Talk:Gothic fashion/Archive 1

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NPOV Violation

This article is infected with POV. It describes goth fashion as being rooted to some degree in "elitism"; it describes people as "dressed to the nines for no apparent reason." This article should be rewritten to eliminate this anti-goth POV. --Daniel C. Boyer 21:22, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Response to critique

I wrote that, but it was meant to be tongue in cheek, and not anti-goth at all! I love that people get dressed up to go nowhere. It's what makes goth fun!

Fixed one NPOV Violation

Personally, I don't see the line about being dressed to the nines for no apparent reason as being anti-goth -- to me, it reads as slightly ironic. I don't think it's necessarily the most eloquent way of putting it. Perhaps we could say that for goths, going out to a club is a great reason to get ridiculously dressed up. It's one of our major pastimes! While I understand that sarcasm and irony are nearly impossible to communicate in an electronic medium, try as I may I can't find a way in which to put this that doesn't involve humor. Spending four hours on your appearance and three at a club is silly! And fun!

The line about elitism has galled me for a while, so I took a stab at fixing it. I believe it was originally part of a more extensive screed about body image prejudices and snobbery. I think it's appropriate to mention the fact that goths police the boundaries of their subculture, and that fashion is a major part of this; so I've tried to talk about the practice without attaching value judgements. It's quite true that this often leads to perceptions of snobbery or elitism, but I think that should only be mentioned in this article if it's particular to the goth scene. Otherwise, I'd put it under the new heading I've created for subcultural identity practices.

I think there are a lot of things that need to be fixed in this article, and at some point either I or my partner might propose a full re-write. Major things I'd add:

Context; where the styles derive from, how they are produced and communicated.
Major Styles; a clear list of major styles, including several (notably cybergoth and deathrock) that are not mentioned here.
History; when particular styles developed, and evolutions
Geographic perspective; for instance in America, the comments about metal fashion being similar are unwarranted, precisely because the scenes maintain a lot of distance, whereas in Latin America and much of Europe, metal culture is close with goth culture and there is cross-polination.

Because of this point I removed the statement that Goths don't like metal and that Metalheads don't associate with Goths, mostly because I AM a (european) Metalhead and I do associate with Goths (in fact, most of my friends, including myself I imagine, are an amalgam of Goth and Metalhead and if I look at popular Metal- and Goth Festivals in Europe (like Earthshaker, Graspop, Rockwerchter, Wave Gothic Treffen etc..) there's a significant mix of both subcultures present there. Robrecht 12:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

The biggest thing that bothers me right now is that there is no mention of how and where goth fashion is actually worn. There are some general notes made about how it looks, but in my experience the style consists of a continuum. It ranges from very extreme, cohesive presentations of one style; through less extreme copies which may pick elements from several styles; to the fairly flat presentations which may add a few flourishes onto an otherwise plain combination of black jeans/BDUs/skirts plus black tank/t-shirt. There is no mention of fishnet, hairspray, big black boots, winkle pickers or eyeliner. There is no mention of differences between dressing up for a club and dressing up to do the grocery shopping.

Finally, how does one dye ones hair a "flat, matte black"? In my experience, you get glossy black hair by putting greasy products onto your dyed black hair, while matte finishes are acchieved through the use of far, far too much hairspray.

--Latemodel 21:20, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It is now September, there are quite a few edits since the above comments. It looks like 2 issues were raise, one was fixed, the other is argued as Not POV. Any other arguments? If there's no reply, I'll remove the NPOV tag at the end of the week. -Vina 23:16, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Article title

My problem is with the heading. "Gothic" refers to the historical people/tribes, and they did have clothes. They didn't have hairspray. :-) To call this "goth" might be ok, but "Gothic" is misleading.

