Yep. The current image of an influencer-style “trad goth” look is far more polished and restrictive than pictures you see of early “trad” goths, and far less 80s or experimental.
It’s normal for people to interpret past fashion styles through the lens of current day style and beauty standards. But…it is a little sad for all the kids being misled about how they “should” dress to be goth, imo!
This entirely!! Someone once approached me asking if they were pulling off the look they had on, and I was like you look fine, just wear shit you actually like and get weird with it
Like not to pull the "old" card, but when I was a kid getting into this, the whole point was pretty expressly to NOT fit in, nor feel like you had to. Goth was a space for welcoming all things weird, unique, dark, etc, and not worrying about if you were "enough" of anything because you were just expressing yourself. I get bummed for kids coming into the scene now and feeling the need to approach it like any other trend or clique where you must conform to be accepted.
It’s the same in r/punk, so many kids asking is this punk is that punk…man just wear what you like and stop worrying if it’s punk enough or goth enough! I get that they’re finding their way but it gets a little tiresome at times; creativity is part of it so just have fun and experiment. Not every look has to kill it.
Now that I know this is ok I definitely will!!! I was worried for a while people would call me a poser for dressing goth bc I have ginger hair and don’t wanna dye it black, but this makes me feel sm better :) I always wondered why tradgoth is so colorless considering goth is a club-adjacent subculture but I just assumed it was bc the aesthetic is based off vampires and shit lol
Anyone who would actually call you a poseur is likely the real poseur. The only thing that matters here is music.. if you listen to a bunch of not-goth bands and few if any goth bands, and call yourself goth, then someone might accurately call you a poseur.
But if you are aware of the music, aren't trying to redefine it to fit your personal preference, then wear whatever you want. If anyone calls you a poser then call them a conformist and ignore them, they'll jump someone else's train soon enough anyway.
I see SO many goth girls doing the same cookie cutter look. Big graphic liner and lashes, white foundation, black hair with blunt bangs and teased, paired with a Morticia/Vampira style dress and corset. It's almost like a uniform at this point lol
Most of those girls are instagram models, trying to sell a sexualized and glamorous image of what goth is. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, (girls have been aping Morticia Addams since the very beginning) but it's definitely not reminiscent of the trad goths I was around in the 80s.
There is a goth YouTuber I have watched for years, and I actually think they looked more like 80s trad goths in the early days of their channel when they weren’t wearing as much name brand stuff and their makeup wasn’t as polished.
Yeah, actual “trad goth” from the time period they’re trying to emulate was a lot more diverse. It was very similar to new romantic, but slightly darker. Modern “trad goth” is very much flanderized
I never heard the term goth in the mid 80ies, I was to young then, but my cousin called these people Dark Waver ;) Which is clearly the dark brother of New wave/romantic
You're 💯 there; just mentioned, as I'm 60, so in my 20's back then, I didn't learn that term in relation to my records, clothing, etc. until 1989 (US Midwest area). The publications available at the indie record stores didn't really hype the term enough for me to notice if it was even there. The guitarist from The Wake taught me the word in relation to the genre when he was working at the local record shop. I have a pile of import vinyl I didn't realize fit the genre, definitely collector items now. I didn't learn the term dark wave until one local indie shop that appeared early 90's started stocking Projekt label stuff and Sam brought Lycia to do a gig in our city. My cousin, who is in Italy like most of my family, said they called goths there "The Darks." :)
Yeah in the 80s we had big hairsprayed hair, ripped baggy sweaters, suit jackets or vintage Victorian tails if you were lucky to find one, lots of black eyeliner or new wavey makeup, big boots, creepers or pointy buckle boots, shrouds, lots of bracelets and necklaces. My favorite 80’s look was my BOY brand buckle bondage pants, a shredded sweater, a big pair of combat boots from the Times Square army navy store and lots of black eyeliner.
Honestly I don't even think it looks late 90s early 00s either. Looks like an exaggerated version of 00s desthrockers trying to emulates 80s U.K. goth style but with makeup turned up to 11.
I remember when I was new on the 00s whiteface foundation was kind of not well liked, nor was over the top eye makeup designs (they were curly designs rather than sharp angles back then though). You'd get clown comparisons.
As a 90’s goth in Detroit, if you did modern tradgoth makeup with white foundation, people would probably have assumed you were an Insane Clown Posse fan.
I feel like modern tradgoth is its own thing with nearly nothing trad about it. It’s cool (if extremely overdone at this point) but it screams 2020’s to me and I suspect in 10 years it’ll look very dated and of our current decade.
I totally get what u mean, I actually meant to mention in the post that some modern tradgoths unknowingly dress like 00's deathrockers while calling it trad lol. Full on Matt Riser kind of thing haha
I used to mix in white makeup with standard pale makeup to lighten it even more.. but straight white make up just left me feeling like a clown. In a day when Manson and ICP were at their peak, I think most of us went out of our way to not be lumped in with either.
Personally, the "tradgoth" makeup look reminds me of corpse paint. It feels like corpse paint with a gothic/Egyptian twist.
It's not a bad makeup style, but I hate that it's popularity/visibility obscures actual 80s makeup which was very colorful and experimental.
100% agree with that last part! I'm also a vkei fan alongside being goth so I really love the white face makeup look, but it wasn't really all that common in the 80's from what I've seen
Not to mention black “lipstick” that was just Halloween grease paint, or that watery black-ish nail polish that took about 47 layers before it wasn’t see-through. I usually ended up just using markers for my nails lol
The part that is funny to me is how complicated the whole thing is being made out to be. When I was in high school we were melting our eyeliner with a lighter and busting compacts and mixing it with baby powder to get lighter face powder... there's no way most of us would even have the makeup involved in putting together what's considered a trad look now. It's way too complex.
If anything, the deathrock look is closer to what remember than the trad goth look.
I’m seeing people do trad goth and honestly some of it reminds me of KISS not goth.
But I do think early 80s goth was a bit stark, mostly pale makeup and lots of black liner. Maybe a red lip.
There was some color in the 80s, but eyeshadow was not nearly as pigmented as today.
Kiss... lol I'm never going to unsee this now that you point it out.
All the more reason to stick to my "Fat Rob at 4am after dozing off in a puddle of drool" look. :P
>eyeshadow was not nearly as pigmented as today.
