Dark Academia 3 - de vestibus agamus - 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!

Now that the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us, it might be time to start considering our autumn and winter wardrobes.

Last year as well as discussing leather lace-up boots, vintage handbags, antique brooches and many other desirable items, we pondered how to successfully pursue a DA aesthetic at work, at the theatre and generally out and about (without straying into Carry On Librarian territory, as one PP memorably commented)
I learned about the Wrong Shoe Concept, and the Third Thing Rule .. every day is a school day!

However DA is much more than clothes, and we also shared our favourite childhood books .. memories of robins leading us through gates into secret gardens, the fiery red-haired independence of Anne of Green Gables, and our longing to go to boarding school, get into scrapes and partake in midnight feasts.

Thanks to our erudite posters, we learned about romantic Scottish history exploits recorded in 18th century documents, and considered the injustice of male family members being able to lock up women whose emotions became inconvenient, as well as discussing many inspiring women both in RL and in film.

And we debated the most DA place we've ever visited .. Oxford and Edinburgh featured strongly; in fact there was a suggestion that a perfect place for our DA AGM would be The Witchery in Edinburgh ..

If curling up in a wing-backed chair in front of a log fire, with candles flickering, sipping tea from a china mug while reading Pride and Prejudice or A Room of One's Own sounds appealing, this thread might be for you. Or if you just like the clothes, that works too.

Please may I join you? I have a knitting project, a pile of library books, and a love of boots, wool, and tweed. A wood-panelled room some moody lighting with candles. Stylistically, I’m usually more trousers than skirts though, so I do sometimes have to work at avoiding looking as if I’ve lost my horse, if the tweed is out in force.

I got excited at page one’s discussion about refunding your youthful aesthetic as you get older (yep) and then came to this last page and found you all taking about books! My heart! 🖤

I felt fairly DA today. I was wearing a very long, fishtail tweed skirt, with a short sleeve John Smedley fitted jumper in a sort of dark magenta with dark coral bands on the neck, arms and waist, and a black cashmere cropped cardigan over that. Lace up boots and magenta cotton tights under that lot. I've lost some weight so this was all just shopping my wardrobe.

The boots are quite stompy so I felt I was nailing the skinhead/Edwardian librarian crossover.

I am on season 2 of A Discovery of Witches now and it is very good. I am burning my beeswax candles with some autumnal essential oil blends as I am trying to avoid artificial candle scents. I have finished Babel; really didn't like it. It had such potential, but I thought it was just silly. I think I might go for Dracula next.
I am attending a Mexican Day of the Dead event next Fri. I have bought a mask and black lace gloves to wear with my black velvet dress and black/purple stripped witchy tights!

That sounds awesome!

I have a knitting project, a pile of library books, and a love of boots, wool, and tweed. A wood-panelled room some moody lighting with candles.

And so does this!

Welcome all, and here’s tae us!
Wha’s like us?
Gey few, and they’re a’ deid!

Morning all. It's suitably Dark Academic weather here today. Brooding clouds and heavy rain. Love it.

I always have a scented candle burning and have fallen in love with St Eval 'Oak' which is your quintessential Autumn scent.

As for books I've just finished The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins. It was superb. Darkly haunting and set in Victorian times. Also partly written in the epistolary style (well, diary entries really) which is true Dark Academia.

I also absolutely love that I'm on a thread where I can use words like 'epistolary.'

Oooh, have just ordered a couple of St Eval candles @Arraminta - are they good for scent presence? Hopeful.

'Anodyne' is the word I use to judge whether I'm with 'my people' after my then new boss used it after I moved from an awful job with 'not my people'. I sighed audibly and visibly with pleasure.

New to this thread. Gradually adapting the room I work in at home into a full on library in a dark and moody style to match the already pretty gothic fireplace.

Yes, they have a very good 'throw' easily as good as The White Company (and half the price). My other favourite from St Eval is 'Winter Thyme' but that's only for burning in January & February. I am very, very seasonally specific when it comes to candles (and jigsaws and cross stitch and bed linen and books, and well pretty much everything).

Loving the use of anodyne as a linguistic litmus paper test. Having spent over a decade working in a university library everyone's vocabulary was rich and extensive. It was a rude awakening when I then had to rub shoulders with the linguistically challenged <shudders>

Linguistic litmus paper, anodyne and epistolary are all excellent - I like ephemeral and ethereal. And bugger!

