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The Dark Side of Etsy

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Colours are all very well when one is in the right mood, or for the right occasion, but what does one do when they want to celebrate the visual impression experienced in directions from which no visible light reaches the eye – also known as the colour black? Where does one turn one’s impeccably lined eye?

Etsy – the home of many online stores filled with handmade products – looks all sweetness and light on the surface. Take a trip to the front page and you will be confronted with cheery shades of blue, green, yellow, pink and orange. But lurking in the depths, despite the predominance of glorious colour, buried underneath all the brightness, is something irresistable.

I will be your tour guide, to safely navigate your way to items of quality and drama! Hold on to your credit cards, as we explore:

The Dark Side of Etsy!

At this point I would like you to imagine a flash of lightning, rumble of thunder and a giant organ playing a fanfare-tastic tune. I have provided the lightning, thanks to longhorndave (check out the lightning shots tutorial – lightning looks awesome). Unfortunately my blog has no video or sound effects. I could have tried to create them but it would probably have turned out like a bad myspace profile. Consider yourselves lucky.

The Cute

I am not a fan of adorning one’s possessions with spiders, bats, pumpkins, skeletons, skulls and other such images and animals that the babygoths at shopping malls everywhere seem to adore. I make an exception for black cats (I love the feline) but otherwise I avoid these kind of images. As I mentioned in My Rainbow: Orange and Yellow – I don’t want to look like Halloween personified.

So anything that is adorned with that kind of thing has to be really cute and really well designed and made in order for me to tolerate it. I begin this select collection with the Arachnid Clock, by Carnivalia. I like the shape. I love that the numbers look as though they are caught on a web. I like the ornate hands of the clock, and it is made of wood. Lovely.

This Bat Necklace is simple and understated. It could look elegant with a simple dress. You could even wear it with colours. I think it sits at the perfect place in the neck to be worn with a shift dress with a straight neckline.

There are several different variations of the Gourds of Goth earrings, but these are my favourite: Lady Ghoulia. They’re cute and funny enough to be worn anytime and I would certainly wear them if I had pierced ears. I’m saying that last part about a lot of earrings recently, maybe I should consider getting my ears pierced, finally!

Finally, skulls go elegant in this bracelet by PinkWaterFairy Punk. Read the description: “huge wickedly black glass faceted beads, spooky skulls, black glass AB beads, sinfully ornate silver work” – I’d want it even if I hadn’t seen it.

The Elegant

I have wanted a dramatic choker for years. I have yet to own an evening dress I would wear one with. I keep buying halternecks or dresses that come up too high at the front to showcase the would-be sparklies properly. If I had worn a goth dress to my school leaver’s ball like I had originally wanted to before I met the dress from Monsoon best described as “purple as fuck”, I would have wanted to accessorise with something like this black Swarovski Victorian teardrop cascade choker necklace. Yes, it is a mouthful of a name! I am very tempted to get it when I get paid – it ships from the UK and is pretty inexpensive.

If I allowed myself to consider that purchase, I would have to, however, debate whether I wanted to buy a Shimmery Blue Rose Cameo pendant instead. I am currently developing a cameo obsession – I have seen so many on different websites and there are many fans of them on the Emilie Autumn forum. It’s getting to me!

This Black Rose Felt Flower Brooch is hand-felted and looks stunning against the grey coat in the picture. I have recently started to develop an affection for all things grey (I blame the stitching up daises scarf) and this is a perfectly gorgeous accent accessory.

The Hats

Naturally, I have to have a special section just for hats! Beautiful in black and lace is Lena Horne, as well as the Gray and Black Lace Sinamay Mini Top Hat. Those who like their top hats full sized would appreciate this, described as Victorian Gothic with Peacock Feathers. And if you are blessed with large amounts of cash, the Mini Victorian Mourning Tricorn could be for you. With ostrich plumes and ribbons it is extravagant and fantastic.

The Others

I found some hair extensions in purple and black, and purple and white. The seller also has other colours, including striped extensions and does sets of dread falls, but I think purple and white make a fantastic contrast that I haven’t considered for hair before.

