Vampire Prince In The Lost Garden

Or at least that's how I was imagining myself in these photographs. In reality I'm neither a prince nor a vampire, and this is actually that meadow close to my current apartment that I love posing in because it's such a pretty meadow (and I am such a vain Goth!). 

I will be moving soon (very soon) and will no longer have this lovely meadow to pose in so near by, but I am sure I will find somewhere equally pretty in my new location. All the photographs are by my partner Raven. The meadow is especially pretty now it is summer and the grass is long and the flowers in bloom. I specified this part of the meadow because of how much I like the shrubbery there.

Photograph by Raven

It was a day bordering on dreich; cloudy, overcast and dull, but not quite as damp and drizzly as a truly dreich day. The skies were grey and leaden and I like how Raven capitalised on that dreariness when it comes to both the photographs and the editing. I am really grateful to Raven for his photographs. 

Photograph by Raven

I am especially happy with my make-up this day. I did deep purplish red lipstick fading out concealer close to my skin tone for an effect I have seen done beautifully both on humans and on well-painted art dolls. I think I could have done even better had I made my lips dewy with some gloss, but as it stands, it still seems quite successful to me. I think I was a tad heavy-handed with blusher and contouring, but I am still new to it. The eye-shadow was in shimmery pinks - a completely alien concept to me - and I was aiming for a look that was somewhere between natural and a bit fey. 

Photograph by Raven

I really enjoy dressing in Ouji and Aristocrat fashion - with a Gothic take on such things, of course! Most of this outfit was second-hand; the trousers are from Primark originally, and I bought them in a charity shop for £2, the pirate boots were bought secondhand on eBay, the waistcoat is vintage Marks & Spencer and I bought it secondhand on eBay, the blouse is from ZanZea and was a Christmas/Solstice present from Raven - as was the cane (which comes in useful, what with my coordination disorder), and the only things I bought new were the necklace and the gloves, both from Claire's and the Jabot. The jabot I bought earlier this year, and I know I ordered it online, but I've actually forgotten where. I have a feeling it's handmade and either from Etsy or Ebay. 

Red hair, Black Dress, Green Meadow

I sadly have but the one offering for red and black week - this Gothic Lolita outfit. It's a photo from a couple of months back. 

Currently I am ill again; I have had bad luck this year with illnesses! 

I have frequent headaches from what I presume is sinus problems, and I am very congested indeed and rather under the weather. I've also developed a rather unpleasant cough. I am off to the doctor tomorrow as today is my 8th day of being ill with what started as a sore throat and then seemed to move upwards into the rest of my head. 

While I have been in to work up until this morning, I was coughing and spluttering continuously, have lost my voice and can barely concentrate with the headaches. I made sure I stayed until I had sorted all tasks so I wouldn't leave anything for others to do in my absence and requested to go home sick. The over-the counter medication is having little effect, not even the nasal spray specifically designed for sinus and mucus problems. Right now, I am tucked up in bed with hot drinks. Even though I slept badly last night and the night before (and the night before, etc.) I can't manage to sleep today, so I am alleviating the tedium of recuperation with updating my blog. I am in no position to do more than display an old photo, and have been too unwell to prepare anything in the last few days. Next year I will try and have more done in advance.

The photograph is by ::Chance Photography:: and the location is the meadow near my apartment. The weather was being typically Scottish, with a grey but surprisingly bright sky and cold, damp air. I was photographed in the same meadow a while back for a previous Red and Black Week post (::here::) wearing a different red wig - that one I eventually decided to straighten as the fibres had kinked and become damaged with frequent wear and it was easier to keep them in check on a straight wig than a curled one. The wig in this photo is a Lockshop wig and the fibres seem far more durable and the curls have remained very well. 

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As this is primarily a fashion post and not actually JUST a rant about my being ill, here is the outfit run-down:

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Hair flowers: off-brand, various including H&M, Claire's and Poundland

Wig: Lockshop ✯ Blouse: Tesco ✯ Dress (JSK): Baby, The Stars Shine Bright

Tights: off-brand, probably Tesco ✯ Shoes: T.U.K.

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It is certainly not the fanciest Lolita outfit, but I am quite pleased with it. I am quite tall, so the skirt of the dress comes to just above my knee rather than ending at the knee itself, but I am not really fussed that it is on the edge of breaking "the rules" as I rather like this outfit irrespective of how Lolita it is. I am more interested in feeling pretty than making sure I adhere completely to the Lolita template. 

