Gothic Lolita

What is Gothic Lolita?

Lolita fashion is a fashion that influenced by Victorian children's clothing as well as costumes from the Rococo period.Lolita has made this into a unique fashion by adding gothic and original design elements to the look.The Lolita look consists primarily of a knee length skirt or dress, headdress, blouse, petticoat, knee high socks or stockings and rocking horse or high heel/platform shoes.

Gothic Lolita was a fairly new term for me at that time, though the style itself I'm familiar with. It was one of my favorite style for going out. Basically it is combining gothic with poofy little girly lacy frilly skirts, victorian, alice in wonderland, fairy tale themes. It comes from Japan, though it's not based around goth music but rather pop and metal music... though I don't think it's really based around them either, it just happens that musicians in those genres started wearing these clothes. Read the Morbid Outlook article below in the links because I could be a bit wrong.

My Gothic & Lolita Bibles and translating

One magazine in particular, the seasonally published Gothic & Lolita Bible, has played an instrumental role in promoting and standardizing the style.This magazine was full of eye candy, beautiful colors, spooky treats, hair, makeup, shopping, decorating tips, clothing ideas, and there are clothing catalogs in it.

Gothic Lolita Bible Vols 2 & 3 online - This nice girl (site down now) had scanned and put up the entire magazines of these 2 issues but her whole site is gone now. I saved them all and maybe I will put them up on my server one day. I tested them out and these print nicely. They are minus the patterns, but I really think from the instruction pages in the magazines if you really wanted to make it you could either have it blown up at kinkos, or use the shapes and guess on the measurements to make your own patterns.

Fashion Tips

* The Gothic & Lolita Bibles as well as the Gosu Rori magazine have excellent sewing patterns for seamstresses of any skill level, so if you can sew, you should pick a few of them up.
* The Gothic & Lolita Bible has been released in English and can be found in your local book or comic store. It's an excellent source of information for beginners and comes with sewing patterns like its Japanese counterpart.
* Knowing a little bit of Japanese is useful in understanding parts of the magazines, websites and patterns you may encounter.
* It is always a good idea, but not necessary, to have a Lolita lifestyle. Decorate your room/house in that way, bake/cook, have tea parties and cherish everything that is beautiful.
* Males in the fashion should take steps to fit the feminine style; removing hair on the legs, (tasteful) makeup, lipstick, and mascara will promote a more girlish appearance.
* See the movie "Kamikaze Girls," an entertaining comedy from writer-director Tetsuya Nakashima based on Novala Takemoto's book that serves as a veritable documentary on the (Sweet) Lolita look.
* Remember- It's just a fashion. While some choose to be "lifestyle lolitas", others simply dress in lolita. There is no code on how one should act in lolita, a common misconception by newbies. You are still you, in or out of the fashion. Some people don't seem to understand this, but not everyone is nice and not everyone is mean, but it won't hurt to be polite when people ask questions or stare.

CRUCIFUKKED from ImGoth.com

I just saw his profile on ImGoth.com and I was amazed with his picture. I didn't know much about this guy cause he did not reveal about himself in his profile. All I know about him that he is 30 and from California. But take a look at his pics, I think it's a nice pics.. It something that I want to share with you guys.







http://www.imgoth.com/users/Crucifukked

Gothic Architecture and Medieval Architecture

Gothic architecture can be defined from a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Renaissance architecture. Gothic architecture has three distinct characteristics which set it apart fro Romanesque; point arches, ribbed vault, and flying buttresses. Originating in 12th-century France and lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known during the period as "the French Style" with the term Gothic first appearing during the latter part of the Renaissance as a stylistic insult.

Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities, and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings. The essential character of the Gothic period, particularly at the outset, was the predominance of architecture; all the other arts were determined by it. The character of the Gothic visual aesthetic was one of immense vitality; it was spikily linear and restlessly active. Informed by the scholasticism and mysticism of the Middle Ages, it reflected the exalted religious intensity, the pathos, and the self-intoxication with logical formalism that were the essence of the medieval. Gothic style was the dominant structural and aesthetic mode in Europe for a period of up to 400 years.