I agree that it can be misleading; but I think the problem is insoluble because the names are -- and will likely remain -- the same. Note that even the main article requires a redirect to a page about the germanic tribe. There is a some argument for using "gothic fashion", since it has some currency within the scene (vid. alt.gothic.fashion); on the other hand, I can't think of a time when I've heard someone use that term instead of "goth fashion". People in the scene tend to use "goth" as the correct adjective, usenet hierarchy be damned. We might also look at changing the gothic rock article to "goth rock".

Anyway, what makes you think the Goths had any fashion sense? ;) Latemodel 15:33, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Additionally, the reason for the confusion is what's missing: this fashion derives initially from a type of post-punk music. Without making it clear that the music existed, got called "gothic" (as in horror movies, which were called "gothic" after the horror novels, which were called "gothic" because they were a Romantic-era phenomenon that tended to center on ruins), and then that the clothes these bands wore inspired followers, the article is going to trip browsers. In particular, the band Bauhaus (with songs about people like Antonin Artaud and Bela Lagosi) dressed in this way. The spin-off of Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, was much more popular, and they, too, dressed this way. The Cure also had some hand in the development of the fashion. At any rate, this origin seems important to the article. Geogre 11:50, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Again, I agree. Do you have some time on your hands? I've contemplated a rewrite (see above) but not had time for it. The historical perspective is essential; as are descriptions of the various styles and stylistic elements. Latemodel 15:33, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

References

This article is completely lacking in any references. Something! Anything! Only way to lessen the NPOV tag.

Also, it'll almost certainly need to be broken down by country.

The history of goth fashion would also be useful - David Gerard 13:12, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"romance gothic" is not correct - "romanti-goth" or "romantigoth" is. "Romantic gothic" might work, at a stretch, but I have never in my life heard "romance gothic" used as a term. The aforementioned terms are the ones used.

A good reference would be the alt.gothic.fashion FAQ, wherever it is these days. - vm

I changed the entry to reflect correct wording.--Adrift* 13:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Material to merge

Could someone please assess the following material for a merger? It has been moved here from Gothpunk (since redirected). -- Graham ☺ | Talk 17:18, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Gothpunks, or Punk Goths are Goths who choose to adopt a more Grunger, Skater or Punk way of dressing. Whereas standard Goths may prefer to wear the more "Dracula" like outfits, Punk Goths prefer to wear things that are more associated with futuristic or as I call it funky, like skater gear, but maybe in red tartan, for example. Makeup may also be worn by male Punk Goths, but it is not a necessity and sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish the Grunger from the Punk Goth.

Internet: http://www.gothpunk.com/

Gothic fashion is currently an article about the basic tenets of the aesthetic, clothes and look, and doesn't include a classification of the fashion of all its sub-cultures and permutations, i.e. GothPunk or Japanese Goth, etcetera. Until someone decides to add such a classification, merger of the abovementioned GothPunk material would seem to belong more to the article on Goth that focuses on history, music, and definition (including sub-culture). Denstat 18:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Howdy, first I'd like to point out that the Gothpunk description above your statement, Denstat, is probably the worste take on gothpunk or deathrock fashion i've ever read. Apparently that person had no idea what he/she was talking about. Gothpunk fashion is more or less a monochromatic old school punk look with tall mohawks, spiky or backcombed hair, deconstructed clothing using lots of saftey pins and band t-shirts. It has nothing at all to do with skaters or the grunge look. Secondly, I'd like to point out that the Goth article already goes into fashion slightly, but I don't totally disagree with a merger nor with additions to this article exploring cybergoth, ren-fair, gothpunk, fetish and other fashions. I'd like to hear more from other folks though.--Adrift* 21:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello Adrift*, yep, that fragment screams "well-intentioned", but it does highlight how this fashion article could go further into classification and description of gothic fashion trends. I too would like to hear from others about what kind of balance should exist between both articles, so duplication is kept minimal. Also, does Gothpunk really need to redirect here, rather than to Goth? -- Denstat 07:37, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