The shoes in this photo are my first pair of "Lolita" style shoes. I have replaced the skulls with a matching set as the shoes were secondhand and the previous owner had lost some of the original skulls. The construction of these shoes does not appear to be of very high quality as I have had to re-attach all of the decorative bows at some point (none seemed sewn securely) and one of the straps snapped. I am, however, quite good at mending things so this has not been a huge bother, and while I have not owned them long, I am not sure how much the were worn by the previous owner.

My favourite thing about this outfit is how with such a dark colour-scheme for the majority of the photo, the red of the wig stands out really well even though it's actually not that vivid. I know it looks quite bright in some photographs as it tends to look quite plastic under bright flash, but this photograph is probably most representative of how it looks in real life. 

Dark Romanticism and Goth

I'm more aptly a 'dark Romantic' than a Goth.

Photograph by Raven, Editing by the HouseCat

Maybe I've always had a broadly Romantic attitude, but one that was not really cultivated into anything productive until I started reading about the philosophy and literature of that time period. I started finding that I agreed with a lot of it and that the rest of it was taking me down new and exciting avenues. Some of these ideas became building blocks of my personal philosophy (which constantly evolves) and some of them fell by the wayside, but my way of thinking and my creativity were far more influenced by things that happened over  150, even 200 years ago than by what happened in the 1980's. My head was full of Clare, Keats, Wordsworth,  of Beethoven, Paganini, Weber, Liszt, Chopin, etc. long before it was full of Ian Curtis, Siouxsie Sioux, Robert Smith, Andrew Eldrtich, Patricia Morrison and Dave Vanian. Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, etc. were my transition between the two, with a large dash of Arthurian poetry and art, Pre-Raphaelites and Tolkien. 

Photograph by Raven, Editing by the HouseCat

Romanticism informs far more of my world-view than Punk thinking - even my tendency towards anarchism is rooted more in centuries-old political philosophies than 1970s political philosophies. My search for experience is core to my way of life, to the point where I think the purpose of life is to experience as much and as richly as possible. A lot of my art is based on direct inspiration from nature; I see strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, with a decidedly Gothic emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, including the feelings that come around contemplating the inevitability of our own demise and decay. Awe, to me, is the emotion upon which I build inspiration, especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublime glory of untamed nature - the awe experienced while looking into the raging storm, or at wild currents of a river's rapids - and I'd go storm-chasing at white-water rafting if I could. On one hand I embrace medievalism, Gothic revival architecture and Arthurian myth, and on the other I look to the exotic (relative to my culture), to Japanese culture and ancient ruins. I empathise with William Blake as he talks of 'dark Satanic mills" in reference to early industrialisation, and see it continue in the smoke-stacks of coal fired-power stations, and in the seemingly unstoppable increase of materialistic consumer culture and all the factories thousands of miles away that feed it. 

Photograph by Raven, Editing by the HouseCat

In feeling like an alien amongst mainstream society I went looking for philosophies I did agree with - somewhere other people had to see things the way I did, and it did not seem that I was mad - and unfortunately found them to be an anachronism in relation to modern life, but then, as I read and experienced more about the various counter-cultures and subcultures from Arts & Crafts and Pre-Raphaelite era women in 'artistic dress' through Hippies and Punks to Goths -especially Goths- I saw the ideological tendrils that began with Sturm und Drang and revolutionary France were still bearing fruit. I did not set out to become a latter-day Romantic, albeit one with a fondness for black and the macabre, it just suits my personality down to the ground. 

Photograph by Raven, Editing by the HouseCat

My interests are broader than the Goth subculture, my perspective has not grown out of punk or of rock, but out of philosophy, literature and art, and I'm often a bit of a walking anachronism in more than just my fashion choices. Talking of fashion choices, stylistically I am fascinated by an aesthetic, not a subculture, and will wear things from Visual Kei, Elegant Gothic Aristocrat, Lolita and other Japanese styles as much as I'd wear Goth things, and will also wear vintage things or "hippie" things, or whatever else takes my fancy. I am more interested in anachronistic styles, luxuriously textured fabrics and an almost theatrical appearance than in what particular subculture you could attribute a garment to. My eclectic approach to fashion is not something I disguise, and where possible, I do try to accurately describe my various subcultural influences. 

Photograph by Raven, Editing by the HouseCat

My not-Goth interests predate my interest in the Goth subculture, and have not really wained in interest, only in time to spend on them. I am into the music, the fashion, the broader creative endeavours and the attitude that comprise the Goth subculture, but that only represents a small facet of who I am, and I feel that "Dark Romantic" encompasses a far greater amount of who I am than "Goth". Goth is still part of my identity, I still think the label applies to me, just it does not cover everything. 

