Style Evolution

Several of you have asked for outfit posts; however, I have to be honest and tell you that I'm not really sure right now where my style is going! I feel almost as though I'm bombarded with so much inspiration that I don't know what to do with all of it, and at the same time I really just like to be warm and comfortable so often I'm falling back on that old staple of boots, jumper and jeans.

I definitely don't have what could be called 'a style' right now. I've been hoping that as I clear out my wardrobe and mix in new pieces that I really love, a personal style will emerge from all the bits and pieces I'm hanging on to. So far, though, it hasn't happened! There have been a few disasters... no, I won't be sharing pictures of those! Let's just say that harem trousers do not look good with boots, and that you can have too many pastel colours in one outfit.

As previously mentioned, I've bought a style journal, and have also been taking daily outfit snaps and making notes on them (e.g. what I liked about the outfit, what I didn't, how comfortable did I feel in it, etc.), so fingers crossed that this more organised approach will help me get more in tune with my personal style.

This one, I love.

Ironically, I find that if I browse through my own Tumblr I can see that, despite often feeling as though I don't know what I like, I do have quite a strong sense of my own preferences. I just have to work out, somehow, how to distill the essence of my Tumblog into a functional wardrobe!

Of course, I am well aware that in the grand scheme of things, what I wear or don't wear and how I choose to present myself is actually pretty unimportant, which makes me feel a whole lot better when all I can find in my closet that doesn't have me going "asdfghjkl;" with anxiety is a fleece and a pair of skinnies. Without wishing to sound too pretentious, there is a whole world out there to explore, and it doesn't care what I happen to be wearing!

Not sure about this one. It's OK but not quite... there. I think maybe I'm trying too hard to be quirky.

On the other hand, a quote that I adore is "Life's too short to wear boring clothes," which is why I am continuing to pay attention to my style. It's just good to remind myself sometimes that it actually doesn't matter.

Have any of you guys ever found yourselves in a similar rut? How did you deal with it?

Know Thyself

I was clearing out my favourites tab this week (it's a big job, believe me) and I came across a blog post from Eco In Black that I had bookmarked a while ago. This post is entitled Good Goth Keeping, (aka Know Thyself), and it's basically the start of a set of challenges to help flaily types in emotional crises, such as myself. (OK, OK, I don't know if that was quite Eco's original intent, but... that's what I'm doing with it. Eco wrote, "I realized I lost most of my sense of self. Understand: I still know what kinds of movies I like, the books I want to read, and that I still love Goth. But there are things missing, like a sense of direction, sense of control, or a even a hobby, really," and I practically exploded with relief when I read this, because this was exactly, exactly how I have felt throughout most of this year.)

The post linked to above incorporates tips one and two, which are as follows:

1. Assess your physical baggage and the psychological will follow. Get out of your own way.

2. Write. Write something. Write anything. Write. Everyday.

I already keep a good ol'fashioned paper-and-ink journal, so the writing part is not tremendously difficult for me. When not journaling I am often blogging (duh), and yesss, one of my goals for the next few months is to finally start working on some fiction projects again. I haven't approached fiction in more than a year, and as it was my first love and my whole reason for being for, oh, most of my existence, I figure it's time to give it another shot and stop letting it get pushed to the bottom of my priorities pile.

Assessing my physical baggage is... harder. I have been redecorating my lair for the better part of a year now; it's taking so long because of the sheer amount of STUFF that I have. I have gotten rid, so far, of FIFTY THREE bags of clothing, books, and miscellaneous junk. Fifty. Three. How I even managed to physically fit so much - OK, I'll say it - crap into my average-sized-to-small bedroom is beyond me. No wonder I couldn't move in there. It was getting claustrophobic. I couldn't stand to be in my own living space because I just felt overwhelmed by the volume of STUFF.

As things were.

Finally, now, I am getting somewhere with the redecoration project. I have new furniture. I have a carpet. My walls are painted (with a little help from my friends - I threw a painting party). I am really starting to love my room, although it is still a little untidy and looks somewhat like a very disorganised library.