To tell the truth, the Deathrock article would be a much better redirect. I'll fix it today.--Adrift* 12:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

GothicPedia

GothicPedia (http://wiki.gothicpedia.com/index.php?title=Main_Page)

Anyone here interested? The Wiki for all things gothic (At least I guess it is, there's not much there at the moment)

Sounds interesting as long as it's not one of those "I'm emo but goth" sites. TearAwayTheFunerealDress 15:07, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

This point is now moot, as the abovementioned link is dead. -- Denstat 22:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Image Revision

Changed the image. Japanese Gothic Lolita fashion has only rudimentary ties to goth, and is inappropriate as a typical example of goth fashion.

Ya, I just removed the japanese gothic lolita picture. It just stood out there and had no place in the article —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.166.222.34 (talk) 09:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

sounds good -- this question has come up a couple of times, and unless the article turns into a historical survey, the primary images should not represent other branches of gothic fashion. -- Denstat 18:40, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

DIY

I added a small mention of the DIY ethos that the early goth scene had re: fashion.

Commercial Site Links

Is there any way that commercial site links can have a relevance to this article? I was trying to manage the links to commercial sites as I felt that they had a lot to offer as a resource on current examples of Gothic Fashion. Many of the sites had gallery pages of either their own styles on models or of general goth events that the site owner had attended. I do fully understand the problem of link spam, but surely the heavy handed removal of any site which has a lot of relevance to the artice, but just also happens to sell products, isn't the way forward is it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.177.31.24 (talk • contribs) .

Hi. I removed the commercial links section en block. This page appeared on my radar as I was following a retail spammer around some 30+ pages (see e.g. 1 & 2), and I have no doubt that the links would have remained on this page for a very long time if I hadn't come along. I left the main external links section - no doubt there are some commercial links in there which add value to the article, but a directory of commercial retail outlets is not what Wikipedia is. Commercial links should ideally be avoided, but should always be justified. In any case there seem to be enough links. For further information see WP:NOT, WP:EL and WP:SPAM. (you can help!). Thanks. -- Linkspamremover 12:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

i have tagged the article for commercial link spam, since it keeps proliferating. while the argument that commercial links have relevance to the article due to their image content is generally accepted, they've gotten way out of hand again, and are constantly increasing. there is no way this article needs so many. users need to do it before some bot does. ideally there would be a link to a non-commercial site that would cover most looks -- this is not a fashion museum, we do not need to see every buckle and lace panel and hair colour. please go through links you posted and be judicious about whether they really need to appear. -- Denstat 15:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

i performed a links cleanup before some robot did it. i chose what i felt was non-commecial and what best represents the community and what best demonstrates what goth fashion really is without trying to sell bracelets. 69.230.69.115 10:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

(dances in celebration). thanks!! let's keep the links lean. -- Denstat 16:05, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...I run a yearly fashion show with goth designers called Nocturnal Instincts and includes a lot of images and links to goth designers. Its really not a big money maker, and thought it would be good on here???? Also Batgear Beyond (which I am not connected with), though a commercial site, is the standard directory for anyone that knows anything about goth fashion and should remain, I think. Deathlibrarian 04:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Goth Fashion shows

I have added a section on goth fashion shows, which doesn't seem to be addressed anywhere else, and is an important enough phenomenon that it should be....but not significant enough on its own to make another page. There were links to some of them, but they were taken out. Please, if you know of any goth fashion shows, please put in some details, I am only aware of three, and there must be more than that running out there.Deathlibrarian 00:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

what a good addition, Deathlibrarian. names of prominent goth designers would be a further good addition, as well as any style influences the designers cite. if commercial links have a legitimate context like fashion shows, then that's a good argument for keeping them. i revised your section slightly for grammar and flow. cheers. -- Denstat 06:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

major stab at restructuring and categorization

i broke down the article into categories. Deathlibrarian thoughtfully added a table of contents and i took a stab at it. comments? is it workable? was it better before? maybe this can lead to more precision and talking about style specifics now that some generalities are established. what do people think? -- Denstat 06:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Toward defining a Goth Fashion aesthetic