Sunshine, Summer And The Outdoors

❀ I got a bit distracted... ❀

I was supposed to be taking pictures in the cemetery on Friday; I took the bus to the city, arranged to meet up outside the gates with my friend Suzy, got there and found it was locked up. This was not that late in the afternoon, and I'd been looking forwards to getting some nice pictures of the run-down mausoleum at the back (which I have featured before on this blog) with the nice Canon camera (rather than my point-and-shoot Ricoh). I was not hugely amused. I went to the graveyard in Church St. instead but my heart wasn't in it and I didn't take any good photos. In the end Suzy and I took the bus and went to my place.

It was far too warm to stay indoors, so I went to go play in the meadow outside my apartment building. Suzy likes the meadow as it is always full of various creepy crawlies and wildflowers. Suzy is a wildlife photographer focusing  (pardon the pun) mainly on bugs and has blog ::Up Close and Personal:: and Flickr stream: ::Suzy Bugs::. I like the meadow because it is a nice green open space where I get a stunning view down across the valley and to the mountains. Suzy took some pictures of me mucking around in the meadow. I took the picture of the clouds and the meadow and suchlike. It was actually really sunny all afternoon - a rarity in grey and rainy Scotland! 

This is the meadow by my flat, and the little wood with the burn.
This really was taken in Scotland, I don't live in Canada or somewhere.

I much prefer being outdoors to being indoors; being outdoors instantly lifts my mood. Sometimes I just sit in the meadow with a recorder or a flute and practice, or read a book, or sketch, or take photographs, other times I have no creative secondary purpose; the outdoors fulfils enough. The meadow isn't particularly large, but it is large enough to be enjoyable. I think it was too awkward a space with too much of a slope to be developed, especially as there is the rather steep slope down to the trees and the burn. (A burn, for those who do not know Scots terms, is a large stream to small river.)

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❝The poetry of the earth is never dead.❞

~John Keats

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A lot of my poetry (which is terrible and never being aired on the internet) is inspired by nature, as are a lot of my musical compositions (also terrible and never being aired on the internet) and my art (less terrible and frequently aired on the internet) is inspired by nature, and I live in such a beautiful place that I cannot ignore it. I feel really privileged to live in such a beautiful place. 

Enjoying my natural habitat. Photograph by ::Suzy::.

I mentioned that Suzy took some pictures of me. I guess these pictures are fairly representative of my summer style; somewhere between Romantic Goth and Trad-Goth, with a lot of lace in order to keep cool. As the odd spot on my face will attest, that pallor is not foundation; I am naturally really pale. In summer I tend to slather on the the sun-cream and leave off the foundation as it just gets greasy and horrid when I get hot. I was, however, wearing eye-makeup and lipstick (as is fairly obvious). As is again fairly obvious, this isn't my real hair (that's a sort of plum colour at the moment) but one of Raven's wigs.

Sunsets are pretty, and distracting. Very distracting.
Photograph by ::Suzy::. Thankyou!!

Anyway, this is not supposed to be an outfit post! This is about my love for the outdoors! And I do love it, regardless of weather. Recently the weather has been a mix of sunshine and showers, and yesterday evening it decided to rain rather heavily. I was out in a forest a short (well, short by my standards) walk away, scrambling down a ravine to get a good look at the waterfall where the burn (a different one, my area has several) went down some steep rocks, and also to scramble back across because there happened to be a good fording point at the bottom of this ravine. I got rather muddy indeed, and wet when I stepped in the burn instead of on a rock, and I didn't care that I was wet, cold and muddy because I was happy. It was a couple of hours in the outdoors, away from the human race, in the fresh air, burning off some extra energy. 

I love my little skull earrings. Photo by ::Suzy::.

I do conservation work with groups like Trees For Life and BTCV, and last autumn spent a lot of time helping at the nature reserve. In my own time I like going out for hikes (for which my attire is a lot more practical than it was on Friday!) and tend to get distracted by any rocks present. I used to live in Oxfordshire, which is not known for rocks and boulders and things to clamber on. I now live in the Scottish Highlands, known for being well, mountainous as the term "Highlands" indicates, and am a very happy outdoorsy lady. 

