June 2026
Intimacy & Inquiry
Summer has a way of forcing adaptation.
The boots come off. The long sleeves retreat to the back of the closet. Suddenly, the challenge becomes finding ways to stay comfortable without feeling disconnected from the styles, and, by extension, communities that make us feel most like ourselves.
This issue explores the many ways people rise to that challenge, and others.
Lindsay Kaye reflects on bringing gothic style into everyday life through Gothleisure™, while our summer fashion and beauty stories explore Southern Gothic romance, Yalternative style, soft goth beauty and footwear designed to survive a heatwave. These stories celebrate the small adjustments that allow an aesthetic to evolve out in the wild.
Elsewhere, we celebrate the people shaping alternative culture. Our PRIDE guide highlights queer-owned brands creating on their own terms, while Dr. Lindsay Byron reflects on reinvention, community and embracing life's many chapters.
At its best, gothic culture has never been about standing still. It adapts. It experiments. It finds new forms without losing sight of what made it meaningful in the first place.
Thank you for spending part of your summer with us.
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All articles are available now below.
Cover: courtesy of Lively Ghosts shot by @cinemuseo and featuring @_lunesolace + @elizacuzzo.
Style
Cover Story: Inside Gothleisure™ with Lively Ghosts Founder Lindsay Kaye
The designer reflects on the inspiration behind the brand’s latest chapter
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Few launches have generated as much excitement within gothic fashion circles this summer as Gothleisure™ collection.
The newest addition to cult favourite brand, Lively Ghosts’ lineup, arrives at a moment when people are becoming increasingly unwilling to reserve their favourite aesthetics for special occasions only. Equal parts practical and playful, the collection brings lace, Victorian-inspired details and the brand's signature spooky wink into a category overrun with boring, basic matching sets.
To celebrate the launch, we caught up with founder Lindsay Kaye to discuss the collection's origins, the art of building an entire world through design and where Lively Ghosts is headed next—which, if our conversation is any indication, may involve both yoga mats and red-carpet drama ;).
Outlaw Revival: a Yalternative Summer Style Guide
The call from beyond the city lights
By: The Lace Ledger
The heat lingers long after the sun goes down as condensation slides down the side of a plastic beer cup; the crowd grows louder, everyone angling for a better view of what comes next. The excitement is palpable.
You might be making your way to the stage at a festival or into the arena for a rodeo—either way, the energy is electric.
Spend enough time around both scenes and the similarities start to reveal themselves. The soundtrack may vary, but the cast rarely does. The people drawn to cowboy culture and alternative culture have always shared an affection for outsiders, troublemakers and anyone willing to carve their own path. Enter, yalternative.
Yalternative style channels that spirit through distressed denim, black cowboy boots, silver hardware, flannel, camo and vintage tees fit for everything from county fair rodeos to punk shows and sipping whiskey in neon-lit dives.
Southern Gothic Style Guide: The Romance of Ruin
Old-world femininity, rural Americana and the enduring appeal of beautiful decay
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
This is an aesthetic born from heat. Not the pleasant warmth of a garden party, but the kind that settles over a landscape and simmers low all summer. The kind that curls wallpaper at the edges, slows conversations to a drawl and turns every family secret into something that increasingly impossible to ignore. It emerged from the literary traditions of the American South, where writers like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor explored the uneasy relationship between beauty and decline, pairing grand houses with crumbling foundations, religious devotion with human frailty and nostalgia with the lingering consequences of history.
Its fashion followed suit.
At its heart, Southern Gothic is a style language built around beautiful decay. It finds romance in weathered architecture, dignity in imperfection and meaning in things that have endured. The result is a wardrobe that feels deeply human: emotional and inseparable from the histories that shaped it.
In the height of summer, when the air hangs heavy and every landscape seems touched by memory, there is no better time to revisit it.
Goth Girl Summer Flats: Soft Shoes with Sharp Edge
Ballet flats, sandals and sneakers for people unwilling to let one heatwave ruin the entire outfit
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Every summer, a very specific fashion crisis begins unfolding across the gothic community. The boots suddenly feel ambitious when facing oppressive humidity. Platforms become a logistical challenge. Heels pin you to grass. Eventually, we begin being a little more open to hearing … shudder… practical solutions.
We’ve curated a selection of positively ominous looking footwear that is comfortable to wear; from ballet flats to sandals and sneakers, every pair is capable of surviving both the farmer’s market and a cemetery wander, aesthetic intact.
Dressed for Downpour: Dark Feminine Rain Gear Designed for Stormy Weather
Patent trench coats, cathedral umbrellas and storm boots prove that bad weather has never stood in the way of style for the darkly inclined
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
The sky has been grey since breakfast as rainwater slides down storefront windows while someone in an office tower quietly regrets wearing suede. Sidewalks shine like wet pavement in a classic film noir. Most would agree it’s positively miserable outside. How delightful. It’s finally time to wear the good coat ;).