The section "Toward defining a Goth Fashion aesthetic" seems to border on original research to me. No specific citations are made, yet sweeping generalizations about what goth does or does not embrace are established. The section contains statements about goth's superior acceptance of beauty standards, "unlike mainstream fashion." I'm not sure this quite crosses over into WP:NPOV, but without any citations to back it up, it sure feels like WP:OR to me. I realize Goth Fashion is widesweeping and arguably more encompassing than other fashion scenes -- but it doesn't feel encyclopedic to write paragraphs about the goth scene's superior acceptance of beauty/fashion standards with no clear primary sources to back up any of these claims. I'd feel better if the article said things like, "According to so-and-so" and "Such-and-Such Magazine says" when making claims about what is/is not goth and how goth scenes compare with "mainstream fashion." 66.17.118.207 16:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

questions about this section have come up recently. i guess the only reason it's still there is that A) so-called 'alternative' fashions don't get as much press as the mainstream, and perhaps the assumption has been made that primary sources are few; B) the paragraphs provides a framework that may lend itself to eventual addition of citations as you suggest. what should be done? take down a fairly coherent section that may be WP:OR, or work with it? the entire article begs for research. -- Denstat 04:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

doesn't anybody have time to do any fact-checking or find any resources? i'm afraid that the article will probably be taken down, or relegated to a sub-section in another musical sub-genre fashion article, unless some work is done. if not, maybe this article belongs elsewhere on the 'net, not in an encyclopedia. please pitch in! -- Denstat 21:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Needs Closer Ties to Gothic Subculture

I think this article (in its current state) is a little too distant from the goth subculture and music. I might put a sentence about it being associated primarily with goths somewhere for now, but I think more music and subculture-related influences need to be added in the future. The only problem I see is with trying to avoid sounding too repetitive-- the article of the goth subculture already has a lot of mentioning on goth musicians who greatly influenced the look. I find that the Deathrock fashion page does a pretty good job at tying in the fashion with the scene and the music, maybe we could take some pointers from that. All in all, this article is pretty decent; what it really needs is fine-tuning. -- CatZilla 16:27, 05 October 2006 (UTC)

Criticism Section

Please consider including a criticism section. Babylicious2 20:48, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

be bold! go for it. -- Denstat 06:47, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

camp and gothic aesthetics

I've created a page Gothic_aesthetics. Please consider adding any material from here to that page which is appropriate as there is overlap. Also I do not see any mention of Camp_(style) here. Gothic fashion is campy. I'll add something if I can find documentation.TheDarknessVisible 23:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Articles to peruse for sources

please look over this article retrieved today for material that can be integrated into the article, or that can replace unsourced material in the article, thanks. -- Denstat 22:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC) A Piercing Look at Goth Culture and Fashion

How is gothic fashion an exclusive British subculture?

This is in reference to the changing of the word color to colour, and the reason for doing so. Do you honestly believe that gothic fashion is an exclusively British subculture thing? The American spelling of color is grammatically acceptable so I don't see why people have to change it, especially when they give nonsensical reasons for doing so.Crescentia 20:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English. I agree that it isn't an exclusive British subculture, so either is fine, but we should be consistent. Maurauth did at least change all occurances of the word; if you want to put it to American spelling, they should all be changed, please. Mdwh 21:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There was both color and colour in the article so I changed them back to color. Maurauth missed one ot two of them when he changed them to colour.Crescentia 01:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I never said it was exclusively a British subculture, you are putting words in my mouth. I'm saying that the subculture emerged in Britain (read the reply to the message you left on my talk page), and should therefore follow the correct spellings, not an americanisation. ≈ Maurauth ^(Ravenor) 11:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The American spelling IS also correct. Deathrock, which influenced gothic rock in America, was around the same time as Batcave, which influenced gothic rock in Britain. American bands such as 45 Grave and Christian Death were around the same time in America as the bands that you mentioned on the other page. I am not going to get in an edit war over this because you do not know your music history.Crescentia 12:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

No need for personal attacks. ≈ Maurauth ^(Ravenor) 19:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

No personal attack intended. It's just that it seems like you are totally discounting gothic rock's development in other places other than the UK.Crescentia 23:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Theda Bara?

