Graveyard Picnic: Cultist Goth

I'd recently promised you an interesting post and here it is! I think it's interesting anyway, I hope you agree with me or else I'm being enthusiastic for no good reason.

Anyway, lately my personal style has been changing and evolving a lot. If you've been following me for a while, you might have noticed that I do like some change in my clothes and that my style has changed quite a lot over the years. You may also have noticed that I am quite the Lovecraft fan - I adore Lovecraftian horror in every way and even if it's made kind of cutesy or hilarious, I might just love it (see: Welcome to Night Vale).


Friends and me in our Ovate hoodies at WGT. Can you guess who I am? Hint: I'm short. Picture is taken by my friend Izzy.

I'm that much of a Lovecraft fan that lately I've been trying to incorporate it in my clothing. You might have noticed that I 'dressed up' as a fashionable cultist to go to a convention. We all know that secretly I was just going as myself. Of course, credit where credit's due, my growing enthusiasm for 'cultist goth' (totally coining that term) is also thanks to my friend Nevel, who has been dressing fashionably Lovecraftian for way longer than me. Generally, my take on cultist goth is also heavily influenced by nugoth.

But enough about me, it's time to elaborate on this style! How does one dress like a cultist yet look terrific?
Let me warn you: I am still exploring this style. Feel free to give me tips on how you would go about looking like a fashionable cultist. Oh and obviously the pictures are just used as an illustration of parts of cultist goth since cultist goth does not actually exist (yet) except in my mind.

This one sort of goes without saying: take something black, add another black item and add some more black. Or at least use very dark colours; possibly dark browns and greys would work as well.

Anything flowy is good. Long dresses are excellent, wide trousers will work too, and long flowy skirts are my personal favourite. For skirts I imagine it may be hard giving of the cultist vibe in a miniskirt, but please do prove me wrong. You could always add a tight top or shirt over a skirt or a wide pair of trousers. Experimenting with combining tight and wide things is always a good idea.

Layering generally works really well if you're already wearing a few flowy items. Layering is not my forte, so I'm just going to say that it's not obligatory, heh.

Ever seen a cultist? (Well, me neither, but you know what I mean.) They wear hoods. Big, scary, black, face-covering hoods. This, for me, is a crucial part of the outfit, also because I just love hoods so damn much.

Generally, just keep it simple. Add in a few Lovecraftian references (I own an octopus necklace which sort of works) or strange symbols (ankhs are great). And you can never go wrong with big, dark scarves.

Make-up

If you want you make-up to suggest 'cultist' as well, I would recommend using dark colours (again). That does not mean that you need to do your most agressive smokey eye, but just dark (smudged) eyeliner and eyepencil will do as well. A grey or brown eyeshadow also sounds like a good idea. And if you want to go all out, contour your face with dark-grey to look like you have sunken cheeks.

I hope you liked my interpretation of cultist goth - feel free to comment with suggestions!