Alt Activewear for Getting After It in 2026
A Goth-Girl Style Guide and Playlist for Workouts that Bite Back
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Your hair is wrecked. Breathing, heavy. Cheeks, flushed. Body, tired. You have never felt better.
There is a specific peace that arrives after a hard workout. It lives somewhere between exhaustion and clarity. It feels earned.
This edit is for that moment, pairing goth-coded activewear with music that pushes you through the wall and carries you back down.
Opiumcore in Winter: Dark Elegance Against the Cold
A visceral style edit inspired by couture collections
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Opiumcore surfaces when minimalism feels much too polite. It restores tension to the act of dressing by pulling in avant-garde influences.
As a style concept, opiumcore draws from darkness and devotion, favouring inky blacks and jewel tones shaped by silhouettes that mix close-to-the-body forms with oversized flow.
The aesthetic thrives on contrast. Rich, saturated colour presses against winter’s stark light.
This season, opiumcore resonates because it reflects the season honestly. Winter strips the world all the back to simply shadow and structure. This is a style that meets that severity in the snow without softening its edges.
The Discipline of Dress: Tracing Fetish Fashion Through Couture Collections
Designer inspo, market shopping guide and functional (but discreet) fetish adornments
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Fetish fashion did not begin on the runway, but it has also never stayed confined to the bedroom.
Long before latex and harnesses became street-style shorthand, designers were borrowing the visual language of kink to challenge how clothing relates to power.
What began as taboo iconography evolved into a design vocabulary that speaks fluently in silhouette, material and intention.
Today, fetish fashion moves easily between couture ateliers, city sidewalks, quiet luxury wardrobes and mass-produced fast-fashion brands, no longer requiring shock value to feel transgressive.
Dressed for the Downturn: Sad Girl Chic
Styling for emotional authenticity and rituals for release
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Some days are heavy, and pretending otherwise only makes them linger.
Sad Girl Chic is not about wallowing, but about letting the feeling move through you until it loosens its grip.
This is an aesthetic built for emotional honesty, where dressing becomes an act of self-regulation.
Think of it as wringing out a soaked rag, so tomorrow arrives softer.
Garments with a Pulse: A Conversation with Beloved Fashion Designer, Evan Clayton
An exploration of early inspiration, gothic influences and his latest collection
By: Amanda Albert
Fashion, at its highest level, is wearable sculpture. It is an art form designed to move the body and the mind, in tandem.
Because it resists practicality, it is often misunderstood as excessive, theatrical or, frankly, weird. What it truly resists is complacency.
Evan’s work belongs to this lineage of fashion as cultural intervention. Each collection is built as an emotional architecture rather than a seasonal offering designed to dress trips to the grocery store.
His garments carry narrative, emotion, defiance and devotion with weight meant to endure. On the runway, the story each collection carries unfolds as performance art.
In an era that largely flattens fashion into trend cycles, Evan insists on depth. He designs not to decorate the body, but to transform how we experience it.
We had the pleasure of sitting down with Evan to discuss his latest collection, what came before and what we can expect next.
Goth-Coded Cozy Clothes That Don’t Suck
FW25 comfort through a dark-feminine lens
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
You deserve loungewear that matches your vibe, even when your plans involve nothing but a couch, a snack, a scroll and a playlist turned all the way up. These pieces let you stay comfy without compromising your aesthetic. No matter what you’re getting into at home, there’s a perfect cozy uniform waiting on this list.
5 Ways to Wear Pantone’s 2026 Colour of the Year “Cloud Dancer” with Gothic Energy
From Victorian to Vampire and Castlecore, here’s how to turn fashion’s palest shade into something deliciously dark
Cloud Dancer may look innocent at first glance, but the shade carries a haunted softness that feels pulled from marble statues and Victorian night gowns. In the hands of those who adopt a darker aesthetic, the Pantone becomes operatic. The colour of myth, memory and moonlit stone.
The runways of SS26 laid out a blueprint. Designers leaned into palest neutrals with a gothic undertow, which means the shade is not only wearable for the alt-inclined—it is inevitable. Our Pantone edit moves through five distinct themes, each inspired by 2025 + 2026 couture designer collections and timely cultural moments in film.