I don't know how this reference made it into the article, but to affirm that "Theda Bara's look has inspired some types of Goth fashion" I imagine some source should be quoted. I never knew a Goth who mentioned Theda Bara as reference for looks, and I know many who mentioned Betty Page. So, shouldn't Betty be mentioned or Theda not mentioned at all in the article? Trencacloscas 16:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Theda Bara's look HAS inspired some types of goth fashion, but I think it would be more accurate to say that some types of goth fashion ape retro styles, particularly those associated with the silent film era. Bettie Page should be included as well, but with a heavy caveat that a girl who is clearly trying to emulate her may as easily be involved in the Rockabilly or Burlesque scene as the goth scene (there are also goths in the Burlesque scene, complicating matters a bit). 24.223.151.194 (talk) 06:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is it called Gothic anyways?

I'd be curious to know why this style is called Gothic in the first place. I kind of doubt Gothic warriors doing battle with the Roman legions were decked out in Ozzie Ozbourne shirt and glasses, but maybe I'm wrong. Can anyone elaborate?

Daxil (talk) 00:10, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Is THIS the neutrality dispute? Are you being intentionally obtuse, or are you asking a real question? This seems like a troll, to be honest (nowhere in the article does it mention "an Ozzie Ozbourne [sic] shirt and glasses"), and if it IS a real question, it shouldn't be much trouble to go read the Goth subculture article. 24.223.151.194 (talk) 06:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

"Gothic" is a term that has been reused several times in history. Off the top of my head it started with the Goth culture maybe 2000 years ago? Was later reused to describe a style of architecture (and general fashion?) that was 'dark and barbaric', but had very little (if anything) to do with the real Gothic people. Currently the title has been brought out and dusted off again, and in some views rather corrupted to mean anything at all dark and 'death like'. I had a professor the other day describe the derelict Art Deco styles in BioShock as "Gothic". I kind of chalk this up to the same thing as the word Battery. If you have a single AA battery,... you don't have a battery, you have a Cell. If you have two and you put them together you have a battery. If you have four and put them together in pairs of two and then link them each as if both pairs were a single cell then you have a pair of batteries. But most people don't get that idea, and aren't going to change their mind about it, so time moves on and we get something different. We can only make so many words in a given language without greatly lengthening them after all, so we're eventually going to reuse short words. --Talroth (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is entirely accurate, and I wrote a comment a minute ago under the assumption that it was a reply to what I had written rather than to the original "question." (Hey, watch your colons: they indicate who you're replying to. I fixed that.) People who really want to know why the gothic subculture is called "gothic" should go visit its article. If that info isn't there, you may find some useful links.

Several post-punk bands adopted the term "gothic" in various ways. One said that their sound was "gothic" compared to the mainstream -- in various stories, this is either Joy Division or Siouxsie and the Banshees. Another had a band member who was referred to as the "gothic gargoyle" because he was a small man who lived in an apartment building called the Gothic Towers. These are various stories that have been printed in music magazines, and there are plenty of other stories that have been printed since then with information about the early history of the scene and how it got that name).24.223.151.194 (talk) 08:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Q: Give me a word ==

Hi there! Can someone tell me if the 'Cure-Robert-Smith" hairdressing/fashion does have a name?--Siabraid (talk) 10:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"Big Hair". Yeah, I know... not that exciting. 24.223.151.194 (talk) 07:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That's a start...--Siabraid (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

maybe idk though google it lol