Today’s New York Times has a feature on Goth style and its influence on mainstream fashion. Lest we forget though, for some “everyday is Halloween.” From the article:
These days Goth is “an Upper East Side way of being edgy without actually drinking anybody’s blood,” said Simon Doonan, the creative director of Barneys. With a wink he added, “Who doesn’t like a vaseful of ostrich feathers at the end of the day?”
The costumes and ornaments are a glamorous cover for the genre’s somber themes. In the world of Goth, nature itself lurks as a malign protagonist, causing flesh to rot, rivers to flood, monuments to crumble and women to turn into slatterns, their hair streaming and lipstick askew.
Some scholars see the Gothic mood as especially resonant in periods of uncertainty. Allen Grove, an associate professor of English at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y., theorizes that during war or in the aftermath of disaster, whether wrought by a hurricane or a terrorist cell, dark themes surface in part as a way to confront society’s worst fears.
“We’re somehow trying to deal with calamity and death,” said Dr. Grove, who teaches a popular course on the literature of horror. “Revisiting Gothic themes might be one way to embrace those things and try to come to terms with them.”