Health Goth is a fashion trend that emerged in the early 2010s. It blends elements of goth fashion, gym wear, and minimalist design with a focus on physical fitness and well-being. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The term "Health Goth" originated from Portland artists, Mike Grabarek and Jeremy Scott (also known as Magic Fades), and artist Chris Cantino who started the original Health Goth Facebook community in 2013. [5] They have stated, "A lot of the influence comes from HOODBYAIR, Cottweiler, Whatever 21, and A D Y N." They also claim they were attributing a name to describe a feeling that already existed. "When we started we’d just see an ad or some clothes we liked, and we’d see something dark or sexual in them that wasn’t intended to be there. So really the subversive side was just portraying the ads in a new light, because we wished these aspects were intentional. Things sort of went from there." [5] In addition to citing athletic wear, future fashion labels and the emotional spectrum, they also reference sources from other online movements and aesthetics; "It’s not just the colour scheme, a lot of the stuff we post are just futuristic or healthy takes on goth style... We find equal inspiration in our Tumblr feed, where you see a lot of 3D rendered images, which have no people or clothing shown. Images of mesh, or a blade with a tribal pattern and a fern or something. It might not be evident upon looking at our page but a lot of our imagery is very Net Art inspired." [6] [2] [7]
Grabarek, Cantino, and Scott have stated that Health Goth "has to do with our history of net art obsession and fascination with the rise of trans-humanism. We want to create art that references evolution and relate it back to subcultures, things like bio-enhancement technology, anti-aging medication, and how it all feeds into this ideal of "pursuing perfection". We embrace a lot of these futuristic fantasies but ultimately we all have our own fears and doubts about it. So we like to blur the edges between things that are transcendental and taboo just enough that it begs a discussion." [8] They later stated they were "followers of the trans-humanist movement" and related their approach to a rejection of retro-fetishism: "It's pretty fantastical when it comes down to it, and some may find that too strange or taboo, but we prefer that blurry, uncomfortable space over the conventional and twee bullshit you see everywhere." [6]
In 2024, Balenciaga was reported to reference Health Goth in its spring show in Shanghai. [9] Later that year at the 2024 Summer Olympics, South Korean pistol shooter Kim Yeji was reported to evoke the style. [10]
Goth is a subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develop and shape the subculture include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, the Cure, and Joy Division.
Bauhaus were an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. Known for their dark image and gloomy sound, Bauhaus are one of the pioneers of gothic rock, although they mixed many genres, including dub, glam rock, psychedelia, and funk. The group consisted of Daniel Ash, Peter Murphy, Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass).
Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the goth subculture. A dark, sometimes morbid, fashion and style of dress, typical gothic fashion includes black dyed hair and black clothes. Both male and female goths can wear dark eyeliner, dark nail polish and lipstick, and dramatic makeup. Styles are often borrowed from the Elizabethans and Victorians. BDSM imagery and paraphernalia are also common. Gothic fashion is sometimes confused with heavy metal fashion and emo fashion.
Balenciaga is a French-Spanish luxury fashion line that was founded in 1919 by Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastián, Basque Country. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear footwear, handbags, and accessories, and licenses its name and branding to Coty for fragrances. It is owned by the French corporation Kering.
Noel Fielding is an English comedian and actor. He was part of The Mighty Boosh comedy troupe alongside Julian Barratt in the 2000s, and has been a co-presenter of The Great British Bake Off since 2017. He is known for his dark and surreal comedic style.
Japanese street fashion refers to a number of styles of contemporary modern clothing in Japan. Created from a mix of both local and foreign fashion brands, Japanese street fashions tend to have their own distinctive style, with some considered to be extreme and imaginative, with similarities to the haute couture styles seen on European catwalks.
The fashion of the 2000s is often described as a global mash up, where trends saw the fusion of vintage styles, global and ethnic clothing, as well as the fashions of numerous music-based subcultures. Hip-hop fashion generally was the most popular among young people of both sexes, followed by the retro-inspired indie look later in the decade.
Alternative fashion or alt fashion is fashion that stands apart from mainstream, commercial fashion. It includes both styles which do not conform to the mainstream fashion of their time and the styles of specific subcultures. Some alternative fashion styles are attention-grabbing and more artistic than practical, while some develop from anti-fashion sentiments that focus on simplicity and utilitarianism.
