured with a dark gray eyeshadow to add more definition and sharpness to my face. 

Clothing choice:

Leather jacket: vintage, similar here

Mesh top: here

Leggings: here

Creepers: here