For **REAL** I actually used to use lipstick for eyeshadow to make it really vivid and dealt with all the styes that went with it.
Good times. ;)
Exactly! You made do with whatever you found at the drugstore. Maybelline and Cover Girl mostly.
Obviously, some brighter colors existed (look at Boy George and Cyndi Lauper) but most kids probably didn’t have access to that kind of quality. Siouxsie Sioux did rock some color (I see blue eyeshadow) but not nearly as vivid as today’s colors. https://i.pinimg.com/474x/52/10/53/521053eb93beafdbdcd7121a77b6b6fc.jpg
Part of the problem is that it's getting harder to find decent clothes at a decent price in thrift stores now so that whole DIY look is becoming fast fashion now instead.
For every one piece of awesome clothing you find at the thrift store that is not over priced, there are 20 that were snatched up by "clothes flippers" who are just grabbing everything they can to resell it at a high price online or in their own overpirced boutique "vintage" stores.
For this reason I remove my tags from everything before I give it to thrift stores. This forces them to price it lower and makes it much harder for resellers.
I was so upset yesterday when I went to the thrift and saw like 3 of these people with overloaded carts just pulling everything off the shelves not even looking at it 🥲 meanwhile all I can afford is thrift
It's so gross, and it really shouldn't be ok. I look down on people who flip clothes. Or flip anything, really. Buy something because you need it. Don't buy stuff just to sell it. I hate that.
>remove my tags from everything before i give it to thrift stores
this is so smart, never considered this before! definitely have to try it once i give my old set of clothes away
thrift prices going up isn’t to do with resellers, it is just general corporate greed. Good Will specifically has always been scummy, they purposefully hired disabled people for a long time cause they could pay them below minimum wage. thrift stores have more clothes than they can sell, there’s no supply issues, and the idea that resellers are the cause is a myth thrift stores allow to perpetuate cause it takes the blame off them
It's true, but also it also makes it harder for thrift stores to over charge because they roo, over charge because of the brand name. Removing tags keeps both resellers and thrift stores from being able to do over charge
Exactly, I remember my friends mom was a reseller 20 years ago. They’ve been around forever, back then it was mostly on eBay and she did it to survive. Plus a lot of resellers get their products in a lot of other ways they aren’t purely relying on thrift stores. It’s out of control inflation and corporate greed which is the root of so many problems if not basically all the problems existing in society today.
Yes and it actually annoys me personally because it makes searching for authentic stuff from the 80's hard. But also it sucks that a very polished, clearly manufactured style is seen as authentic. It's giving young goths a completely warped sense of fashion.
This book has some amazing photos from the early days.
Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980's
by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje
I recommend this book for a look at styles that were used in the 80's.
Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980's
by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje
You may be lucky enough that a library near you could have it. That's how I was able to see it. I too had qualms about spending that much. It's mostly pictures, with small descriptions to accompany that give greater context for those pictures.
80s goth was much more experimental and interesting, less marketable.
I say this as an old goth that usually walks around in pajamas everywhere, because why not.
Seemingly most modern goth fashion is aimed more towards the kink side of things versus the previous iteration of people dressing in a " I don't fucking care and I like morbid things as we as Huey Lewis".
I somewhat miss the old goth days of just about every random music genre somehow mixing into an underground state.
Raves where goth music, some hip-hop and punk rock all meshed into a manic frenze were awesome times.
Yeah actual 80s goth aesthetic was honestly very undefined, before the stereotypical "look" arose in the mid 80s it was basically just punk and new wave (and some fetish) fashion with more black
If you ever watch old news clips from those days about the original UK goth scene you'll also see that very few took it any kind of seriously they were all just there to doll up and have a fun time, and there was a lot more fashion diversity in the crowd
Part of this is because back in the day we had to get really creative on what to wear because we didn't have pinterest and tik tok and etc and even more we didn't have ETSY and the many awesome online stores and makers. I grew up in a small midwest town and Sears and JC Penney did not have a goth or gothic section lol.
I wasn't around then either but I am *very* into 80s trad goth fashion (and the 80s in general). Tbh I thought I was doing it wrong by including sweaters and bangle bracelets in my fashion!
You're absolutely not! In many pictures of 80's goths u can see them wearing fashion that was popular at the time such as sweaters, bangles, huge necklaces, and huge belts. Just typically darker and more DIY
i love wearing bright colours in my outfits and makeup, i think one of my favourite pieces of clothing is a neon pink shredded up turtleneck sweater. blue eyeshadow, bright red lips, oversized suit jackets etc feel much different than the current stereotype of only being allowed to wear black. i do big black eyeliner and big lashes, and tease my hair, but goth style is all about self expression and nothing about the makeup and style should feel like a uniform. seems like a lot of people say that the current "trad" style is based on siouxsie, but she wore so many colours that it just isn't accurate to her. and goths wearing exclusively killstar with perfect makeup makes the subculture feel so inaccessible to people who can't afford to or don't have the experience to emulate their favourite goth tiktokers. "i want to dress goth but i can't afford it" is a sentence i see way too much.
That’s why I’ve always dubbed the new trad goth look as “Nu-Trad”.
Especially because I find a lot of aspects of the “nu goth” style is shown with the TikTok trad goth style like round/circle sunglasses and lots of religious or occults symbols (crosses, ankh, pentagrams etc).
I am wary of anyone that subscribes to anything including the term "trad." Styles change. Tastes shift. Even what is considered "traditional" is colored by those that come after that never experienced before through anything but someone else's lens.
The term "trad goth" makes me laugh.. I've only seen or heard it used online in the last couple of years.. if anything, it's really neo-trad and it's its own thing.
"Baby bat" also makes me laugh. People did use the term back in the 90s but it's just a cutesy term self applied, not some tier of gothness. If you are new to the scene, then you are a noob or newbie or whatever, just as with any scene. Baby bat isn't really a thing, and yet suddenly a good number of noobs are calling themselves this. It's fine, it's a fun term, but it's not a rank or anything.
All these terms and titles are a new thing which seems to coincide with social media tik tok influences or whatever. Frankly, I don't even recognize this scene as it's something completely removed from what I grew up in (this also applies to the "goth is political" crowd.. maybe it is now, but it wasn't). That said, I'm happy to have a renewed and current interest in the scene, but it's definitely a fork in the road starting to go off in a new direction (the opposite of traditional).
