A couple of people asked for the 'goth fashion masterdoc' I joked about - and while I think I'm no herald on that kinda (like I'm just me and like fashion, take everything I say with a grain of salt please) stuff nor do i know everything about goth fashion historically, i can give some pointers towards ethical shopping and avoiding big fuckass corpos disguising themselves as alternative fashion brands. also, there is only so much I can say, suggest and do, if you hit me with a 'well I cant do that/ that's not plausible for me/ I don't want to/ etc' then I don't know what else I can really say.
1: Fast Fashion Is Ruinous and Not Goth
So first things first, needless to say, fast fashion is a no. I wanna start this part off with a quote from "The Impact of Fast Fashion on Women" by Andrea Chang that says:
"The vast, unnecessary size of global clothing production is abhorrent — it has more than tripled since 2000, and the industry now produces over 150 billion garments a year. The culture of disposable fashion that has permeated the Global North is only possible through the increasingly cheap manufacturing labour in developing countries. According to the Ethical Fashion Forum (2014), almost three-quarters of the world’s clothing exports are made in developing countries often under unfair and unsafe working conditions."
So, no good, shops like Killstar, Dollskill, VampireFreaks, Blackcraft Cult etc are shops that promote some kind of 'lifestyle' with their clothes, they have no statements of ethical production and their products fall apart within a few wears. And even worse, places like Hot Topic, H&M, Zara, Shein and Temu. . . do I have to say more? Additionally, In the words of Lady of the Manners in her article "Goth Fast Fashion, and Why It Isn’t Always a Good Thing"
"It’s an unspoken secret (but becoming less of one) that the big name “lifestyle” brands are known for watching the websites, stores, and social media accounts of indie designers and artists to see what’s making a splash, and directly copying designs or making a few tiny changes to them."
These brands don't care about the subculture they are selling to. They do not care about the ethical foundation built on alternative communities that reject this capitalist nightmare. The audacity to promote these things to punks, goths etc is inherently undermining what it means to be those things. When researching these fast-fashion brands of alt clothing, you will often come across reddit posts that claim they are 'legitimate' because 'oh I have dozens of things from them and they feel xyz and are totally reliable', just because they are sometimes not made of 100% polyester and arrive quick and 'look cool', doesn't make them legitimate. Yes they get you your clothes on time when you buy them online but this is not about whether or not these are scam sites that are selling you a false product than what they're advertising, it's about the foundation of their marketing, as being these cool boundary breaking fashion brands that cater to goths and whatnot while they exploit the people in countries with wages that are the lowest in the world, with minimal regulation/safety standards and a lack of opportunities for unionization. Again from the first paper I talk about "Retailers are willing to exploit this cheap labour, and there is a vast supplier network that mediates between these retailers and hundreds of thousands of garment factories"
More so, the environmental effect of this is no less awful. These garments that are made of cheap non-dissoluble or biodegradable textiles, that are stitched together poorly and will therefore urge you to throw them out when they start falling apart and ripping at the seams, will end up clogged up with hundreds of it's kinds somewhere on an island, uncleaned, in the water, piling up, mucking up the world.
2. Work With What You Have
Black textile dye plus whatever clothes you already have in your hanger will do miracle work to transform your wardrobe into something more your style. Depending on what you're dyeing, if its a natural fabric or synthetic, there are variations you can buy that suit your need.
Brands that I've heard are good but have no personal experience with are Rit and Dylon which have their variety for different fabrics. What I personally use is 'Iberia Clothes Dye Black No21', it's affordable, next door, good and works. Of course getting true black is near impossible and there are several people who work closely with dye and textiles that can tell you that in more detail, so the chances of it getting washed out after a few washes or not look as 'black' as you want is possible, but believe it or not it's re-doable and easy to upkeep. Fiber reactive dyes are also good and, as far as I've researched, don't have a negative environmental affect. So google a quick tutorial of how to use these products on your specific clothes and you'll be as good as could be.
Secondly, rips, tears, bolts and chains. You can use your hands or even a fork or knife to go ham on any piece of clothing you want to get that desired grunge look if that's what you're going for. I have multiple items that were once dresses, dress shirts or otherwise which I tore up to have shorter sleeves, more holes etc and nothing but scraps were wasted. I am no seamstress nor do I know how to sow but if you do then this should really be in handy especially if you can make something shorter by hemming it instead of doing it like me and shrugging when there are jagged edges. Chains, pins, loops etc from the hardware store are also things you can slap onto yourself without having to buy overly expensive belts made of 2 strings of barely attached wires. Also if you have hot glue and want a shirt or something to hold a certain way, who's to say I haven't done that either.
