"If I had a heart I could love you."

ganrymakeup Haziran 12, 2022

If there is one thing I am sure of in life is that you can't ever own too many R2D2 toys. Because How I Met Your Mother spoke an universal truth back when it was still a good show, and that truth is: "Ted, the only people in the universe who haven't seen Star Wars are the characters in Star Wars and that's cause they lived 'em, Ted. That's cause they lived the Star Wars!"

Two tv show recommendations for you dear readers who still read this blog:

Person of Interest: Because it's about a genius, billionaire king of Manhattan and his crazy amoral trigger man saving people and sometimes walking their dog. It's like if Bruce Wayne and Batman were two different people but with less daddy issues and more bullets to kneecaps. It is ridiculous and glorious!

Hannibal: Because it's Hannibal Lecter played by Mads Mikkelsen. Because it's Hades and Persephone all over again except it's not pomegranates this time, but murder.

A few years ago, when I was still in the teenager demographic, if you opened my closet and poked around you would have found a) a lot of band t-shirts that have served me as PJs in my college years and b) so much black that I would have bet you 50 bucks that you would have a hard time finding anything pastel in there and I would have won.

That's something my mom and I always had in common, so much so that we've been asked too many times to be a coincidence if we're in mourning. The answer always was a quizzically raised eyebrow and a "… No, we're actually pretty cheerful today. Why do you ask?" (Okay, truth be told, one time I was also wearing black lace gloves and pearls so I see how that could have sent the poor bastard into confusion.)

I know my taste for black was closely linked to my musical choices. I had Queen and Metallica thrust upon me when I was too young to know any other sort of music (thanks you, dear cousin!) and I spent the 90s enjoying The Cure, David Bowie, Nightwish, Sex Pistols, Joy Division and HIM so in my head nothing was cooler than that. I wanted to be rock n roll and I wanted to be glam rock and I wanted to be goth. (Can you tell I had some mild ADD then too? :))

Although I put away the XXL tshirts and the army boots (worn in the summer too because I was a teenager and I wanted to be Robert Smith or Brian Molko so bad), the black stayed strong and true.

And my happiness grows and grows each day because my obsession has been coming back in full force these past few seasons. Now, I usually don't follow trends too closely but browsing magazines lately makes me smile ( a happy smile mixed with a "I liked X before they were mainstream" but I do try to keep my hipster tendencies in check, I promise) because I want to be able to go back in time and hug teenage me and tell her that she knew what she was doing when she dressed the way she did. She just did it a bit too early.

And can you blame me for wanting to be Goth and Rock'n'Roll and everything in between? I watched The Adams Family and Morticia Adams was my role model in life and love. I watched Tim Burton movies until I learned the lines by heart, and Bellatrix Lestrange fascinated me in a way that made the hair on my hands stand on end.

I discovered Edward Gorey and wanted to frame one of his drawing in my future house and watched Labyrinth and wanted that story to end with the young girl as the Queen and David Bowie as her page.

And it's fun to see it come out of the dark (haha, see what I did there?) and start catching the eye of the mainstream. McQueen and YSL, Rodarte and Rick Owens, took the Victorian Punk inspired details, the black and the velvet and the lace and played with them to give us some beautiful and unexpected results.

I am more subdued in my love for it, as I can only be after my teenage overdose, but I do still feel the attraction of the style. And I mostly fall down that rabbit hole when it comes to the accessories and the shoes!

Give me metal heels and lace details, give me shoes that scream "I will walk over you pastels and look banging while doing it" (yes, I am looking at you darling Alternative New Rocks, stop tempting me!) and headbands with veils and capes that would make Bela Lugosi proud.

In the end, it's hard for me not to be influenced by things I loved when at such a young age. I grew up and tried to not keep myself locked up in just one box but it's hard to let go of some things. Especially when those things have such great spokespersons, right Wednesday?