From patent trenches to skull-handled umbrellas and studded rain boots built to weather the storm, these pieces make a rain day something to look forward to.
The Gothic Beauty Arsenal: The Products We Keep Close
A collection of everyday essentials curated with care
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
There comes a point in every makeup journey where the experimentation slows down.
The drawer full of impulse purchases remains, of course, but a smaller collection begins to emerge; the products that consistently make you feel like yourself. The foundation repurchased before it runs out. The eyeliner that never lets you down. The lipstick that somehow ends up in every purse, coat pocket and desk drawer. These are ours favourites to achieve an everyday soft goth look.
Silk & Sense: A Gothic Guide to Splurge vs. Save
Where to invest in timeless pieces and where to stretch your dollar without sacrificing style.
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Not every purchase can—or should—be an investment piece.
For the gothic creative, it’s as much about discernment as desire: knowing when to seek out timeless quality that will carry you through years of wear, and when to save your coin for other passions.
Consider this your Ledger guide to building a wardrobe and home that balances romance with practicality—elevating your life while keeping it sustainable.
Culture
The PRIDE Guide: 19 Queer-Owned Alternative Brands We Love
These independent labels create everything from jewellery to fashion, fetish and art
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
While we love the celebrations and parties, PRIDE Month has always been about more than rainbow branding and corporate campaigns. It remains rooted in visibility and the ongoing support of queer people building lives, art and businesses on their own terms.
This month, we’re spotlighting independent queer-owned brands shaping alternative culture through fashion, jewellery, fetishwear, literature, leatherwork, design and more to shop all year.
Southern Gothic: 38 Films & Series for Lovers of Beautiful Ruin
Religious fervour and oppressive summer heat shape some of the most compelling stories ever put to screen
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
There is a particular kind of story that could only emerge from the American South. The air feels impossibly heavy while the landscape seems suspended between beauty and neglect. Family histories stretch across generations, gathering secrets, scandals and old grievances along the way. Even the grandest homes appear to be in conversation with their own decline.
Southern Gothic thrives in that uneasy space; it’s a genre preoccupied with the complicated relationship between people and place. The characters who inhabit these stories are often haunted long before anything supernatural enters the frame. Sometimes the ghost is a family legacy. Sometimes it is a community unwilling to change. Sometimes it is history itself.
From literary dramas and doomed romances to psychological thrillers, crime sagas and folk horror, Southern Gothic has produced some of the most atmospheric works in film and television. These selections explore the genre in all its forms, revealing why audiences remain drawn to stories where beauty and ruin are so often found living side by side.
Backstage with Dr. Lindsay Byron: Pole Stories & Plot Twists
The award-winning stripper, scholar and pole community pillar discusses how connection became the foundation of her life's work
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
One of the great frustrations of being a woman is how often the world asks us to pick a lane. Be serious or be sexy. Nurturing or ambitious. Disciplined or spontaneous. Practical or romantic. Lindsay has spent much of her life proving that these categories don’t need to be mutually exclusive.
Over the course of sixteen years as a dancer, she became one of the most celebrated strippers in Atlanta, earning the title of Best Stripper in Atlanta in 2015 while simultaneously completing a doctorate in literature. Behind those accomplishments was a young woman navigating profound loss, family challenges and the social consequences of being labelled long before she had the opportunity to define herself. Rather than allowing those experiences to dictate the course of her life, she alchemized them into momentum.
Today, Lindsay is best known as the founder of Stripcraft and StripTrips, where she continues to champion pole culture and community through education, mentorship, sentuality and unforgettable experiences around the world. From academia to the strip club, from viral storytelling to building one of the most recognizable brands in the pole community, her journey is a testament to resilience. We caught up with Lindsay to discuss stripping, stigma, literature, entrepreneurship and why she believes some of life's most meaningful connections can begin in the most unexpected places.
International Sex Workers Day Watchlist: 38 Films Exploring Sex Work On Screen
These stories examine pornography, stripping, escorting and survival sex work through lenses ranging from fantasy and glamour to violence, loneliness and reinvention
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
In honour of International Sex Workers Day (June 2), this watchlist explores the many ways sex work has been portrayed across film and television; from glamour and fantasy to survival, exploitation, performance and economic reality. According to the International Union of Sex Workers, there are 52 million sex workers globally; 41.6 million of which are female. Though, researchers note the true number is likely far higher due to stigma, criminalization and underreporting.
These stories do not present one singular experience. Instead, they reveal how deeply conversations surrounding labour, gender, intimacy, class and power have always been intertwined with the people working at the centre of them.
The Dark Feminine Travel Edit: Aesthetic Summer Essentials for Life in Transit
Thoughtfully selected luggage, carry-ons and practical luxuries selected for the gothic traveller
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Summer has a way of inspiring movement. Whether you’re to the lake for a long weekend, embarking on a cross-country road trip or travelling internationally, the journey begins long before you reach your destination.
Packing is part of the fun.