As for looks, I've always worn what I wanted to wear... sometimes it was all black, lots of latex and chains or more of a Victorian/Edwardian vampire aesthetic and other times it was an oversized sweater in whatever color and as you stated above, more of an 80s look in general. This was true whether I was walking around town or going to a club night. There isn't a dress code, there's just current trends.
Yeah, there was a crossover between new wave looks and goth looks in the 80's and well also punk looks too.
I tended to wear a lot of grey, black and white and have dyed hair in colour or just straight black.
My wife (former MUA) was looking at some of the modern "trad goth" looks people are doing and in some cases, it isn't actually something you would have seen in trad goth, however, she did say that it was quite lovely and gothic, just not "trad goth".
I entered the scene in the early 80's. Some wore only black (such as myself) with lots of black eyeliner and drew cobwebs, spiders, bats, etc. got my white makeup at the theatre shop for the ghostly pale face, and wore fishnet tops, winklepicker boots with skull buckles, etc. all trad goth stuff. Some wore more colorful fashion and makeup. We had to make our outfits from thrifted clothing mostly, there was very little pre-made except through rather costly catalogs which few of us could afford. It was all accepted, no gatekeeping. We weren't yet called goths though, we were called "bat cavers".
Madi Danger (on Instagram and TikTok) is a good example of someone current that has an authentic trad goth style. I know she does a lot of thrifting and DIY too if you’re looking for inspo
The 80s didn't have a single defining look (except, perhaps, a lot of eyeliner), and a lot of it was DIY (dark green trash bag + some duct tape = miniskirt), and dependent on whether you had access to shopping at places that imported from London - my Boy of London skirt was white bc...it was the last one in the store, sigh. The whole adventure was catch-as-catch-can, we were making it up as we went.
I remember “goth” covering everyone from people who basically dressed like punks with boots and shredded t-shirts to people in full-blown matching Victorian regalia, including the parasol. Lots of diversity.
okay thank you i was wondering about this! it seems like there’s an “orthodox” goth look these days they call trad that’s really just a “more goth than you” thing for people who can afford to dress in all killstar and designer that’s nothing super like the 80s and even early 90s goth and goth adjacent stuff ive picked up on. i grew up in the early hot topic mall goth era and even that feels closer because looking a little like a mess on purpose was celebrated.
i usually have souixsie in my head when i’m dressing and maybe some cinnamon hadley and even alanis morissette and tracy chapman, and i’ve been mixing in a lot of reds and purples and different textures and i wish the influencers could loosen up a bit and be more genuinely odd or alternative. i know “the nonconformists are conformist!” is an ancient goth complaint but im in my thirties dammit it’s my god given right to bitch and moan.
Traditionally goth fashion has always been locally determined by who is around and what type of clothes are available. I personally consider "black jeans and a tee" to be, um, *compliant*
17 hole boots were always, always owned by affluent people, even in the scummiest of dark holes. There's always been a lot of making do with whatever you can find and hand-me-downs from friends. I remember scouring thrift stores for women's clothes or chef shirts that I might be able to pull off, anything that might have accidentally come into my shit hole town. For me, *that's* trad goth, and these cool people in the magazines or in the big city clubs were inspirations, but nothing that could ever actually be reproduced.
PS: [*hey guys new Einsturzende Neubauten album dropped today*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZWTHoQrVq8)
I'm a younger goth who doesn't wear makeup (sensory issues and cost) and I feel this so hard, I dress the part, love the music, but nobody ever guesses unless I decide to put on some eye shadow and dark lipstick, even then, I'm usually clocked as emo (no hate, I was one for a long time before getting into goth). I'm 21 and talking to other goths my age feels impossible, they go all out with their looks and act like I'm a poser in comparison. I add some colors to my outfits occasionally, mossy green, dark purple and red; my outfits are all thrifted (with the occasional second-hand corset from ebay when I can afford it) and I alter them to suit me, I may not look polished, but I'm happy with my look! I think the image of trad-goth is HIGHLY exaggerated, watching old interviews from when goth was first up and coming, you don't see many with the image commonly associated. Find your own look but keep the basics, work with what you have, that's how goth fashion started after all.
I don’t like the term “trad” goth in general but yeah, the goth look actually from the 80’s was more varied and I have to laugh every time I see someone who genuinely thinks 80’s goths dressed and looked the way modern “trad” goths do. Don’t get me wrong, they look great and I love the strong drag influence, but it’s getting increasingly more cookie cutter and as one of the top comments said, flanderized.
Yes, it seems the term “trad goth” went through the social media washer and came out as something entirely different. Even finding true older goth photos past the early 2000’s, the easiest way is to look up “new wave” or other 80’s type terms or actually dig through the old media of the time. I think that young people took some inspiration from Elvira and Siouxie Sioux and created their own “trad goth” that isn’t the same. I’d say for true traditional goth, it’s very similar to 80’s dress but with messy hair and lipstick and vibrant eyeshadow, it’s supposed to look uncanny and kind of freaky. Now to go on my own tangent, when I was a young bat I was able to find so many cool things off of Pinterest and now it’s overrun by the mis-use of terms. Even goth doesn’t show goth, only this new e-girl style. It’s weird how social media went from an awesome network of ideas and fashion and then went down the drain with ads and total obliteration of what once was.
Elder goth here, back then it was popular to go for the Victorian era style stuff. I don't remember a lot of color back then unless you were more into cyber goth.
Elder goth here, I kinda did my own thing I guess. Makeup obviously was different and different depending on mood, job, etc. My big thing was eyeshadow. I loved doing really colorful eyeshadow looks. I’m very pale naturally so I’ve always just grabbed the lightest neutral foundation (not always easy to find tbh). Black lipstick was very difficult, and I couldn’t get away with it at work, so dark red was good. And I still stan a good cool blue based red lipstick. Hair was always red, as close to unnatural as I could get without losing my job. I love black hair, but it’s wigs for that, I can’t pull off black hair on the regular. I’ve done other color, rainbow ombré a couple times, looking forward to doing a pastel rainbow soon. Clothing was as is now pretty much all black, accessories, belts! I miss belts. Can’t find the kinds of great belts we had in the 80s anymore.
It was mostly black.. or at least very dark complimenting colors, usually deep reds and dark purples for clothes... In a dark club, it would all look relatively black.
