If you’re chronically online like I am, you’ll have noticed a recent vibe shift permeating the culture at every level. I’m not talking about the unexpected pivot from brat to demure, or the wafty return of Sienna Miller-era boho. What I’m talking about is a lot more timeless. Something that has hitherto been lurking in shadows and is only now creeping to the fore. Something sinister and primordial and yet strangely comforting at the same time. You can feel its presence looming in the horror movie montage that is Sabrina Carpenter’s music video for Taste; in Dilara Findikoglu’s spooky-meets-slutty-school-girl capsule collection for Heaven; in the recent reboot of The Crow, starring saturnine siren FKA twigs; and practically every move dark doppelgänger Amelia Gray and Gabriette make. But nowhere is it more palpable than the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice press tour.
A love letter to eldritch glamour, from Monica Bellucci’s sexy succubus Westwood number at the Venice Film Festival to Catherine O’Hara looking cute but sultry in Simone Rocha at the London premiere (go off, queen), this is one for the history books. Even the very notion of a Tim Burton sequel is a testament to what I’m talking about, and that is, of course—cue funeral music—the long-awaited return of goth. Not the Goth Girl Summer of 2022, mind you, which was the sartorial equivalent of a semi-erection. I mean a full-blown gothic resurrection. Yup, the bats have once again left the belfry; welcome to the season of the witch.
There’s an amazing scene in the original Beetlejuice, in which the deliciously droll Deetz daughter, Lydia, is sitting at the dinner table, head-to-toe in Victoriana drip, a funereal veil obscuring her witchy bangs, which she’s gelled gloriously into spikes. She is in mourning for her life. She’s a teenager, duh! In an attempt to cheer her up, her father promises to build her a dark room in the basement so she can work on her photography, to which she deadpans: “My whole life is a dark room, one big dark room.” It’s the perfect encapsulation of the blistering coming-of-age experience and sums up the gothic condition entirely. Very mad, very maudlin, very macabre.
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Made flesh by the inimitable Winona Ryder, the OG poster child for spooky sad girls everywhere, Lydia Deetz—a morbid societal misfit who delights in all things “strange and unusual”—was something of a North Star for me growing up. Rather than being afraid of ghosts, she’s fascinated by them, and sees death as the only way to extricate herself from her miserable life. And with a wardrobe as dark as her undereye bags, she was also a total style icon.
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Thirty years later, Deetz is back on the big screen, brought to life by Winona Ryder once more in the Tim Burton remake. Only this time, she’s all grown up and has a sardonic daughter of her own played by reigning scream queen Jenna Ortega—she of Wednesday Addams fame. As a die-hard fan of the original movie, naturally, I was thrilled to hear of its revival, not just because I too am now all grown up with a daughter of my own, but because I’m excited about the sheer number of Gen-Z foot soldiers who will be joining our hellish crusade.
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Dark times produce dark cultures, and, I think we can all agree, right now we’re in a pretty dark place. From the looming threat of World War III to the Doomsday calls of Extinction Rebellion, we’re living in an unprecedented state of malaise and malcontent. It’s no wonder the world’s gone goth; it’s the only way to deal with all this darkness.
Like all post-war subcultures, goth was born out of a need to rage against the machine. By 1979, a storm was brewing. Margaret Thatcher had ascended to power, and there was a string of strikes and national acts of violence. These were scary times, and Britain’s youth needed a subculture that would reflect this. Which is precisely what being goth was all about: embracing the horror.
The bastard child of punk and glam rock, goth was a lot more romantic than the former, but much more macabre than the latter. That said, it borrowed tropes from both. From punk, it took DIY and fetishism (think: piercings, fishnets, studs, and leather), and from glam, it took campy theatrics and an emphasis on an otherworldly beauty, pinching the odd swashbuckling frill and ostentatious ruffle from the New Romantics. But goths also looked back further to the doom and gloom of the Victorian period and its morbid Cult of Death; to the fevered musings of Byron, Shelley, and Keats; to Europe’s rich history of gothic and neogothic art and architecture. They also looked to the “exoticism” of Hollywood’s sultry screen sirens of the early 20th century like Theda Bara, about whom the word “vamp” was first coined, and the schlocky horror movies of the ’50s to inform their style lexicon.
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Taking their cues from their favorite band members (Siouxsie Sioux, Patricia Morrison, Andrew Eldritch, and Dave Vanian), women wore elements of a historical costume—big skirts, bodices, and corsets—which they subverted with notes of PVC, latex, and dominatrix leather. Men were equally flamboyant, blurring the boundaries of gender with their crucifixes, nail polish, and ghoulish maquillage, worn incongruously with combat boots and distressed leather jackets.
By the time the ’90s rolled around, the subculture had splintered into various movements. You had the future-facing cybergoths who loved raving, science fiction, and listening to techno, easily identifiable by their Matrix-style trench coats and phosphorescent rave markings. Elsewhere, the gothabilly scene paid homage to ’50s pin-ups like Bettie Page, brought back to life via pencil skirts, fishnet tights, beehives, and exaggerated wings. However, things had dissipated by the mid-’00s. Naturally, goth was still rattling around, but only in the creases and crevices of culture. Fast forward to today, and it’s started to seep back into the mainstream. And we have the return of Beetlejuice to thank for that. In the words of the ghost with the most himself: “It’s showtime!”
So, what do goths look like in 2024? Well, there isn’t a definitive answer. While in the ’80s you had to adhere to a strict sartorial code, today, things are much more fluid. Indeed, in this era of individuality, goths can be anything as long as it’s rooted in a celebration of darkness. Goth is Mariacarla Boscono at the Beetlejuice premiere, a ghostly apparition in an Ann Demeulemeester silk and feathered gown. It’s Michèle Lamy’s Brobdingnagian Comme des Garçons proportions and Erykah Badu’s towering witchy hats. It’s Doja Cat’s Mephistophelian prosthetics and Billie Eilish’s vampire fangs. It’s Fecal Matter wearing full-look Rick Owens and Arca in her underwear. It’s Ethel Cain’s Southern Gothic prairie girl, but it’s also Amanda Harlech looking lady-like in Chanel.
At their core, goths are outsiders, disruptors, rebels. Yes, there is an underlying look, but goth is so much more than an aesthetic. It’s not some fair-weather trend, or yesterday’s viral news piece. It’s an attitude, and an unapologetic way of life. Indeed, just like Winona, goth is forever.
Tish Weinstock is the author of the forthcoming How To Be a Goth: Notes on Undead Style, available for preorder now
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