My personal blog as a 'grown-up' Goth and Romantic living in the Highlands of Scotland. I write about the places I go, the things I see and my thoughts on life as a Goth and the subculture, and things in the broader realm of the Gothic and darkly Romantic. Sometimes I write about music I like and sometimes I review things. This blog often includes architectural photography, graveyards and other images from the darker side of life.

Goth is not just about imitating each other, it is a creative movement and subculture that grew out of post-punk and is based on seeing beauty in the dark places of the world, the expression of that in Goth rock. It looks back to the various ways throughout history in which people have confronted and explored the macabre, the dark and the taboo, and as such I'm going to post about more than the just the standards of the subculture (Siouxsie, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, et al) and look at things by people who might not consider themselves anything to do with the subculture, but have eyes for the dark places. The Gothic should not be limited by what is already within it; inspiration comes from all places, the key is to look with open eyes, listen carefully and think with an open mind..

Friday 17 February 2012

Clothes, Make-Up and Me Being Vain


I've realised I've not actually put many pictures of me up here, and apart from the one on the "About" page, there is only one of me being wearing the braided wig in an outfit that does not really typify my style (even if I think it is one of the better photographs that have been taken of me). Anyway, to remedy this, I am posting a few pictures of me taken on my laptop's webcam. Yes, they are suitably badly lit and grainy! These are pretty much my favourite things in my wardrobe at the moment. Not really that many self-made items in this outfit. Oh well, I shall have post some future ones that contain a lot more of my makes and mods.
I love wearing frills! 

Not that flattering when it comes to my face, but outfit visible.


Lots of lace!

Manuscript inspired make-up... 


Here is another photograph of the make-up, a bit closer, to try and show the silver detailing. 

A better view of the make-up

The makeup started of as abstract swirls, and then became more elaborate foliate designs. It is only one the one side. Unfortunately the poor quality images do not really do the makeup justice - each leaf is actually silver detailing on black, to the point where it is almost silver outlined in black, done in silver eye-liner over black eye-liner, with the black brushed on and the silver drawn. It isn't one of my best designs, but I quite liked how the silver worked over the black. For good designs and how-to on foliate/swirl makeup designs, checkout the tutorials of Adora Batbrat on YouTube. 

Where the clothes are from: 
Brocade frock-coat is from H&R and bought in Camden market. It laces up at the back. The buttons that came with this coat, and a military jacket by the same company keep falling off because they are poorly made and have burrs on the back that sever the thread keeping them attached - I am forever sewing the buttons back on and at some point will simply buy replacement buttons, but as buttons are getting expensive and both jackets require an awful lot (buttons at the cuffs as well) that will be sometime in the future. That said, the jacket is really gorgeous - the material is nicer than some later editions of this jacket that I have seen, as they seem to change the material once in a while. The lacing at the back means I can adjust the coat to my corseted and non-corseted figure, and the sweeping cut of the back is wonderful.  

Leather corset is from Leatherotics. I love the buckles and halter-neck. I wear this corset as much as possible! It is my favourite corset. It becomes part of Romantic/Aristo outfits and part of mostly-leather "Stompy Goth" outfits and is very comfortable for an under-bust corset. I have worn this corset an awful lot, and it has shown a few signs of wear, but nothing I could not mend simply and easily and with little impact. It has been quite resilient considering the amount I wear it. I like the fact there are almost "cups" to the top of this corset, as I do not like straight-across under-bust corsets as I think the harsh horizontal unflattering to many figures including mine. 

Black waistcoat with ornate buttons and chains is one of my own designs. It started off life as a rather business like waistcoat a size or two too small for me, and I altered it into something that is almost a cropped waistcoat (it has a high waist, at least) that deliberately does not close at the front, and instead has chains between ornate buttons. 

White frilly shirt is Gothic, Lolita and Punk, Camden Market. While I love how it looks, it shrinks every time I wash it, but not to a point where I can't stretch it back. It isn't exactly the same cut as when I bought it though, but this is not terribly noticeable when worn under a corset, waistcoat and jacket! I have learnt that it is better to wear plain white shirts (blouses) with jabots and detachable cuffs, especially as even cheap white shirts tend to retain their shape fairly well. 

The wig was a present from Raven. I have no idea where it is from, but I know it needs some routine maintenance at the moment, mostly dealing with ends frizzed by wearing it and some locks near the front that I accidentally overheated while trying to re-curl. Heat and synthetic wigs do not agree! In the words of the meme comedy community: Learn From My Fail!

I love mixing and matching from various historical periods, but things I like trying to incorporate into my looks include buckles, chains and ornate buttons in silvery metals, brocades and damasks, black lace and white lace, corseting, details and layering. Quite a few blogs already include outfit posts, and I am not sure if doing these myself would be of any benefit, but welcome reader feedback on this. I do not want to be the bloggery equivalent of one of those people who endlessly uploads photographs to social media, and this is not primarily a fashion blog, so even if I do post future "outfit posts" this will probably be an occasional thing.

This is also generally the style in which I dress everyday. Right now I am wearing a medieval-inspired dress that laces up at the bodice with a long velvet waist-coat-type-thingy (costumers and renaissance faire types can probably elucidate me on the name) that does up with frog-clasps, black stockings and black slippers, so slightly less layered than above, but still distinctly Gothic and definitely leaning to the Romantic and fancier ends of Goth. I only dress down for occasions where I do not want to cause trouble by my appearance, or for work, especially the conservation work, where I'd ruin fancy clothes rather quickly. I dress like this even when I do not intend to leave the house, and do so partly because I enjoy getting dressed into all these layers of anachronistic finery and adorning myself with make-up, accessories, wigs and jewellery. 

12 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I love the outfit and the wig really suits you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thankyou very much. Sadly the wig is suffering from frizz and needs a good soak and some wig-oil. If I had my way I'd straighten the frizzy ends with a variable temp straightener set to 70C but I don't have variable temperature straighteners, and especially not the expensive sort that come with a temperature control that specific.

      Delete
  2. Not flattering you say? I'll have to respectfully disagree. I think you look stunning!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thankyou very much :) It was just my angle relative to the laptop webcam in that photograph, it made the way the hair down the side of my face fell give the illusion of my face being oddly distorted, at least to me.

      Delete
  3. love those swirls! and i also think that red hair suits you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stunning! The red hair gives you quite a different look from your profile pic (but both looks are gorgeous!). I absolutely love your frills and how you have styled them. Have you tried filing the burrs on the buttons down a bit? You might be able to do it with a metal nail file, depending on how soft the metal of the buttons is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gweh, somehow I missed your comment, sorry!

      Thankyou. My profile pic is of me with my natural hair, which isn't black but very dark brown. The loops on the back of the buttons are too small for me to get a nail file in, otherwise, I would do that. I'm just going to hang on until I can get a whole new set of buttons - some of the nice buttons are £1 each, so six down the front and another six smaller of a similar design split between two sleeves is £12 already, and I have two jackets that need new buttons

      Delete
  5. PLEASE DO A TUTORIAL FOR THIS MAKE-UP! I is BEGGING you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will try! I do different leaf designs each time around, so it will be a bit different, not exactly the same. When learning to draw leaves and curlicues I got a lot of help from watching the tutorials of Adora Batbrat, of all people! Her style is very different from mine and her makeup a lot heavier, but she does do very good swirls.

      Delete

Please be polite and respectful. Comments containing gratuitous swearing and insults will be deleted.