get your goth on...

Like today, the average young guy preparing for a night out in the 80's did not need to spend long getting ready. Put on the new shirt bought hours earlier on a lightning trip to Top Man, a quick comb of the hair and an over-liberal application of Joop and off he went. For the goth, however, things were much more complicated. The day would start early with a trip to Boots the Chemist for their legendary own brand black hair dye, reputedly the blackest on the market, followed by the lengthy rigmarole of applying the  pungent purple gloop and waiting for it to set. Then there was the inevitable scrubbing of skin areas the dye had seeped on to. There would also be an hour of crimping/backcombing and liberal amounts of hairspray to ensure everything stayed in place for the evening. Clothing-wise, it was barely less time-consuming, with studded straps to fit onto suede effect pixie boots, Astburyesque scarves to tie onto artfully distressed straight black jeans (with studded belt, natch), the agonising choice of the correct t-shirt (Sisters of Violets ? Lorries or Prunes ? Bauhaus or KJ ?), plus of course the obligatory biker jacket (with band artwork done in white paint by a Art student for a tenner). It's hard to say when I stopped putting the gear on for a night out, but it was probably around the time I started to enjoy a spot of gardening, reading car magazines and trimming my nasal hair. Nowadays, the average goth festival is full of paunchy, balding, grey haired goths who have kept not just the faith but the look, like those middle ages teddy boys we used to laugh at back in the early eighties. Andrew Eldrith may have changed his own appearance beyond recognition since the early days, but for a large part of the Sisters' following it seems that it will be forever 1985 ...