DRESS UP TO GET DOWN!

Stone Cold Dead in the Market - Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald

We love this track by two of our faves - Ella and  Louis (the other Louis) - so much that we decided to play it on this week’s Peppermint Candy. What could be better than a light-hearted song about murder? We love it. And we’re not the only ones. The Victorians loved a bit of the macabre and mourning wear became hugely popular after Prince Albert’s death in 1861. Mourning clothes have inspired many pale-faced, teen-angst, bedroom-bound Gothic fashions ever since (have you been to Camden recently?) - not least the Gothic Lolita subculture in Japan. But high fashion has also been known to succumb to the Dark Side, especially the blood-red Dior gown above inspired by the bloody French Revolution. We’d happy wallow around in faux-grief in these dramatic beauties, especially while listening to Ella’s calypso-tinged diatribe against domestic abuse.

Pictures above: mourning dress and hat (1870s); Dior evening dress inspired by the Marquis de Sade and the French revolution (S/S 2006); Kazuko Ogawa Gothic Lolita dress from Japan (A/W 2008). All from Gothic: Dark Glamour at the Fashion Institute of Technology