I also like St Eval candles - I’m almost halfway down my 3 wick sacred forest already - it was supposed to be my Christmas candle. Also, a cautionary tale - although I am quite possibly the only person who is daft enough to do this - do not leave the used matchstick inside a WC candle, this causes fire and glass explosions and weeks of wondering whether your cat is eating glass behind the sofa.

Love the sound of the Mexican day of the dead party - I would love to go to something like that. Anyone else doing anything cool? I made a willow hare, which was surprisingly full of both euphemisms and horror film references, but I haven’t got much else in.

Not DA really, but I am really enjoying Robert Aickman’s short stories - perfect for a erudite book club, very ambiguous and atmospheric, lots to discuss.

Also, I have recently really enjoyed A Study in Drowning (a second book has recently been released, haven’t read it yet) - a kind of pseudo Welsh Celtic DA with a splash of Strange and Norrell style fairies.

Did you find any? I bought some from here which are sturdy enough to wear as pyjamas or ‘chub rub’ shorts. And I got my wedding knickers here, which are not sturdy at all but very lovely!!

www.thewitchsbritches.com/

Hail and well met @StealthSightHound! No need to leave, you're very welcome here.

I can assure you I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Reacher books though I did stop at about no. 18 I think? Yes, they're very formulaic but sometimes that's all I want. It's soothing knowing exactly what you're going to get. Like popping into a Costa for a Flat White rather than going to your quirky independent coffee shop for a malted chai matcha frappi-chino.

Another Reacher fan here! A friend and I used to text each other excited updates on his toothbrush, how many t-shirts he'd used and how many people he'd left bleeding on the ground. We both have Eng Lit degrees....

I'm currently reading These Hallowed Halls: A Dark Academia Anthology. Some reviews say it's not true dark academia for various reasons but they're all set in schools or universities and they all have some sort of dark theme so I'm happy enough with it!

Also just bought myself some tan corduroy trousers from Vinted, hope they fit!

I know we’re really here for the looks n smells but I’m glad to see a bit of book and podcast chat. I’ve done myself a damage and can’t walk at the moment, been stuck at home wallowing around in my joggers and pissing myself off. I did put my new plum beret on for half an hour yesterday for no reason at all though.

Saw this in the paper today, might give it a whirl https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/29/saltwash-by-andrew-michael-hurley-review-raw-dark-folk-horror-confronts-mortality

That's on my TBR list tok. I recently finished The Loney by the same author and it was excellent. Very atmospheric and decidedly odd (which I love).

Excellent review @Arraminta SOLD. To the grumpy lady in the dingy joggers.

Oooh this is on my pile - will read it next, I think.

I have read Barrowbeck and Starve Acre, both of which I really enjoyed.

You're most welcome. We need more oddness in books.

I'm going to order Starve Acre next. I love it when I discover a new author and can feverishly burn through everything they've written.

My favourite book of the year so far is The Elementals by Michael McDowell. Not DA or folk horror - think it would probably come under Southern gothic. Couple of silly bits, but overall a really good book, which would make a brilliant, and very scary, film.

There is also a very good film, but read the book first - they have made some changes.

Please may I join? I used to BE an academic (chucked in the mortarboard a long while back) and married to a very tweedy-type academic and mother to a son who has discovered tweed and now has very costly wardrobe aspirations...

All this has brainwashed me and I'm now possessed by the yearning to acquire a second-hand tweed pencil skirt that will actually accommodate my large perimenopausal tummy. For someone who's been a 12/14 most of my adult life, I have to accept that with tailored clothing, I'm mostly an 18 now... (16 in most high street stores) and it's very hard to find things that I'm sure will fit online. I'm haunting charity shops for naice tweed trousers and skirts, though. I've got a lovely Seasalt olive woollen jumper I think would look good with them.

I find the footwear issue tricky. I pretty much live in DMs in the colder months and have several pairs of boots and shoes. I'm not sure they're very DA! I have two pairs of brogue shoes which I adore but only wear with jeans. Not sure I could go the whole hog and wear the brogues with a tweed skirt - I think most people would assume I'd gone all County for some reason.

So if you have any tips for brands to search on Vinted ... the styles I'm lusting after are the Charli tweed trousers and the Sheila pencil skirts on Walker Slater. And as well as being 16/18, I'm 5'1" which doesn't help!