It is generally agreed that Gothic architecture made its initial appearance in the Île-de-France, the royal domain of the Capetian kings. However, the inception of the style owes much to several generations of prior experimentation. Although individual components in Gothic architecture, such as ribbed vaulting and the pointed arches had been employed in Romanesque construction, they had not previously received such a purposeful and consistent application. While the structural value of the Gothic rib has been contested, its formal significance cannot be overestimated. It served above all to delineate the vaults with a skeletal web that gave to the entire structure an articulation of impressive clarity.

Unlike Romanesque architecture, with its stress on heavy masses and clearly delimited areas, Gothic construction, particularly in its later phase, is characterized by lightness and soaring spaces. The overall effect of the Gothic cathedral combined this lightness with an innumerable subdivision and multiplicity of forms. The introduction of a system of flying buttresses made possible the reduction of wall surfaces by relieving them of part of their structural function. Great windows could be set into walls, admitting light through vast expanses of stained glass. Wall surfaces of High Gothic churches thus have the appearance of transparent and weightless curtains. The spiritual and mysterious quality of light is an important element of the religious symbolism of Gothic cathedrals.

In plan the High Gothic cathedral remained faithful to the traditional basilican form. It consisted of a central nave flanked by aisles, with or without transept, and was terminated by a choir surrounded by an ambulatory with chapels. These elements, however, were no longer treated as single units but were formally integrated within a unified spatial scheme. The exterior view was frequently dominated by twin towers. The facade was pierced by entrance portals often lavishly decorated with sculpture, and at a higher level appeared a central stained glass rose window. Additional towers frequently rose above the crossing and the arms of the transept, which often had entrance portals and sculpture of their own. Around the upper part of the edifice was a profusion of flying buttresses and pinnacles.

Monumental fresco painting was rare in the Gothic period except in Italy, where the massive walls remained instead of yielding to the tall skeletal structure found elsewhere. In the rest of Europe stained glass and tapestry assumed greater importance and showed a stylistic development analogous to that of sculpture.

Another aspect of Gothic painting was manuscript illumination , in which text and pictures formed a united composition. From the beginning of the 13th cent., illuminations were done for the courts by lay schools. The Paris school achieved a perfection which made it the center of Gothic painting for nearly two centuries. English miniatures are often indistinguishable from the French in this period. The painters of the Avignon school flourished from 1309, when the papal court was moved there from Rome. This school produced one work, a Pietà from Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, of such originality of expression that it stands outside the established categories of Gothic painting.

The Symbolic of the Goat Fetish - Part 2

Underground Goth cult rises to surface

CHICAGO- maybe the turning point came when Virgin Megastores started selling those cute little vampire-girl lunchboxes, or when suburban kids started buying their spiked collars at the mall, or when Kmart trotted out corset-inspired T-shirts.But by late fall, when fashion magazines flirted with ghoul-chic and stores offered clunky cross jewelry and faux-vintage black lace, there could be no doubt. Goth culture long the exclusive domain of self-styled misfits and defiant outcasts is bubbling up into the mainstream, making the black-clad, kohl-eyed Goth faithful who have endured the taunts of the “normals” for more than two decades something of a hot new thing.

“It’s kind of something that snuck up on us,” says Thom Svast, the sales manager at the Guess? store in Chicago. This fall his store showcased an array of Goth fashions, including black bell-sleeve shirts and flowing crushed-velvet coats.

The irony of pop culture’s cool kids embracing outcast fashion is not lost on the small but vital Goth underground, whose response to the societal thumbs-up has mostly ranged from apathy to dismay.

At Web sites, Goths rail against exploitation and consumerism or worry that “poseurs” with their judgmental cliques will ruin an underground club scene that has long regarded itself as a last refuge for those who are too creative, original or just plain strange to fit in anywhere else.

John Wirtz, 27, of Riverside, Ill., a librarian and member of the Chicago Goth-punk band Anarchy (Butt) & the An-R-Kids, says that, for true believers, Goth offers a rich alternative lifestyle, complete with its own music and literature.To reduce Goth’s many elements to a mass-produced fashion statement, he says, “cheapens its meaning.”

“I’ve seen people get really upset over it,” says Wirtz, who recalls one friend tore out a pile of pseudo-Goth fashion spreads from mainstream magazines and used them as fireplace kindling. .

