Dark Academia 2 - the conversation continues..

[highlandcoo]

Hello again to everyone from the last thread and welcome to anyone who enjoys talking about this aesthetic .. and if you have photos to share even better!

We've been discussing woollen jumpers, tweed skirts and jackets (with and without elbow patches), flannel trousers, fair isle tank tops, leather boots, culottes, berets and many other appealing garments, and more recently novels, poetry, libraries in general and even home decor with a DA vibe. Plus tortoiseshell spectacles and lorgnettes. I don't think we've touched on DA hairstyles yet although I've been giving that some thought ..

A DA quote I came across the other day: "I declare after all, there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library." (P&P of course)

If curling up in a wing-backed armchair in front of a log fire, with candles flickering, sipping tea from a china mug while reading your Jane Austen or Bronte novel sounds appealing, this thread might be for you. Or if you just like the clothes - that works too.

Our first thread below:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/4861009-dark-academia-anyone-who-loves-this-style?page=39&reply=129785046

@helenahandcart78 I'm still awaiting my copy of The Secret History. But in the interim I'm hooked by The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. Can highly recommend. Gloriously dark and set in Eighteenth century Amsterdam.

<Orders The Thursday Murder Club>

Omg 😱

There's a very decent TV adaptation of The Miniaturist, if that takes anyone's fancy.

By coincidence I just wanted the film of RWAV on the weekend. It really is a cracking good film - so beautiful and so funny. The script was Ruth Prawer jhabvala who is the only person to have won both an Oscar and the Booker.

In fact I think she won 2 Oscars (?)

My goodness I step away from this thread for a day and come back to find we're all going to Edinburgh to have afternoon tea at the Witchery and staying over in a Gothic mansion. Brilliant! And it can be very cold in Edinburgh, but pretty much always dry, so perfect weather for wrapping up in wool and tweed, scarves, gloves and interesting hats with little danger of getting totally drookit

Edinburgh has so much potential for a DA trip. A tour of the Vaults under South Bridge, or Mary King's Close beneath the High Street (the narrow lanes they closed up after the plague)- both rather spooky but an interesting glimpse of Edinburgh's history. A visit to Fabhatrix in The Grassmarket for headgear and Walker Slater in Victoria Street for tweed. The National Portrait Gallery, Armchair Books and Topping and Company Booksellers for intellectual pursuits. A pause for refreshment at the Last Drop or the White Hart Inn, two of the oldest pubs in the city. The possibilities are endless!

I've loved the reminiscing about childhood books. My own list:

Ballet Shoes - an absolute favourite; I especially loved all the clothes and costumes chat
The Swish of the Curtain ( I must have liked books about children on stage)
What Katy Did
Anne of Green Gables - another big favourite. I had red hair and freckles and was teased for it so totally identified with Anne. I still have my mum's (green leather) copy that she won as a Sunday school prize when she was ten. She loved it too.
Narnia and especially The Magician'a Nephew.
All the Enid Blyton boarding school ones mentioned. Midnight feasts!
Chalet School - lots of resourceful girls!
The Railway Children and also Five Children and It.
I loved Jennings and Derbyshire too (more boarding schools and very amusing)
and Just William - also funny. I'm sure Ethel would have had some marvellous tweed skirts.

And for adult books, yy to Three Men in a Boat, and Diary of a Nobody is also fab. I've read Secret History and The Miniaturist and would recommend Ambrose Parry's medical detective stories set in Victorian Edinburgh; the first is The Way of All Flesh.

@venus7 great quote above! I also love "Smart Girls Read" (Michelle Obama)

I've so enjoyed the conversation so far and have more to add .. but it's late! I'm travelling for the next couple of days but once back in the UK and the cooler weather I'll be turfing out my wardrobe and getting seriously focused on A/W clothes. And starting to knit that brown jumper ..

Can I just say how fabulous it is that I've found you all? I didn't even know DA was a thing but it's been my life since forever even as a small child and I've never found anyone else like me. I thought I was just a bit odd, getting excited about blankets and re-reading 100yr old copies of Dickens that are starting to fall apart. I've often thought I was born in the wrong century TBH, although with my health I wouldn't have survived very long without modern medicine and would have probably died in early childhood, so at least existing now means my DA soul can drift on for a bit longer.

