Thursday, November 1, 2007

   Bored...





So... how was everyone's Hollow's Eve?


~BOred and thought You'd like this info~


The dark glamour of the gothic look is still captivating young and old, after 20 years. Rosanne Bersten reports.

Goth is back. Gucci, Gaultier and even Yves Saint Laurent are cladding their models in lashings of black, with teased, punkish hair, heavy on the eyeliner and accessorised with chunky, silver crosses, for their autumn collections.
Funny, say members of Melbourne's goth community. "Goth never went away as far as I'm concerned," says Hilary Willowsmith, proprietor and designer at Mortisha's. "There's always new young people who are interested."
There's been at least one nightclub playing goth music in Melbourne most weeks since the early 1980s, according to Lisa Marshall, also known as the Baroness and grande dame of the Abyss nightclub.
Every so often, though, goth spills over from its cobwebbed enclaves and into the public domain.
"I actually think (Gucci and Gaultier) have embraced the style with great flair. I have great respect for these particular designers. If a bit of the glamour rubs off (on general society), I'll scream with joy!" says Marshall.
Willowsmith, 51, is probably Melbourne's oldest goth. She's been dressing goth since the '60s, but hadn't heard the term until she arrived in Australia in 1980. She believes that one of the reasons for goth's enduring attraction is its versatility.
"It fluctuates in style. It evolves; it incorporates other styles that people are interested in, from film or music or whatever. Goths are a little sponge-like: they absorb the different creative influences from the present and past," she says.
Leia Andrews, 16, agrees. Born in 1986, when some say goth was at its height, she's part of the latest generation to adopt the dark persona.
"There always seems to be new waves of goths: there's never a gap," she says.
Andrews is one of a crowd of goths who can be found most Friday nights in Alexandra Gardens on the Yarra. Teenaged goths - referred to as kindergoths by the older crowd - congregate to socialise and fire-twirl.
Fire-twirling - lighting the ends of a staff or balls on chains and sweeping them around in majestic patterns - has its origin in tribal cultures and moved from there to trance clubbers and hippies.
Andrews says she was taught to twirl by hippies in Port Fairy. But while mid-'80s goths mooched around listening to the Smiths, she thinks "it's natural that goths should twirl". Her equipment of choice is the poi, balls on the ends of chains, rather than a firestaff.
"I do poi because I'm a quarter Maori; it's in my blood," she says.
The new breed of goths has led to a division in goth culture: now there are "mopey goths" and "perky goths". With her bright smile and easy laugh, Andrews is definitely on the perky side, despite the black corsetry; sharp, kohl outlines around her eyes; and the long, black hair.
"I think of goth as a form of expression, through the way I look - being different," she says. "I don't like to fit in. I just hate conformists, they really annoy me."
Most agree that goth emerged in the '80s out of new romantic and punk.
Tina Phillips, who says she remembers a very mixed subculture in Melbourne in the early '80s, was more on the punk side of things.
"I was doing the goth thing, but the people I was hanging out with were doing the punk thing. We didn't call it that, though. They were swampies or Birthday Party girls. It was all one subculture."
The range of goth identity today is vast. There are still romantic goths, into vintage lace and crushed velvets, and punks into the drainpipe pants, chains and kilts now being plundered by Gaultier. But there is also SM-influenced goth with its shiny, black, PVC corsetry and piercings; and cybergoth with silver-mesh topped with collars adorned with plastic, day-glo purple spikes.
There are also the crossovers: Gown of Thorns in Fitzroy, for example, sells a punk-inspired, tartan mini in purple, grey and black for those goths who can't quite come at wearing bright red.
Phillips recalls that there were fewer people who wore full goth gear during the day in the '80s. "It really was a night-time subculture that came out of middle-class areas. Punk was more working class."
Willowsmith says that "punks and goths used to mix very well".
"The goth thing is non-political, non-religious. We don't care about people's sexual orientation. We're very liberal-minded. The punks were very political, but we mixed very well with them."
There are still punks and goths together in the Gardens and in the clubs. Sometimes they mix well; other times there are tensions. From an outsider's perspective, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference. Scott Jardine, from Mont Albert, is 17 and one of the fire-twirlers in the Gardens. He says all types come down here, some all the way from Geelong, some "streeties", some because "they have nowhere else to go".
He doesn't look goth: short mousy hair, grey beanie. But shirtless, and his eight madison piercings (horizontal piercings through the chest flesh) that start just below his collar bone and end just above his navel reveal his fascination with playing on the edge.
He's had an obsession with fire since he was little and says there's an "incredible high you get from fire-twirling - half from the kerosene fumes and half from the adrenaline". A few weeks ago, he accidentally set himself on fire while trying to fire-breathe using the wrong fuel.
"It was fun," he says. "And it's healed pretty fast."
One of the guys standing nearby is wearing a Cradle of Filth T-shirt, a pentacle and a Pizza Hut name badge that reads "Hi, my name is Satan". He says he's a pagan and that the name badge is just a joke against all the people who think goths are devil-worshippers.
Morgan Coole, 16, wears a T-shirt from the movie Queen of the Damned and plays guitar at the fire-twirling. Sometimes he plays original material, sometimes "mellow Metallica". Isn't that more metal than goth?
"Sure," he says, "there are more goths here than metalheads, but they seem to like the shit that I play."
Goth in its "pure" form is rarely encountered.
"I couldn't say that anyone's club is exclusively goth. It has been done (but it's) difficult to sustain. There is so much cross-over with electro and industrial music. I don't think the boundaries are so clearly defined anymore," says Marshall.
Most clubs these days are known as "goth industrial", a development that began with bands such as Einsturzende Neubauten, DAF and Nitzer Eb.
"Even goth industrial has splintered into various subgenres," says Marshall.
So what is goth? It's the perennial question, says Phillips, and one that is frequently addressed in online forums such as the newsgroup aus.culture.gothic.
"For me, the difference between gothic and metal is beauty. The beauty in the black, the macabre, the femme fatale, the whole culture. Whereas metal is purely about the gore. And the difference between goth and punk is the politics. Punk is against the conventional forms of beauty."
For Willowsmith, it's "the beauty of the architecture, the roses in the gardens, the romance of living forever".
Marshall says that goth "embraces mystery and the night. It is passionate, dramatic and glamorous. At its heart: poetic. It is an entire culture with a tradition which traces its lines to Byron and Shelley and beyond. It is the world's greatest costume drama peopled with such varied wondrous characters".
One thing's for sure: goth is here to stay. Consider the popularity of Anne Rice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Charmed, suggests Marshall.
"In order for a subculture to persist (goth or otherwise), you will always need new blood! Pardon the pun," she says. "When a subculture extends into the mainstream, it allows the uninitiated to cross over."
GENUS GOTHICUS

WHICH ARE YOU?

· Kindergoth or babygoth: Any goth under the age of 18 or who looks like they are.
· Romantic goth: Wears lace and Victorian or Edwardian clothing and corsets, in blacks, reds, purples and green velvet. Often heard sighing about love.
· Mopey goth: Note for permanent depression. Listens to the Smiths. On repeat. Pain makes them feel real.
· Fetish goth: Wears chains, collars, spikes, fishnet, PVC, rubber, more corsets. Buckles are a specialty. Ah, the piercings, and the tattoos.
· Perky goth: Wears black but takes inspiration from Japanese anime and the PowerPuff Girls. Wears black, floor-length skirt with goth Hello Kitty handbag.
· Pagan goth: Easy to spot due to visible pentacles and ankhs. Women wear mediaeval-style dresses in red, purple and green.
· Cybergoth: Silver PVC pants, floor-length black PVC coat with blue UV-respondent PVC inlay, and day-glo spikes. Electronic green patterns powered by a battery flash on the black T-shirt.
· Goth geek: Wears black jeans and black T-shirt, sometimes with obscure Perl code. Men have long hair.




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