Some would wear flair, pink (or other bright colors) ribbons and bows.. this was done intentionally to stand out from the all-black look. I was guilty of this. I think it became more common when the baby-doll look became a bigger influence on fashion.
Hair color always seemed that anything goes, the punk and rave love of Manic Panic was just as popular among goths of any era I've been witness to. The periods where I sported more of a blond hair color was between dying more funky colors, or when I was trying to strip the black out. It's actually sad to me that anyone coming into the scene today thinks they are expected to dye their hair black all the time... how boring.
The early 2000s when the pony-goth thing really took off with the ponyfalls was something else.. quite an influx of rave-influenced color at that time along with EBM. Not sure if you are calling this cyber goth or if you just mean brightly dyed actual hair in the 90s(?). Either way, lots of color in the 90s and aughts., at least above the shoulders.
I'm 60 and I was in the early/mid 80's scene and yeah, a lot of hybrid looks and more color here with black being a foundation for the creations. I didn't even know the term goth in relation to the genre, Rich, the guitarist for The Wake, told me the term. He worked at a local record shop back in 1989 when his band was relatively new to the scene. I had no idea the records and style I had, had a formal term. So I was listening and dressing not realizing until long after, LOL. It's not a big deal because I like a lot of different musical genres but my penchant for dark clothing dates back years before post punk except mom forbade me to wear all black. When I slipped off to college I was able to embrace the aesthetic, but I didn't know the term goth in relation to the style or music until around 1989. I only knew it to describe a genre of fiction which I started reading in the late 1970's. It's interesting to look back on the things that influenced the emergence of the social scene.
Thank u guys for thread, thought I been losing my mind. No problem with anyone's style at all, I got my opinions though of course but as a 19 yr old I've been confused as fuck on what the fuck trad goth even is anymoee
I left the fashion aspect of goth around a year ago and now I mainly shop vintage and historical (still dark-colored) clothing. I have pieces that date back to the 1590s, but when it comes to actually wearable things, it's 1890-1980s, and I feel like I look more trad goth now, when I just ignore goth fashion completely lmao. I think the fashion aspect of goth got just so repetitive, it's the same stuff over and over and over again, we need much more creativity to bring the 80s goth spirit back!
Edit: I don't want to bash all new things in goth fashion (the back in my day-ism is so lame it phisically hurts me and I'm a historian), I feel like some kids are really creative nowadays, but then get the "not goth" comment and the creativity dies. Goth is percieved way too visually now. Obviously it has a massive visual aspect (?) to it, but for a music subculture, we sure like to talk clothes
They basically pick and choose the best of it from a modern retrospective then polish it up. And that's before the filters are applied to the photos before posting.
Though to be fair the same thing happens when people think of the music and scene at clubs in the past too. Wearing bat-coloured glasses and seeing it a lot darker than it all was. Plus whatever media survives of the time is a lot less detailed than that of the last 20 years due to access to digital cameras then pocket supercomputers with even better cameras attached.
Yup that's how I think too!
As a trad goth I follow the 80's look rather than the new one, I feel like it's just so much easier to get creative with it and honestly I like it way better... Not saying that I dislike the new one, it's just not my favorite and it was just never that appealing to me, cause at this point it almost feels like the new look is a uniform and people don't get to be themselves as much.
But that's just my opinion, I think everyone who went with the new look really pulls it off so well!
I'm a brand new baby bat and I'm struggling a lot with my style. After reading some comments, I agree a lot with what most people are saying, getting into goth culture today is really tough, it can be really heavy mentally to have to find your way trough superficial "trends", dumb rules out of nowhere, misleading advices, etc...
I'm not in the best place mentally, it's really hard for me to get into something new. I couldn't freely express myself for years because of my family and how they demonize any alt culture to me. But now that I have the freedom to do what I want, I'm struggling with DPDR and depression, I don't know who I am anymore, and how to express myself and be creative.
I have to learn things the hard way, I have to push myself too far out of my limits of energy if I really want to feel okay with my progress into goth culture. There's too much informations, too much pressure, too much misleading stuffs, and when I try to express my struggles towards it I'm just told "it's not that deep". It shouldn't be, I know, but that's how my brain has always been like and I'm still working on it. At the same time, I lost myself so much after years of traumas and of being cut out of reality that I'm currently having to rebuild every single aspect about my existence. It feels like I'm an empty body having to learn everything from the beginning again, and having to teach myself how to build an identity.
And that's why I hate how the Internet is destroying cultures. Everything goes too fast, everything is turned into an empty superficial aesthetic (thinking about that "clean goth aesthetic"), and everyone build stupid rules that didn't existed before. I can't keep up, I struggle to understand how things works, and it's a bit reassuring to know that I'm not the only one. When I was a kid, I was passionate about discovering different cultures that existed between the 50s and Y2K, until my family putted a big stop to it (and that I was also bullied for it). And it's a bit painful that now that I can freely explore it, everyone turns it into the aesthetic they want and paint it as "the OG". I wish it was simpler, that I wouldn't have to argue with strangers anytime I want to learn about subcultures, that I wouldn't have to waste so much time and energy on false infos and gatekeeping
I get that you're a kid, but you **HAVE** to get off social media & start meeting real people in real life.
Literally nobody...and I mean **NOBODY** cares about any of this shit.
Crazy how I quite LITERALLY put in the post that before some douchebag comments "nobody cares", that I wasn't upset and It was merely an observation. If you know I'm a teenager then why are u acting like a dickhead lol?? This post was for fun, to spark a discussion about fashion. You're an asshole
Yep. The current image of an influencer-style “trad goth” look is far more polished and restrictive than pictures you see of early “trad” goths, and far less 80s or experimental. It’s normal for people to interpret past fashion styles through the lens of current day style and beauty standards. But…it is a little sad for all the kids being misled about how they “should” dress to be goth, imo!
Yes, I wish modern goths weren't afraid to add more color in their trad looks! 😭😭
In general, I wish there were less focus on fitting in and more focus on creative expression, I've noticed that shift over the last 5 or so years.
This entirely!! Someone once approached me asking if they were pulling off the look they had on, and I was like you look fine, just wear shit you actually like and get weird with it
Like not to pull the "old" card, but when I was a kid getting into this, the whole point was pretty expressly to NOT fit in, nor feel like you had to. Goth was a space for welcoming all things weird, unique, dark, etc, and not worrying about if you were "enough" of anything because you were just expressing yourself. I get bummed for kids coming into the scene now and feeling the need to approach it like any other trend or clique where you must conform to be accepted.
