Favorite hairstyle

Read more about the challenge here.

This is easy: the undercut/sidecut/bilevel cut. It's had a number of names over the years. Most of you bloggers have it, and it's easy to see why. It's as easy to take care of as short hair, but it's got the benefits of long hair. It goes with every style and with every color. I've NEVER seen this hairstyle look bad on anyone. It's the easiest haircut to DIY too. and you don't have to style it! 

me in college, over a decade ago. my acne's gotten better, but otherwise I don't seem to age, lol. A blessing and a curse.

nu-goth music? else, bands I like

Here I am, posting stuff without doing any research. What do people consider nu-goth music? No idea. I don't think there're and bands billing themselves that way, no matter how many times they show up on my tumblr feed.

I made a nu-goth playlist, and this is what I have on it. I picked these songs based qualities that the fashion has, which is:

minimalism
90s throwback, lo-fi
irony/humor, especially dark humor (hipster influence)
New (no old school)

Crystal Stilts
Local band out of Brooklyn (though they ARE just doing a world tour, so I guess not so local anymore. BTW best music = Brooklyn). The singer's voice is just so beautiful, I want to weep. The band doesn't bill itself as a goth band--it's quite indie, but very dreary. If nu-goth had a sound, I would definitely say this is it. Minimal, dark, grungy. Magnetic Moon is and old song and easily the most trad goth. and Star Crawl is just beautiful...and the video is cool too.

In another time, in another place

read about the challenge here.

What would I wear if I didn't wear dark fashion? Well, I don't always. I just go full-out Williamsburg hipster: ridiculous glasses, plaid shirts...something between art school and lumberjack. stupid sweaters.

What would I like to wear if I didn't wear dark fashion? That's a different story. If I could think of a perfect, happy version of myself, I'd picture some prairie girl homesteader living in some cottage. Or out in the field. Whatever. So I'd probably say Mori.

Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit

Just came back from the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. It was pretty cool. I know you guys know all about him, but if you don't, he's the guy who did Madonna's famous corset. (btw all the photos here are photos I took at the exhibit). I went with my mom (who's in town), who's a huge fan of his work since the 80s.

Cool Tumblrs

Yes, it's true I've been MIA for a while. I'll be back in full blogging force sometime mid-December. I'm still on the interwebs, looking at your blogs. And tumblrs. Here are a few tumblrs that I love:

Polyvore Gore

Nothing too deep here: just goth polyvore sets. These outfits are all so awesome. 

Psycho Disco

This tumblr directly inspired my television editorial in this post. This tumblr has a lot of stills from films and some of the most amazing photos I've seen. Lots of weird and a really unique aesthetic I haven't seen anywhere.

Ethnic-inspired Septum Jewelry

I'm deciding to forgo my vow of only wearing pincers in my septum (pierced earlier this year) and saw these vaguely ethnic Tawapa septum clickers on sale at various sites:

I'm categorizing this as "cool, but not for me," especially when I saw that some of these were almost TWO INCHES long. What would that even look like?

Horror in Dark or Goth Fashion: The Uncanny

heady post today: the uncanny. Freud's uncanny, which I'd argue is the cornerstone of dark fashion. The Uncanny is also the cornerstone of Horror as a concept+theory. The definition:

an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar.

Corsets do this to some degree. Yes--she looks like a woman, but something seems slightly off. Even a basic corset is uncanny. Oh, her waist is exaggerated. "Cool! I love it!" says the dark fashion fan, who enjoys the uncanny more than most. But then you get to the more extreme corsetry, which becomes a form of body modification. Beautiful? If you like the uncanny, yes. If you're terrified of something appearing human and not at the same time, then probably not. 

When we talk about how "hardcore" someone is, we could be talking about where in the Uncanny Valley this person stands....literally: