Goth subculture and gothic style in clothing

The Goths, like many youth subcultures, emerged from music. The first was music, then style and ideology. The Goths came from the punks. By the end of the 1970s, the violent and open protest of young people against the foundations of society, expressed through punk culture, weakened and gave way to pessimistic sentiments.

Goths are no longer an open protest, but a withdrawal into oneself, into one's inner world, a withdrawal from society. And if punk was widespread among young people from the outskirts, then representatives of the middle class became goths.

The Goth subculture appears in the late 1970s in the UK. Among the Goths in the 1980s, such musical groups as, for example, Bauhaus, Southern Death Cult, Siouxsie and the Banshees enjoyed popularity.

The word goth was also most likely used to refer to a group of young people in terms of characterizing their musical preferences - the music is rough, clearly non-classical, that is, from English gothic in the meaning of barbaric, rough. Of course, by tradition, journalists came up with the name for the new youth movement.

Despite common beliefs, the Goths are by no means Satanists or a generally destructive youth subculture. As many years of practice have shown, after all, the subculture of the Goths, which emerged in the late 1970s, exists to this day, from young people of Goths, designers, programmers and journalists grow in the future. Such young people are actively interested in literature and art, among them there are a lot of humanitarians. The Goths are characterized by an interest in the occult, there is also a vampire theme in the Gothic, however, most of the Goths are either agnostics or atheists, there are also adherents of Christianity among them.

Today there are many varieties of the Goth subculture - antique, Renaissance, Victorian, cyber-goths, corporate goths, vampires. You can find among the adherents of the Gothic subculture today and not only young people - the average age is ready from 14 to 45 years old.

Gothic style clothing and accessories

Initially, the Goths had a lot in common in their clothes and hairstyles with the punks who gave birth to them. So, they, like the punks, used safety pins, the goths also borrowed piercings from the punks. In the 1980s, the main hairstyles of the Goths were mohawks or hairstyles in the form of high "thorns".

Today, clothes are ready - this is, of course, black clothes using materials such as leather, lace, silk, velvet, brocade.

Goth girls can wear leather pants, mini or maxi skirts, black dresses, an important element is a corset, and the outerwear of a Gothic woman is long leather or textile raincoats. In general, the formation of the female style in the Goth subculture was greatly influenced by the image of the "femme fatale", which originated in the Victorian era, and later became popular thanks to films in the noir genre.

The male version of the Gothic wardrobe is black shirts and hoodies, leather pants, long raincoats.

Shoes are ready - heavy high boots like "grinders", high platform shoes, girls can wear high-heeled shoes and boots.

The classic hairstyle is ready - long, perfectly smooth and straight black hair, loose over the shoulders, without jewelry and accessories, both for girls and boys. In general, with regard to the image of a young man in the Goth subculture, he must be quite feminine.

Make-up and accessories play an important role in the costume.

Makeup ready - this is a black eyeliner, dark shadows, dark shades of matte lipstick, the whiteness of the face is emphasized with the help of powder, the nails are covered with black varnish. Makeup is a must for both girls and boys.

As for accessories, these are most often jewelry made of silver - the metal of the moon, white gold and platinum can also be used. In general, accessories should be white, which looks good on a black background. Of the stones, the Goths prefer semi-precious stones - black opal, agate and jade, cold topaz, rock crystal. They can wear pearls.

Goth jewelry necessarily have their own specific symbolism. They can wear ankh (the ancient Egyptian symbol of immortality), various crosses, for example, Celtic, ornaments with images of bats, symbols of death, figures of dragons and cats. Also, the Goths often wear leather bracelets and collars with metal spikes as jewelry.

The Gothic style of clothing itself actually has nothing to do with medieval Gothic costume. In the Middle Ages, townspeople and aristocrats, dressed in the Gothic style, wore costumes of bright colors and bizarre shapes - shoes with long noses, long caps in the shape of pyramids, bells could be sewn onto clothes as decoration.

Therefore, if the Goths borrowed something from Middle ages - then this is just the symbolism of Gothic architecture. The costume of modern Goths itself is much more connected with the costume of Victorian England of the 19th century and, of course, with the literature of this period. In addition to punk, the formation of the Goth subculture was greatly influenced by 19th century English literature, as well as vampire themes, also from the 19th century.