Festive Errand-Wear: Dark Femme Looks for the Goth On the Go
Fast to style and built for cold-weather utility, these looks prove even errands deserve allure
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Cold weather is no reason for dull dressing. These errand-ready outfits move with you—through grocery aisles, miscellaneous appointments and afternoons in motion.
Each look reflects its archetype’s essence: easy to assemble and layered for warmth.
A Gothic Guide to New Year’s Eve Style
New Year’s Eve is the one night that you get to toast the ups and downs of this year and everything you’re daring enough to seek in the year to come.
Whether you’re slipping into a formal gala, drifting through a house party with your best pals or keeping the circle small with an intimate countdown, the questions remains the same: what do you wear to honour a milestone that asks for reflection and reinvention?
We’ve curated a selection of clothing and accessories to make that transition feel cinematic.
Festive, But Make It Fashion: A Gothic Guide to Holiday Dressing
The ultimate guide to looking outrageously good at every holiday celebration
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Holiday season is upon us and, honestly, it’s the best excuse we get all year to sparkle a little harder than usual. It’s the stretch of winter where you celebrate the people you adore and politely unravel with the coworkers you usually only interact with at face value.
It’s gift exchanges, questionable playlists, desserts to die for and the annual reminder that looking stunning is absolutely part of the tradition.
Whatever the invitation says, this is your moment to show up as the most festive, most fashionable version of your gothic self.
From Sketch to Sculpture: André Perugia’s Footwear Revolution
There are designers who follow fashion, and then there are those who build its foundation. André Perugia was certainly one of the latter. Known as one of the first truly modern shoe designers, Perugia treated footwear not as accessory, but as architecture. His creations stretched the imagination of what a shoe could be — sculptural, surreal, imaginative; often defying gravity and logic, but never elegance.
Now, in its latest exhibition André Perugia: A Design Legend Unveiled, the Bata Shoe Museum pays homage to the man who turned functional necessity into wearable art. Running through April 2026, the show explores Perugia’s groundbreaking influence from the 1920s to the 1950s, tracing how his designs reshaped both the fashion industry and the consumer’s eye.
The Art of Adornment: Gothic Accessories to Obsess Over
Because style lives in the details
Accessories are the punctuation marks of an outfit — the subtle embellishments that transforms attire into identity. In alternative fashion especially, adornment is more than decoration; it’s declaration. A scarf can frame a mood, gloves can whisper seduction, a necklace can turn mourning into mythology. The gothic wardrobe lives in this space between function and fantasy — where accessories tells the story before a word is spoken.
The practice of adorning the body stretches back to the first civilizations. Shoes evolved from necessity to symbol, their craftsmanship tied to class and ceremony. Jewellery became a form of language, used to signify faith, fortune or defiance. Bags emerged as both practical companions and intimate vaults of selfhood. Across centuries, these items have moved from the margins of fashion to the forefront of self-expression — extensions of who we are and what we choose to reveal.
The Texture of Power: How to Style Black-on-Black With Depth and Mood
Some say black is “safe”. We say black is sovereign.
In the realm of gothic fashion, black-on-black is not a fallback—it’s a love language. A seduction. A study in shadow and contrast, restraint and drama.
But not all black is created equal, and mastering this palette means learning to speak in texture and silhouette.
This isn’t minimalism. This is mystery wrapped in velvet and cinched in leather.
Gothic Outerwear Edit FW25: Bold Jackets & Coats to Rule the Season
Where drama meets discipline: FW25 outerwear takes shape in capes, suede, moto cuts, and sculptural silhouettes
This season, outerwear carries the weight of character. Designers carved silhouettes that recall gothic romance — garments meant to move through the night with mystery and authority.
At Alexander McQueen, capes returned as statements of power, cut with precise shoulders that framed the body like sculpture while Ralph Lauren softened with brushed suede and tactile wool, grounding the gothic sensibility in quiet luxury. Courrèges brought its signature futurism to the classic moto, exaggerating seams and metalwork until rebellion felt refined. Finally, Schiaparelli elevated tailoring into art with blazers molded to the torso, echoing the architectural lines of cathedrals.
