If you’re chronically online like I am, you’ll have noticed a recent vibe shift permeating the culture at every level. I’m not talking about the unexpected pivot from brat to demure, or the wafty return of Sienna Miller-era boho . What I’m talking about is a lot more timeless.
Something that has hitherto been lurking in shadows and is only now creeping to the fore. Something sinister and primordial and yet strangely comforting at the same time. You can feel its presence looming in the horror movie montage that is Sabrina Carpenter’s music video for Taste ; in Dilara Findikoglu’s spooky-meets-slutty-school-girl capsule collection for Heaven; in the recent reboot of The Crow , starring saturnine siren FKA twigs; and practically every move dark doppelgänger Amelia Gray and Gabriette make.
But nowhere is it more palpable than the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice press tour. A love letter to eldritch glamour, from Monica Bellucci’s sexy succubus Westwood number at the Venice Film Festival to Catherine O’Hara looking cute but sultry in Simone Rocha at the London premiere (go off, queen), this is one for the history books. Even the very notion of a Tim Burton sequel is a testament to what I’m talking about, and that is, of course – cue funeral music – the long-awaited return of goth.
Not the Goth Girl Summer of 2022, mind you, which was the sartorial equivalent of a semi-erection. I mean a full-blown gothic resurrection. Yup, the bats have once again left the belfry; .