Red Hair, Black Ribbon and White Lace

❀ Summer ❀ Meadow ❀ ❀Anachronism❀

It is still Red & Black Week, the bloggery event being organised by Victorian Kitty of ::Sophistique Noir:: and this is my second Red & Black Week post, although as the photographs are only from the bust upwards, they are mostly white, which while making for fabulous photographs (thank-you Raven! check out his photography business at ::Chance Photography::) is not really inclusive of a lot of black. This is because the original plan was to wear my floor-length tatters skirt (the one featured ::here::) but two things happened that meant I had to wear rather boring trousers out into the meadow instead. The first was that I stood on the hem of the skirt and tore it (oops!) and the second was that it had rained recently, making the grass rather wet and full of slugs and snails, and I was not really wanting to pry slimy creatures off my skirts nor to wander around in skirts soaked and muddy for the bottom inches. 

By the time I went out into the meadow, on this occasion only for photographic purposes, the weather had cleared up significantly, and the view behind me across to the mountains was gorgeous. All these lovely photographs were taken by Raven, who is rather wonderful with a camera. I did the digital editing because I wanted to give everything a summery glow and he's not into doing that sort of thing. Raven spent as much time photographing the view as he did me! Just so you know, I haven't really changed how I look apart from the colour balances and contrast. 

Gazing into the distance.

Photo by Raven, Tweaked by Housecat

While on that occasion I was in the meadow to model my outfit, more often I am there as a beautiful place to sketch or paint in, for even if I am not drawing what is around me there, it is such a pleasant place that makes me feel inspired. I have the same attitude about drawing in the garden, although as my garden is a tad over-looked, I tend to wander across the street to the meadow instead. 

The meadow I am standing in is literally across the street from my apartment. It is on the brow of a hill, with glorious views down, across the river and to the mountains. There was still snow on the mountains a couple of weeks ago! Trees shade parts of the meadow and a burn (stream) runs through it. I feel very lucky to live in such a beautiful place. When I moved to Scotland it felt not just like moving to a different country but to a different world, as if I travelled to Middle Earth. There are castles in the midst of lochs (a sort of lake), snow-capped mountains, ancient standing stones and a history that blurs with myth and magic. 

What is that deep and profound thing out of shot?

Photo by Raven, Tweaked by Housecat

This outfit, however, is not inspired by Scottish history or even by Tolkien-esque fantasy, it is inspired by a this ::recent post:: (post contains painted artistic nudity) at ::The Kissed Mouth::, an absolutely fascinating Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian-Era art history blog that isn't the least bit stuffy. I loved all the elegant ladies wandering about outdoors in beautiful white and pastel dresses. While I am no fan of pastels, I do rather like their outfits, and I am prepared to wear white, even if usually in stark contrast to black. Generally, I simply prefer darker, richer colours. 

♫ A daydream believer... ♫
Photo by Raven, Tweaked by Housecat

It is also pretty much the type and style of outfits I was wearing back a short while ago where the temperatures soared to 33℃ according to the thermometer in Raven's car, and when I would have probably ended up with heat-stroke if I had worn all black. When the weather gets that hot a lot more white and grey enters my outfits, despite my usual preference for darker hues, and I wear lots of cotton and looser clothes. The tatters skirt is wonderful in that it is warm in winter and cool in summer, and I can wear thin stockings or even bare feet and sandals with it in summer, or layered thick tights and long lace-up boots in winter. 

Dandelion Clocks

Photo by Raven, Tweaked by Housecat

As it was rather warm out, I opted for minimal makeup. Instead of lots of foundation and eye-makeup and such like, there is just sun-screen, primer, and concealer with a bit of kohl around my eyes, a touch of silvery white eye-shadow  and some bright red lipstick to match my hair. I keep my skin clear and youthful by not wearing much makeup most days, washing my face with water, drinking well and remaining hydrated throughout the day, and wearing sunscreen. I even wear sunscreen in winter if it looks vaguely bright out. I am terribly pale by nature, and if I burn I go very red indeed, and if exposed to too much sun, but not enough to actually burn me, I develop freckles.

This outfit is not really Goth at all, definitely more in the lands between general anachronism and Aristocrat and Japanese street-fashions and subcultures. I guess bright red hair is too vivid for historical anachronism and probably also for Lolita and Aristocrat fashion, but as I like it I will ignore that. I am far more interested in keeping cool in a physical sense and appeasing my own tastes than in abiding by the "rules" of subcultures and fashions. It sort of boils down to "It's a free country and I can sit in a meadow in white lace with a parasol and bright red hair if I so wish... Unless there the grass is wet and there are too many slugs, which will ruin my dress and force me to stand."