Fashion & Make Up Links and Resources

GothCraft index
See also: Fashion Tips, Dark Shopping, goth links, Victorian, magazines, goth patterns

Historic Deerfield - Museum located in Deerfield, Mass, open daily 9:30am-4:30pm, $12 for adults (discount coupon on site). They have an amazing looking exhibit of 18th century fashion reproduction dreses made of paper in the Helen Geier Flynt Textile Museum.

Free Bindi sample - All you have to do is send an SASE, details on the site, they also have a nice catalog of cheap bindis, mhendi materials, & other body jewelry, also check for their Ebay auctions.

About.com: Tattoo/Body Piercing

About.com: Sewing - great section, I have been learning how to sew from this and from the Readers Digest sewing guide.

alt.gothic.cars - This is an excellent page on how to goth up your car inside and out. Fashion does not stop before the automobile!

CheapSkates - being fashionably goth and thrifty. Great set of links to more goth/fetish/makeup web sites. Don't miss the article How to Whip Up Your Own Set of Wings.

Make your own fairy wings for the May Day Festival - or any time, this is a great simple guide to making super cheap durable wings that can be personalized to easily be one of a kind.

Diva a go go - Make-up tips for spookykids.

Gothfashion e-list on Egroups

alt.gothic.fashion.faq - one of the most comprehensive collection of lists of where to get goth stuff across the country, or how to do your own, clothes, hair, make-up,etc.

Six Feet Under - A D.I.Y. guide to gothic fashion. This is such a great site on how to make a few goth clothing items even if you have a limited budget or can't sew much. There are only a few items but they are vital staples and once you make the basic ones you can probably modify them with different trims or fabrics once you get the hang of things. The great items are full skirt, morticia skirt, and gothing a hat.

Freaky Fashion & Glamour webRing

Vegetarian Shoes - they have all the leather free Dr. Martens, and a huge selection of animal free boots & shoes at decent prices, located in the UK.

How to wear a veil with your tiara

Tiara Town - lots of pretty tiaras, pearl, rhinstone, prices range from very expensive to $15 on some items in the clearance section.

Tip: Search eBay or amazon auctions or yahoo auctions using the words rhinestone and tiara.

P.M. Bridal Inc Tiaras & Crowns

The Female Form - History of corsets, photo gallery of pretty people in corsets & links.

Long Island Staylace Association - resources, shops that sell corsets, how to wear a corset, how not to wear one, etc. Great informative site, could be a little more attractive physically, listings of events, museums, etc.

Pathway to Darkness's Halloween - decorating, costume ideas, & party foods. For some of us every day is Halloween, so these are useful all year.

Gothnicity - how to be goth in less then an hour. Hair, face, skin, attitude, expression, accesories, social, these easy steps can make you goth too!

Grey Sterling's self-service Mortuary - where to find pale makeup, black lipstick, and dark clothing, as well as makeup advice.

Costumes.org - costume history, info, tons of tips on making costumes of all types, links, Women's Turn of the Century Hard Collars

Sally Queen & Associates - I'm not sure how but I get a postcard by mail once or twice a year from them to buy their pretty informational historic fashions calendars. On the site you can buy the calendar, including past years. They sent me a page from it as a sample once and it now hangs on my sewing room wall. There's also links & addresses of museums the collections were photographed from, and a few articles on period clothing.

Baralier's Den costume gallery - He emailed me once and I followed his link and found a great image gallery of himself and friend in costumes, great for inspiration. Click the gallery link. Also see the "Costumes & Gaming " link for his own great creations.

Victorian Costume Site - Covers clothing worn from 1840 to 1900, lots of beautiful photographs.

The Hoop Skirts & Crinolines page - History, pictures & development of the hoop skirt.

Wig making

Kerri's Vanity - A Crossdresser's Resource site

Donna Ricci's Modeling Page - I wasn't sure exactly where this should go, but since she was the model for Death (Sandman/Gaiman), and there's a nice gallery of her wearing dark fashins, she can go here.

Clothing Patterns - free online or to order

Antimony & Lace - gothic fashion D.I.Y - This site is great, I can't praise it enough. There is a section on Gothic Fashion, which has great info on just how & when to wear a cloak, caring for pvc, corp goth dress, goth style, and male goth style. Most importantly, the do it yourself section which includes kimono, bat wings, bondage pants, net skirt, and other valuable things for the budgeted goth.

ChainMaille: the LORD Randolph Method - free tutorial how to make chain maille

Make your own home-made Slave Princess Leia bikini - very cool, it's not all that difficult.

Make a costume straitjacket - step by step directions & photos

La Mode Bagatelle - There's only a few patterns for regency dresses, but that's all you really need, with change of color & fabric and a change here and there you can make dozens of different designs from one pattern. Each pattern is about $50 but this place comes highly reccomended by a great costumer.

Titanic Patterns - Shows patterns you can buy that resemble costumes from this movie or were made as costumes for it.

Star Trek Uniforms - not patterns, but photos of all of them from original, movies, next gen, etc

Corset Links - buying and making them.

Gothic Fashion Sewing - great list of gothable sewing patterns from Simplicity, MCalls & Butterick.

Simplicity - Of the 3 major pattern suppliers, they have teh best online pattern cat, great views of all possible outfits, view of actual pattern sketches & back of pattern envelope, lots of photos of finished outfits with each pattern, and best sketches on the pattern envelopes. I will list them eventually but if you go through you can find a lot of gothable patterns, especially in the costumes & gown sections.

Butterick - Look in gowns & costumes for gothy patterns. Their server was so slow, even on a T1, and it went down so many times in the few days I was trying to go through all the patterns, sometimes they show the envelope.

McCall - Look in gowns & costumes for gothy patterns. Their online catalog sucks, pictures too small, no view of pattern envelope at all.

Suitability - This is a catalog of horse riding clothes for people, saddle pads, blankets, shipping boots for horses, and saddle & equipment bags. I put this up because I know there are quite a few goths who ride horses (myself included), and some of the riding outfits can make great victorian suits, plus they are good for horse fetishists, you can make them vinyl or other fetishy fabric.

Fabric

Try the garment district in NYC, located around 39th and 40th streets between 7th and 8th Avenues, easy to get to by NJ transportation too. I myself have never gone shopping there but I'm told by super crafty do it themselves goths that is where to find the best vinyl/pvc, lace, velvet, and prices aren't too bad.

Buny's E-Fabrics and Velvetfabric.com - If you can't get to NYC, get your Vinyl & PVC in any color, even leopard & snakeskin print, here. She is extremely nice to deal with and I think her prices are great. You can find her selling on eBay under bunycraft. Definitely check there first, along with her sale page, for scrap pieces and great bargains, those less than a yard scraps you can find there are great for barbie fetish clothes. She also sells velvet & fake furs, satins, & brocades.

Books

The yestermorrow clothes book: how to remodel secondhand clothes - by Diana Funaro. I believe this is out of print so you'll have to try your library or Bookfinder.