How to Be a Goth: Notes on Undead Style

Amidst the waking nightmares of today, the solace of goth looms from behind the shadows to soothe our morbid anxieties. Permeating pop culture at every level - fashion, music, film, beauty - what was once the preserve of the hooded misfit, has now seeped into the mainstream. Which can only mean one thing: must be the season of the witch.

This grimoire will act as a manual for the modern goth as they move through the abyss; navigating the choppy waters of mortality. Divided into advice on style and beauty for three sartorial stages of life - the creepy teenage years, the trick or treat of adulthood, and finally, the witchy winter - it also includes an inventory of important undead icons through the ages; from Wednesday Addams, Siouxsie Sioux and Mary Shelley to Susie Bick, Rei Kawakubo and Miss Havisham.

To further inspire and illuminate the darkness, interspersed throughout we hear from notable goths and goth coded people like Anjelica Huston, Aryuna Tardis, Christina Ricci, Michèle Lamy, and Simone Rocha on what this eldritch culture means to them.

How To Be A Goth will carry you from cradle to crypt.

Tish Weinstock is a London based writer and editor specialising in beauty and its intersection with fashion and pop culture. Graduating from Oxford University in 2012 with a degree in History of Art, she has worked at style bibles i-D, Dazed & Confused, and British Vogue, where she remains a contributing beauty editor. In 2022, she joined System Magazine as beauty director to launch its sister title System Beauty. Other obsessions include vintage dresses, Morticia Addams, interiors porn and her children - not necessarily in that order.