Just got back and am very sadly back to work. Following a 3 year break from the Whitby Goth festival I went with Marina and stayed with friends and had great fun.
Whitby is a famous place historically. It features prominently in Bram Stokers Dracula, saw a synod in 664 AD and is the place where Captain Cook’s ship the Bark Endeavour was launched. Picturesque with an awesome ruined abbey it makes a great place for a subculture riven with vanity.
Below are some photos… If you happen to be anyone in them and are not happy, email me and I will remove them.
I could blather on about fashion trends for ever and it is always fun looking at the latest styles and comparing them to the past. A few years ago at Whitby, the whole Cybergoth thing kicked off and loads of people sported plastic dreads and an endless array of over the top goggles which provided less protection that a £2 pair of glasses from a petrol station but looked like something the Terminator would be intimidated by. Now Cyber has settled down to become part of the general background goth radiation. In its place has sprung the Steampunk. Steampunk is a parody on the word cyberpunk and most importantly, both were pioneered by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (I’m certain others are in there too but i’m just not esoteric enough to know, so sorry). Think of a Victorian world which developed Babbage’s Analytical Difference Engine and brought about information processing a century (thereabouts) early. However everything is mechanical with cogs, gears and punched cards in place of transistors and silicon. Steampunk embraces this style and is basically Victorian with extra brass nobs. The Anime film Steamboy offers a nice insight into this type of world for those wanting an easy explanation.
Whitby 2009 saw Steampunk as the next cybergoth fad. Huge groups of people all had the same goggles covered in brass cogs, remontoires and fiddly bits. They looked great and someone is making a fortune. Once again though, it is fun to stare at the victims of the trend (even though I quite fancied a pair myself).