Gothic: Dark Glamour by Valerie Steele and Jennifer Park
Whenever I pass Hot Topic in the mall there’s a little cheer in my heart. Goths have always been the underdog subculture to me, partly because it was too difficult to join. Dressing up to the nines is a lot of effort and against the nature of many rebellious kids — that’s why punk was such a populist movement that has continued to this day.
In its slightly watered-down modern incarnation, punk has probably lost right to call itself a subculture at all. But Goths are still very much a subculture despite its marketability — the aesthetic has popped up through the eras in disparate vehicles like Tim Burton movies, Sandman comics, and Edward Gorey books. This may partially be because to most people, it’s kind of hard to say what exactly Goth is. It’s about wearing black, sure, and usually about an interest in “dark” things that can range anywhere from vampires to Byron and Shelly to fetish gear to Nazi imagery. From the outside, it’s not so much a philosophy as an aesthetic — but that’s fine and that may be the key to its longevity as something floating in the ether.
In the new book “Gothic: Dark Glamour,” an impressive attempt is made to link up all the various parts of the aesthetic in order to document its pedigree and influence. Continue Reading…