“He lit her face on fire, and used that to light the rest of it,” Wirtz says.

Initially associated with bands such as Siouxsie & the Banshees and Bauhaus, Goth grew out of the punk movement in the late 1970s and is often viewed as punk’s darkly romantic kid sister. Like punk, it celebrates individuality and rejects the conformity of mainstream society, but where punk was political, Goth is artistic, where punk was disgusted, Goth is amused.

Best known for its over-the-top fashion statements Count Dracula capes, black lipstick, fishnet stockings Goth is rooted in an appreciation of the melancholy, the sinister and the forbidden. On the most basic level, anyone who has shuddered with delight at a horror movie or taken perverse pleasure in wallowing in a bad mood has caught a Goth vibe.

But Goth also claims a noble literary tradition, with Gavin Baddeley, author of the new book “Goth Chic,” tracing the movement back to the passionate and sometimes macabre non-conformity of the 19th century romantics.

When poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, rapturously, “I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!” he was having a Goth moment.

It’s also interesting to note that the Goth mini-trend comes at a time when corporate America has gotten into the habit of raiding the counterculture’s closets. With hip-hop clothes, extreme sports gear and rave-wear available at the local mall, could Goth be far behind?

Even the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, which were carried out by students who wore Gothic trench coats, may have contributed to the trend. While the initial bad press was devastating to Goths, it also galvanized some, leading them to explain their movement to the “normals” and to publicly disavow the shootings and violence in general.

Among the more interesting Goth-Ed projects to have surfaced post-Columbine: a young adult book, “Everything You Need to Know About the Goth Scene,” which “goes far to debunk negative stereotypes,” according to Booklist.

Today, the Hot Topic Web site and mall stores offer kids from the suburbs the chance to buy fishnet stockings, studded collars and spooky medieval gowns.

Among the items marketed by the company: the bondage-friendly Multi Ring Choker. “It’s a classic!” the Web sales copy says. “This black leather choker has multiple metal rings all the way around. Buckle closure.”

Meanwhile, “Emily the Strange” lunchboxes, T-shirts and accessories make the red and black aesthetic accessible to the bubble-gum set.

Chicago Goth disc jockey Scary Lady Sarah, 35, says she recently picked up two Goth-appropriate shirts at Kmart, a corset-style lace number and a crocheted black top.

“I was very, very surprised,” she says.

Not all Goths are opposed to the marketing of Goth products by corporate America.

“I think it’s great because it means people are dressing better,” says Scary Lady Sarah. “Maybe it will make mainstream people less likely to criticize or harass someone dressed Goth, if they think, ‘Oh, I’ve got that same dress.’”

Goth’s concern with authenticity is unusually strong, with insiders bemoaning the presence of insincere weekend Goths or debating endlessly and, to be fair, often humorously what makes for a genuine Goth. Among the more amusing examples of the Gother-than-Thou aspect of the subculture: the “Goth or Not” Web site, where you can rate the authenticity of aspiring Goths on a scale of from 1 to 10.

The nightmare scenario, Wirtz says, is that Goth will be so widely accepted and diluted that the young people who represent the next generation for Goth will reject it as inauthentic. That, Wirtz says, can spell death for an underground scene.

“That’s an honest fear, because it has happened with previous trends and cultures,” Wirtz says, citing punk as an example.

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Nightwish - Artist of the Month.(JULY)