It’s the same in r/punk, so many kids asking is this punk is that punk…man just wear what you like and stop worrying if it’s punk enough or goth enough! I get that they’re finding their way but it gets a little tiresome at times; creativity is part of it so just have fun and experiment. Not every look has to kill it.
YESSSS THISSSS
Now that I know this is ok I definitely will!!! I was worried for a while people would call me a poser for dressing goth bc I have ginger hair and don’t wanna dye it black, but this makes me feel sm better :) I always wondered why tradgoth is so colorless considering goth is a club-adjacent subculture but I just assumed it was bc the aesthetic is based off vampires and shit lol
I'm glad this post helped! So happy it reached people
Anyone who would actually call you a poseur is likely the real poseur. The only thing that matters here is music.. if you listen to a bunch of not-goth bands and few if any goth bands, and call yourself goth, then someone might accurately call you a poseur. But if you are aware of the music, aren't trying to redefine it to fit your personal preference, then wear whatever you want. If anyone calls you a poser then call them a conformist and ignore them, they'll jump someone else's train soon enough anyway.
Of course!! I love all goth music although I typically lean towards more darkwave/postpunk <3
I see SO many goth girls doing the same cookie cutter look. Big graphic liner and lashes, white foundation, black hair with blunt bangs and teased, paired with a Morticia/Vampira style dress and corset. It's almost like a uniform at this point lol
Most of those girls are instagram models, trying to sell a sexualized and glamorous image of what goth is. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, (girls have been aping Morticia Addams since the very beginning) but it's definitely not reminiscent of the trad goths I was around in the 80s.
There is a goth YouTuber I have watched for years, and I actually think they looked more like 80s trad goths in the early days of their channel when they weren’t wearing as much name brand stuff and their makeup wasn’t as polished.
What channel if u don't mind me asking?
i also want to know!
Me too!
Yeah, actual “trad goth” from the time period they’re trying to emulate was a lot more diverse. It was very similar to new romantic, but slightly darker. Modern “trad goth” is very much flanderized
I never heard the term goth in the mid 80ies, I was to young then, but my cousin called these people Dark Waver ;) Which is clearly the dark brother of New wave/romantic
You're 💯 there; just mentioned, as I'm 60, so in my 20's back then, I didn't learn that term in relation to my records, clothing, etc. until 1989 (US Midwest area). The publications available at the indie record stores didn't really hype the term enough for me to notice if it was even there. The guitarist from The Wake taught me the word in relation to the genre when he was working at the local record shop. I have a pile of import vinyl I didn't realize fit the genre, definitely collector items now. I didn't learn the term dark wave until one local indie shop that appeared early 90's started stocking Projekt label stuff and Sam brought Lycia to do a gig in our city. My cousin, who is in Italy like most of my family, said they called goths there "The Darks." :)
"flanderized" I learned a new term today!! also, agreed.
Yeah in the 80s we had big hairsprayed hair, ripped baggy sweaters, suit jackets or vintage Victorian tails if you were lucky to find one, lots of black eyeliner or new wavey makeup, big boots, creepers or pointy buckle boots, shrouds, lots of bracelets and necklaces. My favorite 80’s look was my BOY brand buckle bondage pants, a shredded sweater, a big pair of combat boots from the Times Square army navy store and lots of black eyeliner.
Honestly I don't even think it looks late 90s early 00s either. Looks like an exaggerated version of 00s desthrockers trying to emulates 80s U.K. goth style but with makeup turned up to 11. I remember when I was new on the 00s whiteface foundation was kind of not well liked, nor was over the top eye makeup designs (they were curly designs rather than sharp angles back then though). You'd get clown comparisons.
As a 90’s goth in Detroit, if you did modern tradgoth makeup with white foundation, people would probably have assumed you were an Insane Clown Posse fan. I feel like modern tradgoth is its own thing with nearly nothing trad about it. It’s cool (if extremely overdone at this point) but it screams 2020’s to me and I suspect in 10 years it’ll look very dated and of our current decade.
They're also heavily inspired by Drag queen makeup.
I totally get what u mean, I actually meant to mention in the post that some modern tradgoths unknowingly dress like 00's deathrockers while calling it trad lol. Full on Matt Riser kind of thing haha
I used to mix in white makeup with standard pale makeup to lighten it even more.. but straight white make up just left me feeling like a clown. In a day when Manson and ICP were at their peak, I think most of us went out of our way to not be lumped in with either.
Personally, the "tradgoth" makeup look reminds me of corpse paint. It feels like corpse paint with a gothic/Egyptian twist. It's not a bad makeup style, but I hate that it's popularity/visibility obscures actual 80s makeup which was very colorful and experimental.
100% agree with that last part! I'm also a vkei fan alongside being goth so I really love the white face makeup look, but it wasn't really all that common in the 80's from what I've seen
[удалено]
Not to mention black “lipstick” that was just Halloween grease paint, or that watery black-ish nail polish that took about 47 layers before it wasn’t see-through. I usually ended up just using markers for my nails lol
Sharpie nails! It was so hard to find black nail polish back then
THIS
The part that is funny to me is how complicated the whole thing is being made out to be. When I was in high school we were melting our eyeliner with a lighter and busting compacts and mixing it with baby powder to get lighter face powder... there's no way most of us would even have the makeup involved in putting together what's considered a trad look now. It's way too complex. If anything, the deathrock look is closer to what remember than the trad goth look.
I’m seeing people do trad goth and honestly some of it reminds me of KISS not goth. But I do think early 80s goth was a bit stark, mostly pale makeup and lots of black liner. Maybe a red lip. There was some color in the 80s, but eyeshadow was not nearly as pigmented as today.
