#ana paula my beloved teacher I owe you my life uwu

[letitrainathousandflames]

goth counter culture was your thesis??? do tell. thats so metal my dude do tell please I need the facts and information.

(not me reading tags because Im curious)

*flails excitedly* aaaah yes I have a degree in Fashion Design and Goth subculture (with an emphasis on its fashion aspect, of course) was the focus of my thesis. I'll go on into the fashion aspect bc otherwise this post will be gigantic <3

Subcultures are SO cool because they resist to the pull of the mass culture. They are where aesthetic, fashion, ideology, art, politics and more meet and create entire movements that refuse to conform and be blended into what is deemed Normal and Acceptable.

Punk and Goth are two amazing examples of movements that go against what fast fashion and consumerism culture dictates.

Punk fashion looks cooler the more worn and frayed by use each piece is. Stains and holes in the fabric are irrelevant, poems and art is scribbled with markers on the jeans of pants and canvas of shoes, all those chains and spikes on belts and bracelets are bound to yank or rip at a seam here and there and no one cares.

Punk got that jacket at a second hand shop twelve years ago and has been covering it on patches and song lyrics and they will not bat an eye at some pre-ripped, pre-frayed, overpriced jacket because there are twenty of them that look exactly like it on the same rack and they all lack soul and history.

Any Forever 21's pre-made "punk" jacket with false pockets and perfectly symmetric frayed ends will never have what an old-school haphazardly patched and scribbled jacket where one's hands can sink past the wrists in its pockets have.

Similarly, Goth fashion is contrary to fast-paced consumerism culture in the sense that it rejects the concept of trends and of certain styles/colors/accessories/etc being "in" or "out".

That does not mean that Goths are cheap, though! A high-quality, sturdy corset can cost about $120, more if it's made to measure, and one will be happy to buy it because it's a staple piece that can be matched with most of a goth's wardrobe and will last decades if properly taken care of.

An interesting point about the complete disregard for Autumn/Winter or Spring/Summer and the whole "oh I can't wear this, it's so last season!" is the fact that most goth shops - many of which sell handmade fashion - sell the same pieces in and out of seasons.

If a classic, Wednesday Addam-esque black dress with white lacy collar and underskirt for volume works and is selling well, why ditch the design at the end of some arbitrarily created period of time? Why stop selling pieces that work and are good just because you theoretically can't sell sleeveless dresses during winter?

Another aspect is that, if everything you own is mostly black, you'll hardly have issues matching pieces together, and if you love a particular dress or jacket too dearly and they are in good state but their color has been washed into a pale grey, you can always have them re-dyed back into their original raven-like glory.

Needless to say, fast-fashion wear-it-and-discard-it-in-a-year people are... not very fond of such subcultures and their refusal to renovate their wardrobes every goddamn year.

In my course of studies, we go through two evaluating processes for our thesis: one at the writing, data-gathering, book-quoting phase; and another one at the debating, using what was studied as a base, creating your fashion collection phase.

I had to defend my thesis twice, and I would be failed a third time if my favorite teacher who really liked my work hadn't infiltrated the evaluating border while pretending not to know me and gave me a score high enough to pass to the next phase despite the other teachers' low score.

Because those teachers really really hated that I had picked a target audience that demanded quality over quantity and were mostly immune to the market's pressures as the focus of my study. They wanted me to do like 17 out of the 19 other students in my class and just do beachwear instead.

Y'know, because "this is Brazil, and why are you picking such a complicated topic like Goths and how they need breathable, lighter fabrics here because the U.S. and British brands usually makes clothes in warmer fabrics so buying clothes online isn't really a solution..."

(these are the same people who told the girl who wanted to make clothes for tattooed, female bodybuilders that her target audience didn't exist, and I had turn to her and loudly say that I knew a female bodybuilder, and she could easily get her in touch with others for her research. Oh. I think I just traced back to why those teachers might hate me. Oops lmao)

Anyway I passed to phase 2, had a blast working on my designs with my fav teacher as my guide, and even though I'm seeking out a career path more focused on art rather than fashion, I'm really proud of how it turned out.

That thesis was my baby and I think both passion and spite were my fuel to make it <3