It Was Never “Just A Phase”

My previous pseudonym before Lorelei was Spoilt Victorian Child. This was when I wrote for my previous blog, The Tempo House. It’s still online, and yes, as with this one, it’s named after classic Fall songs.

My wonderful cousin Audrey has a theory that personal style and taste is set in your formative years of around thirteen -fourteen, and I reckon she may actually be onto something. I’ve always been more than a bit of a goth, but I do draw the line at full-on mall or fetish goth as I currently reside in a small town and preferred your Cure/Bauhaus/steampunk goth looks anyway. It’s easier to do the Winona Ryder suburban misfit look than Poison Ivy or Mrs Fiend look when you don’t want to be chased out of town, or freak out families. Plus, I’m middle-aged.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make here (and there is one,kinda) is that this was never just temporary – when you have a deep passion for genres, sub-genres and certain aesthetics, it never really leaves you. Just ask Robert Smith or Helena Bonham -Carter, who’ve been enthusiastically backcombing and gothy since the eighties. I can’t imagine either of them in sports wear, can you? Ugghh.

Thanks so much to Lynda, who created this fabulous “Spoilt Victorian Child” chair, which has pride of place in my living room, alongside vintage theatre posters, masks and strange ephemera. We’re often “not found at the usual outlets”, as the late Sean Hughes once wrote. Long may our peculiar quirks reign.