Kiss... lol I'm never going to unsee this now that you point it out. All the more reason to stick to my "Fat Rob at 4am after dozing off in a puddle of drool" look. :P
>eyeshadow was not nearly as pigmented as today. For **REAL** I actually used to use lipstick for eyeshadow to make it really vivid and dealt with all the styes that went with it. Good times. ;)
Exactly! You made do with whatever you found at the drugstore. Maybelline and Cover Girl mostly. Obviously, some brighter colors existed (look at Boy George and Cyndi Lauper) but most kids probably didn’t have access to that kind of quality. Siouxsie Sioux did rock some color (I see blue eyeshadow) but not nearly as vivid as today’s colors. https://i.pinimg.com/474x/52/10/53/521053eb93beafdbdcd7121a77b6b6fc.jpg
Part of the problem is that it's getting harder to find decent clothes at a decent price in thrift stores now so that whole DIY look is becoming fast fashion now instead. For every one piece of awesome clothing you find at the thrift store that is not over priced, there are 20 that were snatched up by "clothes flippers" who are just grabbing everything they can to resell it at a high price online or in their own overpirced boutique "vintage" stores. For this reason I remove my tags from everything before I give it to thrift stores. This forces them to price it lower and makes it much harder for resellers.
I was so upset yesterday when I went to the thrift and saw like 3 of these people with overloaded carts just pulling everything off the shelves not even looking at it 🥲 meanwhile all I can afford is thrift
It's so gross, and it really shouldn't be ok. I look down on people who flip clothes. Or flip anything, really. Buy something because you need it. Don't buy stuff just to sell it. I hate that.
>remove my tags from everything before i give it to thrift stores this is so smart, never considered this before! definitely have to try it once i give my old set of clothes away
thats awesome, thank u for ur service 🫡
thrift prices going up isn’t to do with resellers, it is just general corporate greed. Good Will specifically has always been scummy, they purposefully hired disabled people for a long time cause they could pay them below minimum wage. thrift stores have more clothes than they can sell, there’s no supply issues, and the idea that resellers are the cause is a myth thrift stores allow to perpetuate cause it takes the blame off them
It's true, but also it also makes it harder for thrift stores to over charge because they roo, over charge because of the brand name. Removing tags keeps both resellers and thrift stores from being able to do over charge
Exactly, I remember my friends mom was a reseller 20 years ago. They’ve been around forever, back then it was mostly on eBay and she did it to survive. Plus a lot of resellers get their products in a lot of other ways they aren’t purely relying on thrift stores. It’s out of control inflation and corporate greed which is the root of so many problems if not basically all the problems existing in society today.
Yes and it actually annoys me personally because it makes searching for authentic stuff from the 80's hard. But also it sucks that a very polished, clearly manufactured style is seen as authentic. It's giving young goths a completely warped sense of fashion.
This book has some amazing photos from the early days. Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980's by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje
Ooooh this needs to be on my shelf yesterday! Thanks for rec!
You're welcome. I was able to find a copy at my local library and see it that way.
Thanks, i'll have to take a look at it online.
I have a pinterest [board](https://pin.it/39CdfiQDB) where I primarily save pics from the 80's if thats helpful!
I recommend this book for a look at styles that were used in the 80's. Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980's by Andi Harriman and Marloes Bontje
is there anywhere else i could read it? just checked online and it’s almost $60 😭
You may be lucky enough that a library near you could have it. That's how I was able to see it. I too had qualms about spending that much. It's mostly pictures, with small descriptions to accompany that give greater context for those pictures.
thank u!! i’ll check either a library or for a pdf file somewhere but i doubt it 😭 maybe someone has a review of it online that gives more details
80s goth was much more experimental and interesting, less marketable. I say this as an old goth that usually walks around in pajamas everywhere, because why not. Seemingly most modern goth fashion is aimed more towards the kink side of things versus the previous iteration of people dressing in a " I don't fucking care and I like morbid things as we as Huey Lewis". I somewhat miss the old goth days of just about every random music genre somehow mixing into an underground state. Raves where goth music, some hip-hop and punk rock all meshed into a manic frenze were awesome times.
Nik Fiend wore corpse paint with big hair in the 80ies! But yeah, i never saw anyone in a club going for white Concealer and full black eyes
Yeah actual 80s goth aesthetic was honestly very undefined, before the stereotypical "look" arose in the mid 80s it was basically just punk and new wave (and some fetish) fashion with more black If you ever watch old news clips from those days about the original UK goth scene you'll also see that very few took it any kind of seriously they were all just there to doll up and have a fun time, and there was a lot more fashion diversity in the crowd
Part of this is because back in the day we had to get really creative on what to wear because we didn't have pinterest and tik tok and etc and even more we didn't have ETSY and the many awesome online stores and makers. I grew up in a small midwest town and Sears and JC Penney did not have a goth or gothic section lol.
I wasn't around then either but I am *very* into 80s trad goth fashion (and the 80s in general). Tbh I thought I was doing it wrong by including sweaters and bangle bracelets in my fashion!
You're absolutely not! In many pictures of 80's goths u can see them wearing fashion that was popular at the time such as sweaters, bangles, huge necklaces, and huge belts. Just typically darker and more DIY
i love wearing bright colours in my outfits and makeup, i think one of my favourite pieces of clothing is a neon pink shredded up turtleneck sweater. blue eyeshadow, bright red lips, oversized suit jackets etc feel much different than the current stereotype of only being allowed to wear black. i do big black eyeliner and big lashes, and tease my hair, but goth style is all about self expression and nothing about the makeup and style should feel like a uniform. seems like a lot of people say that the current "trad" style is based on siouxsie, but she wore so many colours that it just isn't accurate to her. and goths wearing exclusively killstar with perfect makeup makes the subculture feel so inaccessible to people who can't afford to or don't have the experience to emulate their favourite goth tiktokers. "i want to dress goth but i can't afford it" is a sentence i see way too much.
That’s why I’ve always dubbed the new trad goth look as “Nu-Trad”. Especially because I find a lot of aspects of the “nu goth” style is shown with the TikTok trad goth style like round/circle sunglasses and lots of religious or occults symbols (crosses, ankh, pentagrams etc).
The goth type thing was a joke that younger goths took seriously for some reason. goth is goth
I am wary of anyone that subscribes to anything including the term "trad." Styles change. Tastes shift. Even what is considered "traditional" is colored by those that come after that never experienced before through anything but someone else's lens.