Psst - I own an entire pile of berets!

Can't sleep, and Alasdair Gray's wonderful The Book of Prefaces has popped into my mind. I feel it may appeal...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Prefaces

Just remembered among my oddments I have some 17th-century books in my bookshelf. They are in Latin though which means I can't actually read them; still, there they are. Just lacking a huge green armchair and a fireplace in my imaginary library with its windows looking out onto moorland (although actually no-one wants to build a house up on the moors, too cold on the ears).

Gosh, I love Edinburgh. I haven’t been for absolutely years though.

I have ordered some Mulberry tweed culottes from Vinted which I am hoping will be nice and comfortable for work. I have a pair of lined, heavy tweed culottes (plus matching waistcoat) for winter shooting, but they’re rather too warm for the Central Line at any time of year. Next on my list - blouses, and a fair isle tanktop.

Oh, I remember that dress! Why did I think it was a satiny material though? I can see now from the photo it is woollen. Anyway, it is lovely. [Helena, stay strong, stay strong, don't buy anything else...]

There was a radio 4 serialisation of that book ages ago which I loved. Emilia Fox read it. Set in Holland if I recall?

@highlandcoo, I loved Anne of Green Gables! And Pollyanna. This thread is bringing back memories of so many amazing books. Another fave of mine was A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford. Read that in the summer holidays when I was about 13 and became so engrossed in the whole saga. All my friends were drinking cider in the park...

What was that you said about being a bit odd @IndianSummer78? Join the club! Or tribe rather. Here, have a DA heraldic brooch and a vintage shawl. You're a fully paid up member now 😁

Anyone else think we are single-handedly keeping the culotte and beret industry afloat? 🤣🤣

Wow, 17th century books in Latin! I'm picturing you in a draughty manse a la Wuthering Heights, with flickering dribbly candles and a couple of wolf hounds dozing in front of the huge fire. Is that about right? (Even if it's not, don't spoil my dream) 😆

That looks really interesting. I love anything about language, etymology etc. Another book added to the Amazon list...

@TressiliansStone Amazon is offering me that book for a knock down price of £69!!! I take it it's out of print?!

Buy it.....buy it. You know you want to. It's lovely and you deserve it. Buy it, buy it my love......

I feel just the same. Even as a little girl I much preferred frosty, grey weather and was always happiest with my nose in a book. Honestly I would merrily never see another Summer again. I hate the heat, it makes me wilt and depressed. But give me heavy rain and stormy skies and I'm all smiles x

I've always yearned for a brace of Irish wolf hounds. I even have the names picked out. Gandalf and Cadellin (the wizard from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, another childhood favourite).

Could this be a pin we could all wear? I rather fell in love with the idea of a "personalised" pin after falling in love with the one worn by the Marquis de Gramont in John Wick 4 😁(which is hardly DA, but his character is wonderful!)

A most excellent suggestion @mightymalties. It can be worn either on the lapel of our Arran cardigans or jauntily clipped to the front of our berets x

Ooo yes, a bit like the Mockingjay pin? Any DAs know a jewellery designer?

Today I am thinking fondly of the 1940s black velvet coat, with incredibly nipped-in waist fastened by a single big button, that I found in a vintage shop for a tenner as a student. I wore it EVERYWHERE until one morning, walking on campus in The Coat, boots and a black velvet hat (with a hatpin!) some bastard started whistling Wouldn't It Be Luverly.

Killed it stone dead. But I think the coat's still in the loft, maybe I should search it out?

I like the idea of a bespoke pin. I live an hour away from Edinburgh, taking my daughter on a wee day out at the end of the month. Meeting my aunt for lunch and going to the National Museum Beyond the little black dress exhibition. Will be stocking up on whittard hot chocolate as well for the winter months ahead. Definitely more of a chill in the air today.

We used to live in a flat of an old listed mansion. Had a drive going up a hill with an old Narnia esque lampost, trees, slightly wild garden. Sash windows and a fox we nicknamed gobshite as he used to raid the recycling. Loved that flat but prefer our current heating bills and less of a commute. We live in a village now with fields and woods behind our house and the might River Tay in front so we have coastal paths and beaches too.