Tips for 'Dressing Up' When Your a Goth Girl

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This Tuesday I am recieving an english award from my high school.  When told about it I was also told to "Dress up".  This is pretty basic I know, you go to an award cerimony obviously your not going to wear ripped jeans and a Sex Pistols shirt.  The problem for me is that my everyday attire does not consist of ripped jeans and a Sex Pistols shirt.  This is for a couple reasons, one, I do not own a Sex Pistols shirt and I only own a single pair of jeans.  Two, I feel terribly uncomfortable in jeans and usually just throw them on when I haven't done laundry in a while.  Three, I like to feel pretty and I don't feel pretty when wearing old worn out jeans.

So in short, my everyday attire is very different from other students.  For them dressing up is wearing a cute skirt and possibly a blouse or just a nice top.  For me my everyday attire is fancier than most of their ideas of dressing up, in a casual way for an award ceremony.  I wear lace dresses and flowy skirts on a daily basis which means that my version of dressing up is very different from others.

If I were to dress up I am nearly positive I would be over dressed for the ocassion, but at the same time, no matter how trivial it sounds, I feel like it isn't as important if I'm not dressed up.  So now I am stuck in this delema of what to wear for my award ceremony.  If I go 'dressy casual' I feel no different than any other day, and if I go all out with a poofy dress with lace, sequins, and corset lacing then I will be extremely out of place.  Usually I don't mind standing out from others when I'm walking down the street, but being on a stage infront of judgemental parents I am slightly more uncomfortable with looking out of the ordinary.

I figure I cannot be the only goth girl that has been in a situation where they want to wear something a little more special without looking over done, so I am going to post some tips on feeling dressed up without having to over due it.
Buy Something New

I'm not sure about you guys but I always feel gorgeous when I wear a new dress for the first time.  It doesn't even have to actually be a new dress but as long as it is new to me it still gives me that feeling of being a princess that can put on a new dress everyday(of course I do not actually only wear my dresses once but I do enjoy having the feeling of doing so, even if it is only for a day).  This feeling is even petter if you pair your new dress off with either a new pair of shoes or a pair of shoes that you don't wear very often.


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That Perfect In Between Dress

Most girls will probably know what I mean by this.  A perfect in between dress is a dress you consider too fancy to wear every day, unless you are like me and have days when you feel extremely great and want to boost that feeling with wearing something special, but are a far cry from being something you would wear to prom.  My in between dresses are usually bought around christmas time or closer to prom(one of the more casual prom dresses).  They are a step above casual and a step bellow red carpet ready.  They can have some ruffles or some lace but are not super poofy or formal looking.  They are usually around knee length because anything much shorter should probably be thrown into the casual pile. 

To sum it up they are those dresses that do not get alot of day to day action and instead are usually reserved for a grandparents birthday or a christmas dinner.  Not casual, but also not fancy.

Playing Up a Casual Dress

This is pretty simple, you take a casual dress and you do something to make it seem more formal.  You can do this in a couple ways.  Firstly you can put your hair into a nice updo or durl it into elegant ringlettes.  Another great way is to pair it with some great accessories, a nice hair piece or a victorian necklace work great.  Switching up a casual flat ballet slipper for some more elegant but not too high, high heels is also a great way to play up a casual dress.

Playing Down a Fancy Dress
This is the exact opposite of playing up a casual dress, this is when you take that poofy lace covered prom dress and pair it with items to put a casual spin on it.  The two easiest ways to do this are with hair or a cardigan.  For hair you can leave it down with just some gentle waves or straighten it pin straight.  Using a casual hairstyle automatically brings you look down a couple of notches.  The second way is to put a casual cardigan over top, of course you want to make sure it looks alright before doing into public because to be honest not all dresses will look lice paired of with your favourite cardigan.  When using this tactic you also want to either go with minimal jewelry or crap loads of casual wrist bands.  If you pair this dress with victorian jewelry obviously your going to give it a more elegant, ballroom ready look.  But if you pair your dress with two dozen squishy bracelets you will give your dress more of an 80's madonna vibe.  Also this look is wear you will wanna take those ballet flats from the idea above and wear them.

Of course you can ignore this advice if you are pefectly fine being on stage infront of people and standing out.  Hell, if you are comfortable with this I praise you, I would love to not give a shit and go up looking like a princess.  But anyways I hope you guys like this advice, also if you have anything to add don't be afraid to comment.