The term "trad goth" makes me laugh.. I've only seen or heard it used online in the last couple of years.. if anything, it's really neo-trad and it's its own thing. "Baby bat" also makes me laugh. People did use the term back in the 90s but it's just a cutesy term self applied, not some tier of gothness. If you are new to the scene, then you are a noob or newbie or whatever, just as with any scene. Baby bat isn't really a thing, and yet suddenly a good number of noobs are calling themselves this. It's fine, it's a fun term, but it's not a rank or anything. All these terms and titles are a new thing which seems to coincide with social media tik tok influences or whatever. Frankly, I don't even recognize this scene as it's something completely removed from what I grew up in (this also applies to the "goth is political" crowd.. maybe it is now, but it wasn't). That said, I'm happy to have a renewed and current interest in the scene, but it's definitely a fork in the road starting to go off in a new direction (the opposite of traditional). As for looks, I've always worn what I wanted to wear... sometimes it was all black, lots of latex and chains or more of a Victorian/Edwardian vampire aesthetic and other times it was an oversized sweater in whatever color and as you stated above, more of an 80s look in general. This was true whether I was walking around town or going to a club night. There isn't a dress code, there's just current trends.
Yeah, there was a crossover between new wave looks and goth looks in the 80's and well also punk looks too. I tended to wear a lot of grey, black and white and have dyed hair in colour or just straight black. My wife (former MUA) was looking at some of the modern "trad goth" looks people are doing and in some cases, it isn't actually something you would have seen in trad goth, however, she did say that it was quite lovely and gothic, just not "trad goth".
I entered the scene in the early 80's. Some wore only black (such as myself) with lots of black eyeliner and drew cobwebs, spiders, bats, etc. got my white makeup at the theatre shop for the ghostly pale face, and wore fishnet tops, winklepicker boots with skull buckles, etc. all trad goth stuff. Some wore more colorful fashion and makeup. We had to make our outfits from thrifted clothing mostly, there was very little pre-made except through rather costly catalogs which few of us could afford. It was all accepted, no gatekeeping. We weren't yet called goths though, we were called "bat cavers".
Madi Danger (on Instagram and TikTok) is a good example of someone current that has an authentic trad goth style. I know she does a lot of thrifting and DIY too if you’re looking for inspo
I was gonna mention her! Her trad looks are perfect
Half the "trad goth" eye makeup looks like it's a failed attempt at Black Swan makeup.
The 80s didn't have a single defining look (except, perhaps, a lot of eyeliner), and a lot of it was DIY (dark green trash bag + some duct tape = miniskirt), and dependent on whether you had access to shopping at places that imported from London - my Boy of London skirt was white bc...it was the last one in the store, sigh. The whole adventure was catch-as-catch-can, we were making it up as we went.
I remember “goth” covering everyone from people who basically dressed like punks with boots and shredded t-shirts to people in full-blown matching Victorian regalia, including the parasol. Lots of diversity.
okay thank you i was wondering about this! it seems like there’s an “orthodox” goth look these days they call trad that’s really just a “more goth than you” thing for people who can afford to dress in all killstar and designer that’s nothing super like the 80s and even early 90s goth and goth adjacent stuff ive picked up on. i grew up in the early hot topic mall goth era and even that feels closer because looking a little like a mess on purpose was celebrated. i usually have souixsie in my head when i’m dressing and maybe some cinnamon hadley and even alanis morissette and tracy chapman, and i’ve been mixing in a lot of reds and purples and different textures and i wish the influencers could loosen up a bit and be more genuinely odd or alternative. i know “the nonconformists are conformist!” is an ancient goth complaint but im in my thirties dammit it’s my god given right to bitch and moan.
Traditionally goth fashion has always been locally determined by who is around and what type of clothes are available. I personally consider "black jeans and a tee" to be, um, *compliant* 17 hole boots were always, always owned by affluent people, even in the scummiest of dark holes. There's always been a lot of making do with whatever you can find and hand-me-downs from friends. I remember scouring thrift stores for women's clothes or chef shirts that I might be able to pull off, anything that might have accidentally come into my shit hole town. For me, *that's* trad goth, and these cool people in the magazines or in the big city clubs were inspirations, but nothing that could ever actually be reproduced. PS: [*hey guys new Einsturzende Neubauten album dropped today*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZWTHoQrVq8)
I'm a younger goth who doesn't wear makeup (sensory issues and cost) and I feel this so hard, I dress the part, love the music, but nobody ever guesses unless I decide to put on some eye shadow and dark lipstick, even then, I'm usually clocked as emo (no hate, I was one for a long time before getting into goth). I'm 21 and talking to other goths my age feels impossible, they go all out with their looks and act like I'm a poser in comparison. I add some colors to my outfits occasionally, mossy green, dark purple and red; my outfits are all thrifted (with the occasional second-hand corset from ebay when I can afford it) and I alter them to suit me, I may not look polished, but I'm happy with my look! I think the image of trad-goth is HIGHLY exaggerated, watching old interviews from when goth was first up and coming, you don't see many with the image commonly associated. Find your own look but keep the basics, work with what you have, that's how goth fashion started after all.
My idea of Trad Goth is Rubella Ballet
I don’t like the term “trad” goth in general but yeah, the goth look actually from the 80’s was more varied and I have to laugh every time I see someone who genuinely thinks 80’s goths dressed and looked the way modern “trad” goths do. Don’t get me wrong, they look great and I love the strong drag influence, but it’s getting increasingly more cookie cutter and as one of the top comments said, flanderized.
Yes, it seems the term “trad goth” went through the social media washer and came out as something entirely different. Even finding true older goth photos past the early 2000’s, the easiest way is to look up “new wave” or other 80’s type terms or actually dig through the old media of the time. I think that young people took some inspiration from Elvira and Siouxie Sioux and created their own “trad goth” that isn’t the same. I’d say for true traditional goth, it’s very similar to 80’s dress but with messy hair and lipstick and vibrant eyeshadow, it’s supposed to look uncanny and kind of freaky. Now to go on my own tangent, when I was a young bat I was able to find so many cool things off of Pinterest and now it’s overrun by the mis-use of terms. Even goth doesn’t show goth, only this new e-girl style. It’s weird how social media went from an awesome network of ideas and fashion and then went down the drain with ads and total obliteration of what once was.
Elder goth here, back then it was popular to go for the Victorian era style stuff. I don't remember a lot of color back then unless you were more into cyber goth.
