Brat summer, demure attitude, Barbie-core: in recent times, when it comes to fashion inspirations from pop culture and trends, we’ve seen and heard it all. Music, cinema, TV series, and social media contribute to creating a constantly evolving fashion concept, even more creative and dynamic, that, in order to keep up with the times and cater to everyone’s tastes and aesthetics, continues to invent and reinvent itself.
But here, we don’t really care about trends: here, we love what crosses the oceans of time to remain alive. If you caught the reference, you already know where we’re heading: Dracula, vampires, gothic girls, Victorian aesthetics… In short, the key word here is “gothic.” Living in a haunted castle? Wearing only clothes with Victorian details? Being the queen of darkness? Tell me where to sign, and I’ll do it immediately. As the daughter of a horror-loving father, a great listener of gothic metal, an avid reader of unsettling books, curious about everything related to vampirism, but at the same time passionate about fashion, I would love to see the goth aesthetic remain prominent when it comes to style.
For all those who wish Halloween could last all year, who dream of passionate love and are drawn to the unknown or wrapped in an aura of mystery, this recap of gothic heroines from films to inspire your looks is for you. Or rather: it’s for us.
Lydia Deetz – Beetlejuice
With the second installment of Tim Burton’s famous 1988 film on the way, which inspired a successful Broadway musical and a Rodarte capsule collection among other things, she can only be the one to start the show (to the tune of “Banana Boat Song”): the quintessential goth girl, capable of expressing her strength through her looks and makeup, tied to the paranormal world and iconic in her red wedding dress, she’s an inspiration that manages to be both modern and timeless. If Winona Ryder gave us an unforgettable character, it’s now up to Jenna Ortega, playing her daughter, to carry on this important legacy and (hopefully) gift us with a new gothic icon.
Morticia Addams – The Addams Family
The most beloved, eccentric, and famous gothic family of the last century, featured in numerous film and TV adaptations, relies on the matriarch Morticia to function at its best (considering all the ups and downs every family faces). Further immortalized by Anjelica Huston’s portrayal in the 1991 film, she is a woman full of love and compassion, protective, fair, feminist, self-aware, and thoughtful. The fact that she is also a proud representative of the gothic aesthetic makes her even more fascinating: no wonder Gomez is madly in love with her!
Edith Cushing – Crimson Peak
Guillermo Del Toro, through this 2015 film, offers us a gothic and horror story that lacks nothing: there’s a passionate love element, a dramatic dynamic, a chilling soundtrack, and, above all, characters with enviable looks. While the Sharpe siblings are iconic, it’s the young protagonist Edith who captures the eye, thanks to her style that evolves from typical late-1800s city heiress to fully gothic, with ruffled petticoats, intricate collars, corsets, and puffed sleeves that make her the queen of Allerdale Hall. One wonders if the mansion is still haunted by Lucille‘s ghost playing the piano…
Vampira – Plan 9 from Outer Space
Although this 1959 film by Edward D. Wood Jr. has been called “the worst film of all time,” it gave us a glimpse of the character Vampira, a name by which actress Maila Nurmi was known throughout her life and still today. Inspired by Morticia Addams, this iconic femme fatale with her long-sleeved black dress that accentuated her wasp waist has become one of the most admired and copied gothic figures of all time.
Mary Shelley – Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley is one of the most beloved Victorian gothic heroines: daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, wife of Percy Shelley, friend of Lord Byron, but above all, the mother of a key figure in gothic literature—Frankenstein. Although the 2017 film was not a success due to historical inaccuracies, it still offers us a glimpse into the early years of this strong and aware woman. Her more practical looks reflect her resolute spirit and are perfect for sitting among the tombs in the cemetery in search of poetic inspiration.
The brides of Dracula – Van Helsing
Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been waiting for years for an invitation to a grand Halloween party just so I could dress like Aleera, one of Dracula’s brides in this film. Sensual, lethal, and ruthless, Dracula’s three brides give Van Helsing and Anna a hard time in their fight to permanently eliminate the vampire. Queens of an abandoned castle and iconic in their see-through dresses in shades of rose, gold, and white, they embody that seductive aura typical of the vampire figure. Dangerous, of course, but still intriguing.
Lucy Westenra – Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The quintessential film of gothic and Victorian aesthetics, the best adaptation of Bram Stoker’s famous novel, and with perfect casting, makes it difficult to choose the film’s style icon, where the brocade and late-19th-century costumes are so beautiful that they earned the Oscar for Best Costume Design in 1993. However, one stands out: we’re talking about the white wedding dress Lucy is buried in. If in life she was a passionate woman, a loyal friend to Mina, and uninhibited, in her brief second life as a vampire, she appears ethereal and irresistible with that blood-red lipstick. But above all, extremely lethal.
Katrina Van Tassel – Sleepy Hollow
Played by another gothic actress par excellence, Christina Ricci, she is the young protagonist of this film: a lover of novels and magic, kind and fair, with fair skin, blonde hair, and dresses that highlight her petite figure, she embodies the Victorian romantic ideal, which often coincides with the gothic one. How can we forget her black-and-white striped dress, as well as the hooded cape she wears while riding in the Sleepy Hollow forest?
Ellen Hutter – Nosferatu
Director Robert Eggers’ new film is set to release in December, but it already promises to be a new gothic aesthetic cult: inspired by the events of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and a remake of the famous 1922 silent film, it revolves around the figure of Count Orlok, a vampire obsessed with the young Ellen Hutter in 19th-century Germany. Given the setting and atmosphere, from the first images released, we can already expect a Lily-Rose Depp tormented by the vampire, sleepwalking in her white nightgown, a young woman in society. We can’t wait!
Christine Daaé – The Phantom of the Opera
We step away from the strictly gothic setting for a late-19th-century inspiration made famous by Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musical. The young and beautiful Christine is an opera singer who becomes dangerously entangled with the mysterious but alluring figure of the Phantom of the Opera who “haunts” the Paris Opera House. With her aura of purity, sweetness but courage, and dramatic stage outfits, she deserves a mention among gothic heroines. Do we all agree that she should have stayed with Erik, right?
