Fashion vs. lifestyle is something I have been thinking about every now and then since I first became interested in gothic fashion. And while I was sitting here in the middle of the night, in my red and black room, with candles as my only light source and the smell of an opium incense lingering in the air, sipping my red wine I realised just how cliche I am without intending to be, and thought that it would be a good time to write about this, hahah.

I’ll say it straight away; I don’t try to live up to any “lifestyle guidelines”, especially ones that relate to something as pointless as the stuff I prefer to wear. When I first got into gothic stuff, I was about 12 and was concerned that if I don’t do or like certain things, I can’t live up to the “standards”. Oh how wrong I was, but it’s funny to reminisce back to it and realise that I was just young and stupid back then. Nowadays I see kids on the internets trying their best to live up to gothic or lolita “lifestyles”, and I just snicker to myself because I remember how I was at their age.

What is a “gothic lifestyle” or a “lolita lifestyle”, anyway? Who says what it can be and what it cannot be? There are tons of guides on the internet on how to live a lifestyle up to the fashion you love. Why do they exist in the first place? For me, I started loving the gothic style back then because I had always been into the darker aesthetics. It just took me forever to realise that it worked that way instead of me liking the things I like because they are “gothic”. And that’s just fine.

But there are instances when people try to force theirselves to fit into a specific, assumed, “lifestyle” of a subculture (whichever it is). It should not be that way. There are no set guidelines. There might be things that a majority of the people in subculture x like, but you shouldn’t feel forced to like them if you simply don’t. Each subculture naturally attracts people with often similar interests, but as said, just because the majority in a subculture likes something and you don’t, it doesn’t make you any less “real” than the majority.

To me, subculture lifestyles are bullshit. The only lifestyle I follow is mine, and if some of it falls into the cliche gothic category, then hey, that’s fine. Point being; keep on doing the things you like and liking the things you like. Whatever they may be, it’s your (insert subculture) lifestyle.

I am going to keep liking my candles and my red wine, but I will also keep liking my bad eurodance and wearing my jeans and t-shirts most of the time. I genuinely like all of them, and it would be a shame to have to stop liking something I like just because it’s not “gothic” enough. Not that I even call myself a goth, because I am way too lazy with my frillz (and I bet some of the “true” goths out there would just laugh at my japanogoth stuff, but do I really care? No!), hahah. I am me, and I do things that make me happy. That’s what your “gothic” or “lolita” or whatever “lifestyle” should be about, and nothing else.

Of course, this is just my personal opinion. Someone out there will surely disagree with me, and that’s fine. Some people probably like the “guidelines” of specific subculture lifestyles. If that makes them happy, then more power to them! For me it would just feel like living up to someone else’s ideal standards, and it certainly wouldn’t make me feel happy or natural. But each to their own, of course.

With that said, here’s a (completely unrelated, but hey, I had to stick it in some post) small series of photos I took of my dorries for an assignment (not that they really relate to the assignment title at all, but whatever):