Nightwish is a symphonic power metal band, from Kitee, Findland formed in 1996 by songwriter/keyboardis Tuamas Holopainen and guitarist Emppu Vuorinen. Equal parts epic metal and gothic symphony, Nightwish stand alone. They blend soaring keyboards and operatic vocals with shredding guitars and jagged rhythms for a style of cinematic, orchestral heavy music all their own. The Finnish quintet has remained a force in the European scene for the last decade, but with their second Roadrunner Records release Dark Passion Play, they are destined to captivate metal fans across the entire globe. Filling vocalist Tarja Turunen's vacant spot with newcomer Anette Olzon, the band is now stronger than ever. They have also crafted a recordthat's heavy, hypnotic and downright powerful. Nightwish's style has established them as one of the premier female-fronted metal bands. With overpowering keyboard tones reminiscent of classic film scores, the band separates itself. Their combination of seductive, emotional vocals and gallant guitar melodies brings to mind both Evanescence and Iced Earth. Yet, Nightwish have crafted a distinct sound. Their 1997 debut Angels Fall Fast introduced the world to this sound, propelled by the strength of the single "The Carpenter." The follow-up Oceanborn would secure a spot in the Finnish Top Five and spawn three chart-topping singles. In 2000, Wishmaster cemented the band's rabid fan following and led to their first U.S. distribution. However, a hard-hitting fourth offering Century Child added bassist and backing vocalist Marco Hietela to the fold, and it yielded some of the band's heaviest and darkest tracks up to that point. Nightwish embraced their metallic and classical influences to the fullest and completely established themselves. In 2004, the band's first Roadrunner Records release and fifth studio effort Once would gain them a foothold in the U.S. They launched a hotly-anticipated tour in The States, packing sold-out theaters across the country. Over the course of the year, Once surpassed sales of one million units worldwide. The album featured the single "Nemo," with an entrancing video courtesy of director Antti Jokinen (Eminem). Once eventually garnered the band five awards at the Finnish Grammy Awards including both "Band of the Year" and "The Best Selling Album of the Year." These accolades would solidify Nightwish as an international force. After a highly successful world tour in 2005, the band underwent a drastic lineup change. They severed ties with Tarja via an open letter. Fans and the media clamored for a replacement, and questions ran rampant. Though most artists might not be able to recover from a split like this, Nightwish aren't most artists.



The band would check out over 2,000 applications from singers worldwide until they found Anette Olzon. Upon her first visit to Finland, Anette met the band and immediately clicked with them. They announced her addition shortly after. The sexy Swedish singer elevates Nightwish to the next level with a dynamic voice that breathes charisma and life into the new songs. Even with the absence of Tarja, Nightwish has crafted an epic, infectious and potent sixth release in the form of Dark Passion Play. Tuomas Holopainen's keys create huge melodies that are deep, gothic and sensual, while Emppu Vuorinen's guitars hit with an urgent crunch. The record represents the culmination of the band's evolution and success. It's a dark, yet infectious journey, featuring all of the elements that fans love about Nightwish-from the symphonic keyboards to the divine melodies. At the forefront of the new music is Anette. Her voice hypnotizes with a diverse range, complementing both the metallic guitars and orchestral keys perfectly. The new songs are some of Nightwish's most adventurous and powerful. Leadoff single "Bye Bye Beautiful" starts with a precise, calculated riff locked in with warm electronic keys. Then the song launches into vibrant vocal interplay between Anette and Marco with an incendiary and catchy chorus. "7 Days to the Wolves" features galloping guitars with swirling orchestrations and visual lyrics that captivate. On "Master Passion Greed," epic riffs and keyboards create an inviting, yet intense embrace. Heavy guitars crescendo into an incredible vocal explosion. Meanwhile, "Amaranth" has a power metal rhythm that builds with a serious urgency. However, Nightwish have further experimented, embracing their new singer's immense talent and venturing beyond the norm. "Eva" highlights Anette's versatility, allowing her voice to take center stage and simply soar. The ballad showcases ethereal keyboards and a hauntingly gorgeous chorus. Ultimately, Nightwish have made a career out of breaking the rules. Their sound could never simply be categorized, and they have managed to continually evolve with each album. With their first U.S. tour with Anette this fall and Dark Passion Play out October 2nd, Nightwish are bound to secure their spot at the top.

www.myspace.com.nightwish

The Symbolic of Goat Fetish - Part 1

A fetish is an object believed to have supernatuaral powers, or in particilar, a man-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the attribution of inherent value or powers to an object. Traditionally West African religious beliefs in fetishism and Voodoo is being practiced which it derived from those beliefs.

Blood is often considered a particularly powerful fetish or ingredient in fetishes. In addition to blood, other objects and substances, such as bones,fur,claws, feathers,gemstones and crystals,water from certain places, certain types of plants and wood are common fetishes in the traditions of cultures worldwide. Fetishes were commonly used in Native American Region and practice. The bear represented the shaman, the buffalo was the provider, the mountain lion was the warrior, and the wolf was the pathfinder.