Megan was ready for a change. In one year, she would be going off to college to enter a pre-med program at a prestigious university. She would have to buckle down and study harder than she had ever studied in her life. Megan was a responsible young women, but she wanted to become more adventurous at least to a certain degree. She would not allow anything to jeopardize her good grades, which would put her college scholarship in jeopardy. She just wanted to be different and try a new style for a while.
One of her schoolmates, Timber, was the complete opposite of Megan. Timber only wore dark clothes and makeup, and her hair was dyed black. Megan befriended Timber and started to learn that she and several of her friends were part of a subculture called goth. She wore goth clothing and listened to goth music. Intrigued, Megan wanted to learn more about these goth girls.
She did some research on the goth way of life and found that the goth movement started in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It sprang out of the gothic rock scene. She discovered that goth was about darkness. The music, fashion, and outlook was dark and foreboding. She also learned that the goth subculture has no defined political mission like the hippie and punk movements. The Goth philosophy was less about social activitism and more about creativity and artistic expression. Many Goths believed in individualism, tolerance of diversity, and social liberalism, but these beliefs were not universal. Megan was fascinated with Timber’s goth clothing. After learning about the goth way of thinking, she better understood why goth girls wore dark clothing, dark makeup, and black/bluish hair.
Timber invited Megan to a goth party. She was a little apprehensive about going because she did not have a thing to wear; yet, she thought it would be fun. Besides, all she needed to do was wear something black. So, she wore a long black skirt and black sweater. She also painted her fingernails back and wore black lipstick. Timber thought that her first attempt at goth fashion was pretty good.
When she got to the party, she realized that she had a lot of work to do on her goth look. Although her look was dark, some of the other girls had on beautiful, lacy outfits that were not black! Both men and women wore make up. Sometimes she could not tell the boys from the girls. This made sense because she had read that one style of goth fashion was genderless.
She noticed that besides black or pewter in color, goth clothing for men included styles with lots of buckles and hooks, long flowing hooded capes, shirts with skulls and crosses on them, and platform shoes and boots. Goth clothing for women included gowns, corsets, veils, skin tight dresses, cat suits, and plat form shoes.
After the party, which she found fascinating, Megan decided to go shopping with Timber and buy a number of goth outfits. Of course, she had to dye her hair black.