Every piece this fall hints at transformation — a merging of sensuality, structure and shadow that defines gothic elegance for the modern age.
Leather Weather: Gothic Archetype Essentials for Fall Winter 2025
From Archetypal Armour to Affordable Alternatives
Every autumn, the mainstream calls it sweater weather — soft knits, pumpkin spice, cozy clichés. But for the gothic soul, it’s something darker, sharper and infinitely more seductive: leather weather.
Since the earliest days of goth culture, leather has been compulsory — not just as a style choice, but as an act of defiance. From post-punk’s studded jackets to the fetish-inspired glamour of the 1980s, leather has always signaled rebellion and resilience, stitched into the seams.
Of course, high-quality leather can be extremely expensive (and rightly so). The cost comes from craftsmanship and durability–a well-made leather piece can last decades, becoming an heirloom of rebellion. But goths have always been resourceful — vegan leather and faux alternatives make the aesthetic accessible at every budget. Whether you’re splurging on handcrafted hides or opting for cost-friendly vegan leather, leather weather is available to every archetype and every price point.
Novelty Purses: A Gothic Celebration of Whimsy
From spooky clutches to crystal confections, celebrate National Handbag Day with fashion’s most playful rebellion
October 10 marks National Handbag Day, and what better way to celebrate than with the pure joy of novelty purses? These small-scale works of art remind us that fashion is not only about function — it’s about play and imagination. A coffin-shaped clutch, a book turned into a bag, or a crystal-encrusted martini glass: novelty purses prove that style can have both substance and sparkle.
Cathedral-Core: Gothic Fashion’s Ode to Architecture
How gothic cathedrals inspire the runway, the wardrobe and the home
World Architecture Day (October 6) is a celebration of the structures that shape our lives and our imaginations — and in the world of fashion, few inspirations loom larger than the gothic cathedral.
Rising in popularity this season under the banner of cathedral-core, we see runway looks evoking stained glass hues as well as patterns inspired by soaring spires and ribbed ceilings.
From couture gowns traced with echoes of ornamental stone work to ready-to-wear silhouettes modelled after vaulted arches, the fashion world is turning to stone (literally) for inspiration.
Twilight Pirouette: A Balletcore Style Guide for the Romantic Goth
Glide from pale morning poses to midnight reveries in an aesthetic tribute that is poetry in motion
Graceful and hauntingly intentional, Balletcore doesn’t only belong to exclusive stages or mirror studios – it can thread seamlessly into daily life. The Romantic Goth archetype carries her dark-hearted elegance into errands, coffee dates and quiet workdays without losing an ounce of poetry.
The attire of working ballerinas, both on and off stage, is architecture for movement. From 19th century tutus with layers of gauzy tulle designed to catch candlelight to the silhouette-hugging bodices and wrap sweaters that showcase the dancers' form we know today, ballet fashion has balanced discipline with ethereality. Pointe shoes, satin ribbons and flowing skirts have become symbols of grace, fragility and rigour all at once; uniforms that demand precision and creativity.
In curating this guide, we pay homage to those historic shapes: the clinging wrap, the sculpted torso, the diaphanous skirt, the pointe shoes–all reimagined for everyday wear, where echoes of the stage linger on city streets.
Venus Said Yes: A Libra Season Style Edit
Harmonizing elegance with edge for the zodiac’s reigning aesthetes
Happy Birthday, Libra!
It’s Libra season, and we’re raising a glass (crystal, of course) to the sign of balance, beauty and exceptional taste. Each month we curate a style edit for the astrological muse of the moment, and this one belongs to Libra—the eternal romantic, the style icon, the social butterfly cloaked in grace.
Noir Now: Your Shoppable Guide to FW25 Gothic Fashion
When the runway lights dim, the hunt begins. FW25 left us longing for structured suits, sumptuous fabrics and dark romantic details—but you don’t need a couture budget to indulge.
This shoppable edit curates the best ready-to-wear pieces that encapsulate the season’s goth-coded mood without breaking the bank.
Here, you’ll find accessible leather (and vegan leather) jackets, impeccably tailored blazers, romantic lace dresses, gauzy ruffles; each curated both aligned with the season’s trends and to become staple pieces in your wardrobe going forward.