The Goth Club

For starters, no, this blog is not abandoned… I’m just having real trouble being motivated enough to do things for it lately. However, today strikes me as a day for procrastination, so I’m writing numerous articles and scheduling them. My apologies to people if they’re out of date by the time they post.

There are two parts to this review: There’s my rant about why, from an organisational perspective, this is a bloody shambles and could be done way better. There will also be the part where I go on about it as someone that attended it and had a bloody good time. Please keep in mind that one is my professional opinion, as an events manager, and the other is personal, and the two should be treated separately. (more…)

Life is peachy as someone who is “fashio-chromatically challenged*” pretty much year round. Black goes with everything. You stand out in a crowd. People remember you. You look sexy. Old people avoid you like you’re carrying the plague, which, knowing your penchant for sexual proclivities may actually be a more realistic fear than you’re actually giving it credit for.

Well, it’s not all good. Summer, particularly an Australian Summer, particularly a Melbourne Summer is actually pretty bad. But what can you do? Exposing sensitive pale skin to the sunlight it’s likely to burn, or worse, tan!

But if you’re wearing layers of clothing, in a colour that actively absorbs energy from light and converts it to heat, in materials that normally are synthetic and trap both heat and moisture like the 7th circle of hell, you are quite likely to suffer from a temperament that is an order of magnitude worse than usual gothicly inclined sarcasm.

Or possibly heatstroke.

Depends how hungover you actually are at the time.

As great as you might look in clothes from Marquis & De Sade or PurPur, your dry cleaning & ambulance bills will skyrocket. Well, as the summer months creep up, I’m going to attempt to share a few tips on how actually enjoy Summer without having to sacrifice style. Yes, you don’t have to suffer (even though life is suffering! *back of palm to forehead*) through the heat, or the ignominy of having your face melt off during the middle of the day.

In the meantime, enjoy some photos of other goths suffering terrible fashion choices in weather just as appalling: Goths in Hot Weather

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but my boss has a side business in which he sells custom motor bike gear & parts.

He recently got sent a sample of a rather nice riding jacket. The leather is supple as it’s been well milled, but the design is somewhat… flamboyant. I’m left wondering if he’s going to be able to catch much of the biker market at all with a jacket like this.

But then again, a lot of biker gear doesn’t end up in the biker market at all. A lot of it ends up in the Metalhead and Goth scenes. Which led me to think that perhaps some people here might like to get a look at said jacket, and maybe leave some thoughts as to whether or not they’d get it.

Click the images for full size.

So the question remains, would you consider getting a jacket like this? And is it worth promoting to the goth and metal scenes?

And no, I cannot get you one of these jackets at wholesale. The wholesale one is already being purchased by me, for me.

I’ll admit it. I realised I was somewhat of a goth when I was a small child, when my primary school friends noted that my wardrobe was nearly devoid of colour.

I was chromatically challenged.

The problem was I was also somewhat fashionably challenged. I was on the grunge/metal end of goth… which is to say plain black Tshirts and jeans from K-mart, with some hard wearing boots, and maybe an all purpose leather jacket or coat.

This did not suit certain people in my life, who decided I needed to start going and seeing what “better” clothes I could be wearing… So for the last 3 years, I was getting dragged off to Circa Nocturna to see if there was something I’d like to wear that didn’t come from Tshirt Hell.

There was a lot, but most of it was well out of my price range once regular maintenance (read: weekly dry cleaning) was factored into the cost. Until I saw PurPur Fashion designs at the 2009 show.

However, it wasn’t until June that I got off my lazy arse and actually commissioned Kate to do something for me.

Kate Musina, the adorably Russian lass that is PurPur, has easily been the best thing to happen to my wardrobe in a very long time. While the whole process took just over a month, this did include the fact I had a very limited schedule for fittings, and made some difficult requests in regards to buttons and shoulder pips that needed to be factored in. During the whole process, she was the consummate professional, doing her best to make me feel at ease with the fitting and tailoring process (something I am admittedly not, as I hate having people wait on me. I’d be a terrible Dom).

The attention to detail was stupendous, with all my requests clearly taken into account. Possibly the only draw back is that I prefer my clothes loose and billowing, and Kate likes men to wear tight things… My physique does not agree with her sentiments, but we met halfway I believe.

The outfit, pictured, is pretty much inspired by fascist military uniforms, and was one of the set pieces at Circa Nocturna 09, and something I wanted in particular to have not just as a piece of regular clubbing attire, but also something to wear to Manifest.

The reception there was rather good. People consistently asking which anime/manga I was from, to which I would reply “No no, this is my weekend clothing”, only to be met with blank stares about the idea that someone could either not be in cosplay, or would actually wear something like that out in public.

All in all, a fantastic outfit, and great value for money.