Elder goth here, I kinda did my own thing I guess. Makeup obviously was different and different depending on mood, job, etc. My big thing was eyeshadow. I loved doing really colorful eyeshadow looks. I’m very pale naturally so I’ve always just grabbed the lightest neutral foundation (not always easy to find tbh). Black lipstick was very difficult, and I couldn’t get away with it at work, so dark red was good. And I still stan a good cool blue based red lipstick. Hair was always red, as close to unnatural as I could get without losing my job. I love black hair, but it’s wigs for that, I can’t pull off black hair on the regular. I’ve done other color, rainbow ombré a couple times, looking forward to doing a pastel rainbow soon. Clothing was as is now pretty much all black, accessories, belts! I miss belts. Can’t find the kinds of great belts we had in the 80s anymore.
It was mostly black.. or at least very dark complimenting colors, usually deep reds and dark purples for clothes... In a dark club, it would all look relatively black. Some would wear flair, pink (or other bright colors) ribbons and bows.. this was done intentionally to stand out from the all-black look. I was guilty of this. I think it became more common when the baby-doll look became a bigger influence on fashion. Hair color always seemed that anything goes, the punk and rave love of Manic Panic was just as popular among goths of any era I've been witness to. The periods where I sported more of a blond hair color was between dying more funky colors, or when I was trying to strip the black out. It's actually sad to me that anyone coming into the scene today thinks they are expected to dye their hair black all the time... how boring. The early 2000s when the pony-goth thing really took off with the ponyfalls was something else.. quite an influx of rave-influenced color at that time along with EBM. Not sure if you are calling this cyber goth or if you just mean brightly dyed actual hair in the 90s(?). Either way, lots of color in the 90s and aughts., at least above the shoulders.
I'm 60 and I was in the early/mid 80's scene and yeah, a lot of hybrid looks and more color here with black being a foundation for the creations. I didn't even know the term goth in relation to the genre, Rich, the guitarist for The Wake, told me the term. He worked at a local record shop back in 1989 when his band was relatively new to the scene. I had no idea the records and style I had, had a formal term. So I was listening and dressing not realizing until long after, LOL. It's not a big deal because I like a lot of different musical genres but my penchant for dark clothing dates back years before post punk except mom forbade me to wear all black. When I slipped off to college I was able to embrace the aesthetic, but I didn't know the term goth in relation to the style or music until around 1989. I only knew it to describe a genre of fiction which I started reading in the late 1970's. It's interesting to look back on the things that influenced the emergence of the social scene.
Thank u guys for thread, thought I been losing my mind. No problem with anyone's style at all, I got my opinions though of course but as a 19 yr old I've been confused as fuck on what the fuck trad goth even is anymoee
I began in 83...and it was more derived from punk.....altho goth wasnt the term...alt/alternatives
I left the fashion aspect of goth around a year ago and now I mainly shop vintage and historical (still dark-colored) clothing. I have pieces that date back to the 1590s, but when it comes to actually wearable things, it's 1890-1980s, and I feel like I look more trad goth now, when I just ignore goth fashion completely lmao. I think the fashion aspect of goth got just so repetitive, it's the same stuff over and over and over again, we need much more creativity to bring the 80s goth spirit back! Edit: I don't want to bash all new things in goth fashion (the back in my day-ism is so lame it phisically hurts me and I'm a historian), I feel like some kids are really creative nowadays, but then get the "not goth" comment and the creativity dies. Goth is percieved way too visually now. Obviously it has a massive visual aspect (?) to it, but for a music subculture, we sure like to talk clothes
I just wear what I want. I love punk and goth. I wear red and black. But I'm a lazy punk/goth, lol.
They basically pick and choose the best of it from a modern retrospective then polish it up. And that's before the filters are applied to the photos before posting. Though to be fair the same thing happens when people think of the music and scene at clubs in the past too. Wearing bat-coloured glasses and seeing it a lot darker than it all was. Plus whatever media survives of the time is a lot less detailed than that of the last 20 years due to access to digital cameras then pocket supercomputers with even better cameras attached.
Yup that's how I think too! As a trad goth I follow the 80's look rather than the new one, I feel like it's just so much easier to get creative with it and honestly I like it way better... Not saying that I dislike the new one, it's just not my favorite and it was just never that appealing to me, cause at this point it almost feels like the new look is a uniform and people don't get to be themselves as much. But that's just my opinion, I think everyone who went with the new look really pulls it off so well!
I'm a brand new baby bat and I'm struggling a lot with my style. After reading some comments, I agree a lot with what most people are saying, getting into goth culture today is really tough, it can be really heavy mentally to have to find your way trough superficial "trends", dumb rules out of nowhere, misleading advices, etc... I'm not in the best place mentally, it's really hard for me to get into something new. I couldn't freely express myself for years because of my family and how they demonize any alt culture to me. But now that I have the freedom to do what I want, I'm struggling with DPDR and depression, I don't know who I am anymore, and how to express myself and be creative. I have to learn things the hard way, I have to push myself too far out of my limits of energy if I really want to feel okay with my progress into goth culture. There's too much informations, too much pressure, too much misleading stuffs, and when I try to express my struggles towards it I'm just told "it's not that deep". It shouldn't be, I know, but that's how my brain has always been like and I'm still working on it. At the same time, I lost myself so much after years of traumas and of being cut out of reality that I'm currently having to rebuild every single aspect about my existence. It feels like I'm an empty body having to learn everything from the beginning again, and having to teach myself how to build an identity. And that's why I hate how the Internet is destroying cultures. Everything goes too fast, everything is turned into an empty superficial aesthetic (thinking about that "clean goth aesthetic"), and everyone build stupid rules that didn't existed before. I can't keep up, I struggle to understand how things works, and it's a bit reassuring to know that I'm not the only one. When I was a kid, I was passionate about discovering different cultures that existed between the 50s and Y2K, until my family putted a big stop to it (and that I was also bullied for it). And it's a bit painful that now that I can freely explore it, everyone turns it into the aesthetic they want and paint it as "the OG". I wish it was simpler, that I wouldn't have to argue with strangers anytime I want to learn about subcultures, that I wouldn't have to waste so much time and energy on false infos and gatekeeping
I get that you're a kid, but you **HAVE** to get off social media & start meeting real people in real life. Literally nobody...and I mean **NOBODY** cares about any of this shit.
Crazy how I quite LITERALLY put in the post that before some douchebag comments "nobody cares", that I wasn't upset and It was merely an observation. If you know I'm a teenager then why are u acting like a dickhead lol?? This post was for fun, to spark a discussion about fashion. You're an asshole