There are many stereotypes about Goth people today. Present conditions are what sparked my Hot Topic nostalgia in the first place for how eerily they echo 2005. But for me, one of the “adults” now, I see in present day Hot Topic a reflection of my own journey. Most of the characteristics of later Early English were already present in the lower chevet of Saint-Denis. Saint-Denis was the work of the Abbot Suger, a close adviser of Kings Louis VI and Louis VII. Rayonnant Gothic maximized the coverage of stained glass windows such that the walls are effectively entirely glazed; examples are the nave of Saint-Denis (1231-) and the royal chapel of Louis IX of France on the Île de la Cité in the Seine – the Sainte-Chapelle (c.1241-1248). Suger reconstructed portions of the old Romanesque church with the rib vault in order to remove walls and to make more space for windows. These latter styles, like Lombardic, Italian, and the Byzantine, of course belong more to the Gothic period than the light and elegant structures of the pointed order which succeeded them. On this Halloween week, you may be tempted to think of goth bag as nothing more than a synonym for depression, but in truth, as Tori Marchiony reports, a dose of darkness can shed light on the human condition.

Let your inner darkness free with gothic clothing from Dolls Kill. Women Victorian Gothic clothing is perfect for those who are drawn to the darker, more romantic side of fashion. During which decade was it fashionable to wear a fanny pack, which is now considered a fashion faux pas? Ziegler had lived for a brief time in the Short North (and once worked at the now defunct Bermuda Onion deli), so she scoured Craigslist Columbus for rental space in the area. Following two spectacular sell-out shows at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA, London) on 2nd and 3rd July this year, plans are now underway for a UK and European tour of A ROCK ‘N ROLL SUICIDE later this year and / or early 1999. The two ICA shows celebrating the 25th anniversary of Bowie’s legendary final performance as Ziggy Stardust were a huge success – with extensive publicity and an audience that included Boy George, Ian McCulloch from Echo & The Bunnymen, The Big Breakfast’s Wayne Hemingway and Mick Ronson’s sister, Maggie Ronson. They both failed to achieve their secret purpose: Mass suicide.

Other characteristics of the High Gothic were the development of rose windows of greater size, using bar-tracery, higher and longer flying buttresses, which could reach up to the highest windows, and walls of sculpture illustrating biblical stories filling the façade and the fronts of the transept. Shortly after Saint-Denis, in the 1250s, Louis IX commissioned the rebuilt transepts and enormous rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris (1250s for the north transept, 1258 for the beginning of south transept). In High Gothic, the whole surface of the clerestory was given over to windows. Masons elaborated a series of tracery patterns for windows – from the basic geometrical to the reticulated and the curvilinear – which had superseded the lancet window. At Chartres Cathedral, plate tracery was used for the rose window, but at Reims the bar-tracery was free-standing. Bar-tracery of the curvilinear, flowing, and reticulated types distinguish Second Pointed style. Churches with features of this style include Westminster Abbey (1245-), the cathedrals at Lichfield (after 1257-) and Exeter (1275-), Bath Abbey (1298-), and the retro choir at Wells Cathedral (c.1320-). His work was continued by William the Englishman who replaced his French namesake in 1178. The resulting structure of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral is considered the first work of Early English Gothic.

According to Charles Texier (French historian, architect, and archaeologist) and Josef Strzygowski (Polish-Austrian art historian), after lengthy research and study of cathedrals in the medieval city of Ani, the capital of the medieval kingdom of Armenia concluded to have discovered the oldest Gothic arch. However many of the elements of Islamic and Armenian architecture that have been cited as influences on Gothic architecture also appeared in Late Roman and Byzantine architecture, the most noticeable example being the pointed arch and flying buttress. It first appeared in the cloisters and chapter-house (c. Tiercerons – decorative vaulting ribs – seem first to have been used in vaulting at Lincoln Cathedral, installed c.1200. In addition, he installed a circular rose window over the portal on the façade. One common ornament of flamboyant in France is the arc-en-accolade, an arch over a window topped by a pinnacle, which was itself topped with fleuron, and flanked by other pinnacles.