The Toronto goth scene, the cultural locus of the goth subculture in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the associated music and fashion scene, has distinct origins from goth scenes of other goth subcultural centres, such as the UK or Germany. Originally known as the "Batcavers", the term "goth" appeared only after 1988, when it was applied to the pre-existent subculture. Distinctive features included internationally recognized gothic and vampiric fashion store 'Siren', a goth-industrial bar named 'Sanctuary: The Vampire Sex Bar', and Forever Knight, a television series about an 800-year-old vampire living in Toronto. In Toronto, the goths did not seek to reject mainstream status, and achieved partial acceptance throughout the mid to late 1990s.
La Carmina is a Canadian blogger, author, journalist, and TV host. She specializes in Goth and Harajuku fashion and Japanese popular culture. She has been described by Qantas as "one of the best-known names in the blogging world, having authored three books and hosting travel segments for international television networks." She also appeared in one of the segments on the Tokyo episode of Bizarre Foods on Travel Channel.
Seapunk is a subculture that originated on Tumblr in 2011. It is associated with an aquatic-themed style of fashion, 3D net art, iconography, and allusions to popular culture of the 1990s. The advent of seapunk also spawned its own electronic music microgenre, featuring elements of Southern hip hop and pop music and R&B music of the 1990s. Seapunk gained limited popularity as it spread through the Internet, although it was said to have developed a Chicago club scene.
Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music and a subgenre of hauntology, a visual art style, and an Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s, and became well-known in 2015. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, 1970s elevator music, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s. The surrounding subculture is sometimes associated with an ambiguous or satirical take on consumer capitalism and pop culture, and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of previous decades. Visually, it incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, anime, stylized Ancient Greek or Roman sculptures, 3D-rendered objects, and cyberpunk tropes in its cover artwork and music videos.
Ramona Andra Langley is an American electronic musician from Portland, Oregon. She has released music under her primary Vektroid alias, as well as others, such as dstnt, Laserdisc Visions, New Dreams Ltd., Virtual Information Desk, and PrismCorp Virtual Enterprises. Langley played a prominent role in the popularization of the vaporwave subgenre with the release of her ninth studio album, Floral Shoppe, under the alias Macintosh Plus. The album helped popularize the vaporwave genre throughout the Internet. Since then, she has continued to release music through Bandcamp and other online platforms.
E-kids, split by binary gender as e-girls and e-boys, are a youth subculture of Gen Z that emerged in the late 2010s, notably popularized by the video-sharing application TikTok. It is an evolution of emo, scene and mall goth fashion combined with Japanese and Korean street fashion.
Dark academia is an internet aesthetic and subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof. The aesthetic centres on traditional educational clothing, interior design, activities such as writing and poetry, ancient art, and classic literature, as well as classical Greek and Collegiate Gothic architecture. The trend emerged on social media site Tumblr in 2015, before being popularised by adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s and early 2020s, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fashions of the 2020s represent a departure from 2010s fashion and feature a nostalgia for older aesthetics. They have been largely inspired by styles of the late 1990s to mid-2000s, 1980s, and late 1960s to early 1970s. Early in the decade, several publications noted the shortened trend and nostalgia cycle in 2020s fashion. Fashion was also shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a major impact on the fashion industry, and led to shifting retail and consumer trends.
Mall goths are a subculture that began in the late-1990s in the United States. Originating as a pejorative to describe people who dressed goth for the fashion rather than culture, it eventually developed its own culture centred around nu metal, industrial metal, emo and the Hot Topic store chain. It has variously been described as a part of the goth subculture, as well as a separate subculture simply influenced by goth.
Indie sleaze was a fashion style popular in the United States and United Kingdom from approximately 2006 to 2012. Characterised by an affordable, messy and lethargic take on vintage fashion styles, especially the 1970s, the style was particularly popular amongst the hipster subculture and indie rock bands.
An Internet aesthetic, also simply referred to as an aesthetic or microaesthetic, is a visual art style, sometimes accompanied by a fashion style, subculture, or music genre, that usually originates from the Internet or is popularized on it. Throughout the 2010s and 2020s, online aesthetics gained increasing popularity, specifically on social media platforms such as Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok, and often were used by people to express their individuality and creativity. They can also be used to create a sense of community and belonging among people who share the same interests. The term aesthetic has been described as being "totally divorced from its academic origins", and is commonly used as an adjective.