Also, sometimes, the clothes you do have are already 'goth' enough (don't know how to better phrase this). If you have basics in black like tank tops, jeans, pants, shirts, blouses etc then you already have enough to start building your wardrobe from those. Most of my clothes from when I was a baby bat were clothes I already had but just styled in different ways to make look more edgy.
Exhibit A: Sweater I already owned that i stretched the neck hem of so it hung off my shoulder plus belt from my dad and black shorts i already owned. etc etc torn up tights I cut the groin area off of and worse as mesh sleeve top so on and on. (dw we'll get to jewellery)
3. Second-Hands, Thrifts, Bazars and Vintage
95% of my fashion is second hand clothing. My go to's are local second hand stores around my city (in order not to dox my region I am not going to state any specific ones, but I live in Prague and there are a nice selection if you look for them), and i really mean second hand, not the stores that pretend to be second hand but instead are like depop but a physical shop that try to convince you that the patterned shirt you picked up is actually a retro 2000's rare piece worth 30$. My rule of thumb is that if I go into a second-hand/thrift and anything is over the price of 20$ I don't buy it and leave. My only exceptions is if it's extremely good quality vintage that I run across and it's fairly priced for that quality, but if it's over like 26$ then forget about it.
The only things I've paid over that amount for were when I entered vintage stores, not second hand ones. Make sure it's what it claims to be/authentic, and see if it's worth buying. Rest it up to you.
Where I live I also rely on the app Vinted, and avoid the people who hashtag their pieces with things like #gothic #goth #altfashion #y2k and essentially pack their item with hashtags to get to as big as an audience as possible. Y'know the people, the ones who take a mundane garments, cinch the waist and sell it off for more than it's worth because they can sell it off as 'vintage' when its a Hollister top from 2008. Run from those because they will also most likely try to sell off a Killstar or Shein product without telling you or hiding the tag - in those moments google lens or image search has been my hero. (They know it's cheap stuff that is falling apart as they wear it so they hide the loose threads etc you get it). Look for items that are sold by people who are not them, I don't know how else to explain it? People who genuinely have no need for their garment, it does not have to be a lace corset or demonia boots but a black piece of clothing or gothic looking attire that is not advertised as that.
You don't need the pintrest-exact replica of outfits or pieces, get something you want to wear. The more niche and archaic your look the cooler you are in my opinion. I for example dress myself daily as though I was a character in VTM:B which makes me very happy, therefore I look for items that fill that vision and comfort for me.
I can't speak on Etsy or Depop because I have never bought things from there, but I heard it's common for people to steal designs, so watch out for that!
Also independent artists that hand-make their clothes, vet them on wherever you find them, Instagram or their personal websites, etsy ect. If they hand make it and are ethically aware they will always state it somewhere on their profile.
When it comes to jewellery, I have 6 pieces of jewelry I cycle through, three of them from second-hand stores, 2 from Christmas markets and one from Vinted. So it's all about looking! They were the most pricey thing because I don't want green fingers to be honest so I will save up for those If i really need them (this store is pretty good too, my friend bought from them and the quality is nice! though pricey).
4. Shops That Are Slow-Fashion
The last 5% of clothes from my closet are from some nice stores I saved up to buy from! These are always more on the pricier side because they are well-made and created to last, made by people who care about the article of clothing or are in the subculture they are selling to.
Foxblood: Bought a bag, jacket and a top from them and they are all great quality that hold up now 1 and a half years into almost wearing them daily. Granted this is the only proper store I've bought my wardrobe from because again, I like buying directly second hand more than from brands.
Places my friends brought from or business that are small also are:
Later Studio
I Do Declare
In Her Bones
By Frennka
4. No Need For Everything At Once
It took me maybe two and a half-ish years to properly build up my wardrobe to something that I feel like represents me. Once you get into a subculture and integrate with it's people and subculture, you do not need to immediately that moment buy out a new closet, that's kinda sucky. Take your time picking out pieces you like and want to wear, think about it and learn what you like to wear without being influenced by people telling you what to wear. I personally want to lean more Victorian, silhouette wise, but those pieces are pricey and therefore I'm taking my time, looking around and having a good time expressing myself how I feel good, comfortable, vampy and ghoulish.
And since this is mostly about fashion I don't feel the need to really get into the goth culture itself, but it's more than just the music, just the clothes etc (while it also is about those, don't misunderstand me), it's also about the principles you hold and how you express them. Conservative boot-licking bigots can't, for example, be goth, no matter how much goth music or black they wear, remember this.
Last quote from the first article I quoted "Consumers may also be unwilling to adopt more ethical or sustainable practices because they feel physically and culturally distanced from the problems in focus" - in response to this, become more aware of the issues in the world, focus on the problems, do not shop mindlessly, callously or with disregard.
And honorable mention, for me at least, having tattoos, dyed hair and changing my features like thinning my brows, using specific makeup products etc helps.