The only downside is that I am still sifting through the junk. The trouble is that I am a hoarder, and I attach sentimental value to every damn thing. But as Eco very wisely says, "Going through the physical stuff allows the mind to go through the psychological stuff. I encourage you to get rid of the things you are lugging around to facilitate your getting rid of the ideas you're toting with you."

Currently, I am toting a lot of crap that I don't need. I look forward to being free of it. Even clearing out my favourites tab made me feel... lighter.

I am resolving to really be ruthless about my junk-sorting, to free myself of every damn thing that has no use and brings me no joy. I would like to thank Eco for motivating me to get back to work on de-junking both my space and my mind. There are so many more productive ways I could be using my headspace.

Bare-Faced Cheek

Part of my re-evaluation of myself, my style, and my lifestyle was taking a good, long look at how and why I was choosing to present myself in a certain way. Those of you who followed me on Stripy Tights... may remember that I was beginning to question my choice to wear make-up - a lot of make-up - every day (Is Make-Up A Mask?).

I soon came to realise that I felt I had to wear make-up. It may have started out as a choice, a positive, fun way of expressing myself visually, but after caking myself in product day after day for several years, it had become something I relied upon to feel attractive. Not only that, but I felt I had to keep putting on more and more if I wanted to upgrade from 'socially acceptable' to 'pretty'.

After this realisation, I came to hate the fact that I felt I had to cover myself in make-up each morning just to leave the house, just to be found acceptable by strangers. Frankly, the concept of 'pretty' is something that seems to me to be a bit overrated - why should we have to apologise for our differences and cover up the flaws and features that make us imperfect, perfectly natural human beings?

Don't get me wrong, I like looking 'nice' as much as anyone, but I don't want to be brainwashed into believing that it is necessary for me to conform to a standard of 'beauty' just to be able to show my face. After all, even the models in the advertisements that sell us our favourite products aren't as flawless as the finalised, airbrushed, Photoshopped images that we are shown.

I spent a good month during my time away from blogging living entirely make-up free. At first I felt horrendously self-consious and embarrassed, especially at work in a customer-facing role, but after a few weeks I began to relax and feel comfortable with my naked face. I stopped feeling that looking 'pretty' was so overwhelmingly important; with the right products, or enough of them, I could transform my face into a Barbie doll clone - or I could come to terms with my actual looks and stop buying into the concept of perfection and the industry that teaches people that they, themselves, are not good enough as they are.

Bare-faced cheek!

And that was the final realisation that I came to. No matter what we look like, whether by society's standards we are 'pretty' or 'ugly', we are all beautiful. We are products of nature, and just as you never see an 'ugly' sunset or an 'ugly' lion (yes, I know you are all going to spam me with images of ugly lions now... but never mind, hopefully you're following my train of thought here), how can you have an 'ugly' person?

I am choosing, personally, to disregard the concept of 'pretty' and instead just have fun with make-up - when, and if, I feel like wearing it - instead of using it to create an image of what the advertising industry wants me to wish that I looked like. I do enjoy wearing make-up, whether to create crazy effects or just highlight my features, but I also find it relaxing to not worry about it!

What about you? Does anyone have any thoughts?

(Suggested reading: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.)

Life as a Recovering Goth

Hello there! As an introductory post this is somewhat unusual, I suppose, but I have a strong feeling that most of you reading this will know me from my older, Goth-oriented blog Stripy Tights and Dark Delights (or, as it was known once-upon-a-time, The Ultimate Goth Guide). It seems strange to be posting in a new place and introducing myself all over again, but as my interests have grown and changed it seemed unfair to dump new posts on top of followers who were looking for Goth-specific content alone.

Before I get started on regular(ish) blogstravaganzas, I thought I'd go straight for the nitty-gritty and talk about the changes that occured to make me reconsider my time as a Goth blogger.

Are you still a Goth?
Goth specifically? No. Dark culture is still something I hold dear, but the 'Goth' label began to feel a bit restricting, and I have branched out a little. I still consider myself very firmly 'alternative' and enjoy experimenting with varied subcultural fashions running the gamut from punk to Lolita. Although many areas of my life have a definite dark tinge, I don't generally call myself  a Goth.

