Phantasmagorey Brunch for Halloween

Prefer style over spooky? Edward Gorey over gore? Have a decadent brunch on Halloween Sunday and enjoy a fabulous afternoon of jazz murder ballads, Gothic fashion, burlesque and morbid magic. The event is produced by the gorgeous team of Dances of Vice, famous for hosting wickedly glam parties all over town.  

EVENT - PhantasmaGOREY: Edward Gorey Halloween Spectacular
TIME & DATE: October 31, 2010 - 1:30-4PM
LOCATION: Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues)
ADMISSION: $20 In Advance - $25 Doors - 

Suitable for all ages.

Steampunk Haunted House

          

Halloween is about being stylish and scary...At least it is for me.  The Zack Morris team and Third Rail projects promises to take you to the  " beautiful and terrifying dreamscape of neo-Victorian elegance and phantasmagoric clockwork horrors".  The installation is part performance, exhibition and audience participation.  The shlocky cliches of blood and gore will be absent.  Look for sci-fi mechanized pieces, twisted eye pieces, period costumes in the century old Abron Arts Center.  

Catch it SOON, the house ends October 28th, 2010.  More info here.

Steampunk Fashion Show and Exhibition

                        

The Brooklyn Indie Market is having its annual Steampunk Fashion Show and exhibition this weekend. Check out performances by Lola Lola Dance theater and Tethered as part of the 4 PM fashion show.

The event is a celebration of the craftmanship and style of Steampunk.  

For more information, check out Brooklyn Indie Market's website.

Steampunk 101 at NY Comic Con

The elite of this country's Steampunk movement joined together for a panel at last weekend's NY Comic Con.  Writer G. D. Falksen led the discussion on how the culture originated as a literary one.  Jules Verne was an early inspiration to the movement.  Steampunk has now spread to music and fashion.  

While Goth is sometimes interpreted as dark and spooky to outsiders, Steampunk often gets an easier rep of being optimistic and fascinating.  It was explained as science fiction mixed with the time period before WWI back to Victorian times.  

The aesthetic is elegant and diverse.  One of the designers on the panel considered herself a Goth, but explored the time periods and science of multiple cultures for her Steampunk fashion designs.  The Steampunk "Boba Fett" was a terrific example of taking a modern pop icon and reinventing it as one's own character.  Outside in the NY Comic Con grounds, a Steampunk Iron Man also roamed the floors (winning Marvel's best costume contest).

Comic-Con Photos by Mariana Leung.  Iron Man photo by Judy Stephens

Yoshitomo Nara Nobody's Fool + Cosplay Contest

The Asia Society in New York is hosting a landmark exhibition of Yoshitomo Nara's work and its ties to rebellion, rock and punk music.  The neo-pop artist is known for his hipster creepy-cute images of children and animals.  

On Friday, October 15, the museum will host a Cosplay competition in the artist's honor.  Prizes from Forbidden Planet, Midtown Comics and the museum itself will be awarded.  Participants need to be in costume inspired by either anime, comics, video games or your own original concept.

Lolita Fashion at NY Comic-Con

Fan Girls & Fan Boys converged on NYC's Jacob Javits Center for the annual NY Comic-Con Festival this weekend.  One of the popular panels for fashion fans was the Lolita session on Friday afternoon.

Representatives from NYC Lolitas broke it down for Lolita Fashion newbies.  They covered the different types of Lolitas, essential accessories and wardrobe staples (start with the petticoat!).  The key brands were listed (Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, Moi-Meme Moitier...) and where to get them.  

Good quality is expensive...The hostesses stressed saving your money and what Ebay vendors to avoid.  They also gave examples of local shopping mall stores to adapt accessories from (H&M, etc.)

My favorite part of the event was the parade of fashionable Lolitas who showed their style...

Goths at Fort Tryon Park Medieval Festival

The Medieval Festival and Renaissance Faire at Fort Tryon Park draws huge crowds to this northern tip of Manhattan.  While few New Yorkers usually get to this neck of the woods, the gorgeous castle (Cloisters Museum) lures those who wish to dress of another time.

There are several distinct groups who attend this annual party.  There are the fully garbed knights, casual cotton peasant outfits, the pirates, the fairies and most fashionable, the Goths.  I found the most stylish attendees walking around Fort Tryon Park.  A very pretty tribute to Harry Potter's Bellatrix LeStrange, prim and elegant witches and my favorite, the fabulous Lady Zombie.  She cavorted with a crew of lavishly attired gentlemen in dark vampiric garb.

Check out the fashion slideshow below:

Yohji Yamamoto Spring 2011

Gotta love that certain fashion designers don't conform to the expected rules of Spring fashion.  Avant-garde Yohji Yamamoto presented a mostly black collection mixing textures and irregular silhouettes.  He added a few pop neon colors in wildly printed tights and underpinnings.  

Mr. Yamamoto, a guitarist on the side, wanted to mesh the psychedelic with the couture.  There were rubber corsets for a rock and roll touch with chiffons and layered handkerchief hems.

Photos by Gianni Giannoni

Divine Comedy Auction at Sotheby's

How to you send celebrities like Alan Cumming, Julianne Moore and Padma Lakshmi to Hell?  Invite them to Sotheby's auction house for a private viewing of their new exhibit and auction, The Divine Comedy.

This is a rare tongue-in-cheek event for the famed, often stuffy auction house.  It was inspired by Dante's vision of Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise.  The exhibits range from classic August Rodin sculpture, a variation of a Bosch triptych to contemporary art like Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman.

If you don't have the thousands (or hundreds of thousands) in dollars to purchase these pieces, you can buy the illustrated catalog instead.  Click here for more information or view the exhibit until October 19th.
Top photo by Joe Schildkrout, art photos from Sotheby's.

Masked Ball for French Vogue

It's not Halloween yet, but extravagance with a mask has come to Paris...

French Vogue celebrated its 90th birthday with an elaborate masked ball.  Designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Jeremy Scott mingled with models Gisele Bundchen and Tyra Banks.  Other celebrities included Lenny Kravitz and Dita Von Teese.  

The black couture gowns were elegant of course, but those with true style expressed it with their facial accessories... Gisele wore a spiraling sculpture of a mask that covered only one eye.  Bianca Jagger and Gaultier went for flamboyant feathers.  Tyra Banks was one of the most photographed of the evening with her last-minute improvised mask of cut-up fishnet stockings.... 

Ara Jo's Vampire Fashion Collection by Andreas Waldschuetz

The perfect combination of Gothic fashion and photography. London fashion designer Ara Jo created a beautiful collection inspired by vampires.  Slinky silhouettes of lace and ornate jewels.  Photographer Andreas Waldschuetz shot the clothing in an amazing, intense collection of photographs inspired by sinister siblings.  Are they a stylish take on the Bathory sisters? All I know is the first photograph could make the twins of the Shining run and scream...
For more photos, click through here.

Gothic Circus Fashion Shoot - August Bradley

I came across these fabulous photos while surfing.  They are from August Bradley's Hasselblad Masters books.  One with a circus theme, one about a man in a dark room.  They weren't marketed as fashion photography, but that's exactly what they looked like to me.  The haunting art direction has a look of wickedness and decay.  The circus photos look like a witch stirring up trouble, a wrangler of evil crows, a black widow and a sculptural gown.  The man in the dark room looks like it could be Hamlet contemplating death, or an Edgar Allen Poe type alone with his tormentors...