Compromising with the Parents

I always see young alternative people complaining that their parents will not let them have freedom.  They are always asking for help to convince their parents to let them dress a certain way.  The advice given to them is usually somewhere along the lines of "sit down and talk to them and try to make them understand why dressing like this is important to you."  I'm sure in some instances this may work but in most situations it probably won't.  If parents are dead set on not letting you out of the house in a certain way they are not going to change their minds easily.

I am not trying to tell you guys to give up and dress like normal kiddies to impress your parents.  I am instead going to talk to you guys about handling things in a much more mature way than to stomp off muttering something about how parents just don't understand.

This solution I am talking about is compromise.  Most healthy relationships with people will be based off of compromise including your relationship with your parents.  I do not personally have to do this as often as many people because my mom has always taught me to be my own person and is fine with how I present myself.  Although their have been some situations where I wanted to do something to change my looks and my mom has said no.  Most of these times have met with compromise.

For example when I was in the seventh grade I wanted to dye my hair black.  My mom did not want me to do this and we eventually came to an agreement to let me dye my hair a really dark brown.  In most light it looked black and she was happy with it son all was fine.  More recently when I told my mom I wanted an under shave she refused to let me shave my head.  I have now had an undercut that is easily hide able since the summer.  And my current compromise that I had to make was that I will dye my hair a natural color for my upcoming grad photos(although my mom's biggest concern was that my pink hair would clash with my red grad gown).

Okay so my compromises all have to do with hair but it is fairly easy to compromise with other things too.

Don't we all with our families looked like The Addams Family?

Ripped Stockings
One thing I hear a lot of is parents concerns over ripped stockings.  This one is fairly easy, don't rip your stockings.  That may not seem like much of a compromise but there is more to it.  A lot of parents are much more willing to let their kids out in stockings that ripped naturally than stockings that were ripped on purpose.  I'm not quite sure why but I'm guessing it has something to do with getting more wear for your money.  If your parents still don't want to let you wear your stockings that ripped naturally then well your kind of out of luck but there are plenty of tights that look just as cute intact as they do ripped.

Ripped Jeans
The rule with stockings can also work with jeans.  When I was younger my dad wouldn't let me buy ripped jeans or purposely add rips into jeans but if they wore out or got ripped on accident he was fine with them. 

Short Skirts
This one I am fully on board with parents especially with younger kids.  There are a couple things you can do with this.  First agree to wear leggings under short skirts.  This will work for most parents because you are not showing too much skin.  If your parents are more concerned about your skirt blowing up or people seeing up it while walking up stairs then wear shorts under it.  I live in Canada and the wind is almost always acting up so I used to do this all the time and will still do it on especially wind days.  If you want to add a bit of a spin wear jeans underneath, I remember when I was in about the sixth grade wearing a plaid skirt over ripped jeans was like the coolest thing ever.  So add a bit of a retro spin by doing that.

Second thing you can do is wear a slightly longer skirt.  Instead of wearing something that only goes half way down your thigh wear something that sits just above the knee.  This gives a modest look without having to wear a maxi skirt.  You can find many medium length skirts that are just as edgy as a mini and they are much more age appropriate.

Corsets
This like the skirts I have to agree with.  What you have to remember is that corsets are technically lingerie and to most people outside of the subculture they are perceived as being sexual.  So a young teen wearing one isn't considered very appropriate even if you are wearing a non-revealing shirt underneath.  A compromise for this would be to wear tops that are designed to appear as if they bring your waist in like a corset.  You can also get away with wearing tops with the corset lacing detail on them.  Waist cinchers and waist belts are also a great way to give off a corseted shape.

Platform Boots
I'm not entirely sure why parents seem so against platform boots but the majority of them are.  Even my open minded mom makes fun of my prised Demonia boots despite the fact that she paid for them after I practically begged her.  This one your not really gonna get around so to be quite honest I would say that like me you would probably have to resort to begging.  But if this does not work then do not fret.  There are plenty of gothy boots that are not platform.  Hell combat style boots are pretty much a staple in both goth and punk.  They also go with everything from jeans to a fancy dress(at least I pair mine with my pretty lace dresses).  I also found a pair of adorable dress boots that look like they were inspired by the early 1900's.  I also found a pair of what I call witch boots for $2 at a yard sale.

Heavy Make Up
If you can get away with it wear lots of make-up just in lighter colors.  My every day make up is actually just silver eyeshadow and black flick eyeliner with a heavy coat of mascara not very dark at all.  Also bright colors can bring some interest to your otherwise dark look.  And another concern is black lipstick.  First off black lipstick does NOT look good on everyone.  Second there are tons of crazy colors of lipstick online.  In my opinion green lipstick beats out black any day.

Just remember compromise is always better than creating a hostile situation with your parents.