Was it just a phase?
I'm inclined to say no - hopefully that's not just my vanity talking! By some (or many?) people's standards, of course, I never quite made it as a 'real Goff', but being a black-clad spookster for the last six years certainly made a big impact on who I am as a person and how I saw the world. Whilst I may no longer always feel the need to wander around beclad in a melancholic darkness (not that I was ever particularly melancholy - nor were most of the Goths with whom I became friends), making the choice to visually express the parts of myself that rose to the fore through dark culture was comforting, cathartic, enjoyable, challenging and fun.

Of course, those aspects of me that drew me to dark culture still remain and are still celebrated - I am an avid bookworm with a particular fondness for dark faerie tales, the paranormal, Gothic literature and, yes, vampires; I find cemeteries beautiful and peaceful; I adore dark fashion in all, if not many, of its manifestations; I have an enduring fondness for fantasy art, particularly with darker aspects... etc, etc, etc. None of these, of couse, are particularly 'Goth' traits, but many of those who associate themselves with dark culture, if not the Goth scene specifically, will know where I am coming from!

As long as the part of me that drew me to dark culture in the first instance remains, I will still thoroughly enjoy such cliche activities as hanging bats from my ceiling, stomping around in my New Rock boots, tearing up my fishnets and kicking back with a glass of absinthe. (Needless to say, my taste in music continues unchanged - although those guilty pleasures are no longer so guilty!) Which is why I don't personally look on my time as a devoted darkling as 'just a phase' - it was, and is, an enormous part of who I am, no matter how I do or do not dress.

What happened?
I started to feel disillusioned with the Goth scene around January this year, and that feeling grew until I was definitely sure that Goth was no longer a label I wanted to apply to myself, to the point of giving up blogging and taking time off from the internet to evaluate who I really was (cheesy, I know!), how I wanted to express myself, and essentially, whether the life I was living was the right one for me.

For me, the trouble with belonging to a specific subculture is that I felt I had to live up to other people's expectations of what a proper Goth should be if I wanted to 'earn' the label, which after a while felt limiting and uncomfortable. I learned that I prefer a more fluid, general descriptor like 'alternative', because there were things outside even the most vague boundaries of dark fashion drawing my attention, and I didn't want to just shut off the side of myself that wanted to (for example) wear florals and no make-up.

As I blogged back in March, "Long-time readers will know that crimping personal tastes to fit labels is certainly not what I'm about and never will be. I was reminded of those slightly awkward adolescent years when I tried to buy the 'right' clothes to impress the 'right' people, and something inside me rebelled against the idea of reliving a time when I didn't feel good enough to be accepted for who I was. The Goth label had begun to feel a bit redundant; I still loved most things about the fashion, music and culture but I no longer felt sure that the tag applied to me. I liked having the freedom to experiment with fashion, the quirkier the better, and experience different styles and genres of music without feeling like a fraud for calling myself a Goth."

I spent most of this year ricocheting between trying to reconcile my darker tastes with my newfound appreciation for other styles, and trying to shoehorn myself back into the Goth box (now there's an image!). For many people, Goth is more than a fleeting event in their lives - it works with most parts of their identity and fits them like a second skin. For me, sadly, it became only a smaller part of a larger whole.

What will you be blogging about now?
Oh, Goth stuff... ;-)

Well, yes, probably, some of that. Once dark culture has a hold on you, it never fully lets go! However, I don't intent to tout myself as a Gothy expert - simply what I am, an enthusiast and appreciator of that style and subculture.

I'm afraid there will also be some personal stuff; some over-excited and gleeful notes on styles that have captured my attention from week to week (teapunk! Apparently this is a thing!); crafting and DIY, as I'm getting more and more into it by the day; book reviews; and, well, you'll have to wait and see what else I've got up my sleeve!

I don't expect this blog to achieve the success that The Ultimate Goth Guide once did (more by luck than judgement), and I'd like to offer a huge thank you to everyone who came along for the ride and who gave their support. <3 If any of you do choose to stick around, that would be delightful, and I look forward to sharing my journey with all of you!

Many hugs and sparkly bats!
Amy xxx