Finally, this post would not be complete without mentioning yarn. Mystery – A Dark Yarn (love that name!) is varigated with purple, grey, black and white shades and would make a beautiful pair of socks.

Have you explored the darker side of Etsy recently? Purchased anything? I’m planning to do a series of “dark sides” of various sites, which I hope you will enjoy. I’m definitely enjoying them, although my debit card might start crying.

Guilt Is So Not A Good Look

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I write about my current obsessions but one thing should be clear. They don’t pass. They fade. I may not be obsessed with an item I have acquired anymore, but I still like it, and I always like it enough to not get rid of it and just move on to someone else. I only ever buy things I like enough to wear for a long time. I’m not a “disposable-fashionista” in the slightest.

I don’t high-street shop a lot. I went shopping three times in a fortnight not long ago, and that was pretty much my shopping done for the whole year. I probably won’t hit the high street until Christmas at the earliest, and even then I doubt I will buy much. I don’t really like the physical, beyond-my-desk-chair kind of shopping. It’s tiring, drains my bank balance considerably, and can be stressful if I’m looking for shoes. Also, it tends to make me feel guilty.

I’m an educated, socially and politically aware person. I have no excuses. I know about sweatshops. I know about organically grown cotton. I know that Primark and Topshop have been featured in the news for continuing to use factories with poor working conditions. I haven’t shopped at either for years, but to be honest, until recently my main reason for avoiding them is that I actively hate almost every item of clothing that they produce each season. I’ve never been into Urban Outfitters, because I know people (from the craft forums I frequent) whose designs have been ripped off by them. I’ve learnt that you can’t just trust the high street. Every store you ask will deny being involved in sweatshop production at the very least. Even if one avoids the less ethically-conscious manufacturers and stores, they can still be, when buying new clothes, be engaging in “fast fashion”, which damages the environment and wastes resources. I was much better at this last year. I signed up to a Buy Nothing New campaign, inspired by The Compact, that was running in one of my favourite forums, and joined Wardrobe Refashion for six months. But I’ve fallen behind. Shiny and new is distracting, but like I said before, I have no excuses for allowing that distraction. Back on the wagon I go! It’s a simple, three-point plan.

Shop ethically, and treasure our purchases.

Ethically means organic and Fairtrade. It is harder to find items that fit into both these categories – so I will also look for handmade and organic.

By treasure our purchases, I mean to say that we should look after them properly, check for repairs that need doing and do them. Darn our socks, sew up our hems that have fallen loose, mend the holes in our jeans and get our shoes re-soled. This is far cheaper in the long run than buying new items. Learn how to do it, it’s not difficult or time consuming. I recommend mending clothes as soon as you discover they need repair, otherwise you will put them back in the wardrobe, forget, and then either find yourself unable to wear them the next time or will go out, with, for example, a hole in the crotch of your jeans. Classy. No, I’ve never done that, but people I know have! If we no longer want items, we should pass them along to a friend or relative who will use them, or to a charity. Which brings me perfectly to my next point:

Shop second-hand, and donate unwanted items.

This means vintage and charity shopping (or “chazzing“)! This is better for the environment than buying new, even organic items. They have already done all the damage they can do, and buying from charities actually helps the world. Purists would argue that this does not include vintage which has travelled between continents to fetch a higher price, because it has acquired yet another carbon footprint in the journey. But at least it’s avoided the landfill. Find your nearest second-hand or charity shop here. My parents’ town has seven charity shops just on the high street, it’s brilliant. I love to tour them all, the staff are lovely and the Oxfam specialises in books so it entertains my literature-loving side as well. The best thing to do, however, is:

Buy as little as possible.

To just not go shopping unless we have to. To make do with what we’ve got and to create and reconstruct our own clothing. Okay, this isn’t possible for everything. For example, I can’t knit tights, can’t create my own shoes, and I lack the millinery skills to make hats. But I can alter the t-shirts I’m bored with, turn dresses into skirts, and decorate anything too plain for me to enjoy wearing. I can knit, I can sew, I can change buttons and I can bead. I just need to do it more often, and shop less.