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.

Yes, a tie! I love a tie!

Off to scour Vinted..😀

I am another buyer, but not wearer, of waistcoats 😬. I have green cord from C&R and black with gold/orange flowers from Sezane - have had to stop myself buying more, as I don’t wear the ones I have…I think the struggle for me is that anything that adds bulk doesn’t work and also anything too masculine doesn’t work - I’m too curvy! The trade off is I can wear floaty, florid stuff very easily without looking like I’m cosplaying - guess we can’t have it all!

Well, I like the sound of you, @StealthSightHound. I have imagined similar scenarios around food in the past, although I haven’t done them. Living by rationing, for example. I think that would be very interesting for a few weeks.

I know there is a thread here on shopping from your wardrobe, which sounds a good idea (perhaps that is the same as no buy, though).

Would you consider one in, one out and buy and sell on Vinted? The dopamine hits are a rather addictive though. Perhaps discount that..

One rather obvious one:

Wartime (again). Clothes coupons and making your own clothes from what was to hand. I recently read the Cazalet chronicles and it was all bridesmaids dresses out of net curtains (when they weren’t spending the husbands salary at Madame thingummy’s on morocain). Ruth Goodman in the Wartime Farm is worth watching. She gets creative with potato sacks as I recall.

I’m sure the brilliant women here will have better ideas..

Ooh, what an interesting project!

I love both your suggested scenarios. I suppose an important question would be, does this day-dreaming leak into the rest of your life? I'd worry slightly that the 1940s occupied territory one might generate fear and paranoia in the course of its historical accuracy...

Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen (IIRC) quotes one of Jane's letters to Cassandra mentioning her progress in making some new clothes and wailing "If only such things could be got ready-made".

The labour of making and mending took up a significant part of any woman's day at that period, and for Jane it was particularly acute because her father took in boarding pupils. It's one of the things believed to have impeded her writing.

The young Mary Somerville was also distracted from her self-directed studies by her aunt's insistence that she sew.

So would C18th genteel poverty work for you?

Or a glamorous version of "shop your wardrobe", inspired by Margo being given her pick of glorious dresses by her old lady friend in "My Family and Other Animals"...

You have moved into a villa as companion to an elderly lady, now living in one room but surrounded by the glory of days gone by. She has wardrobes stuffed with lovely clothes, and likes nothing more than to see them being worn and appreciated. You have your pick every day!

Another version: the family of the house have fled, perhaps because of war. You move into the deserted mansion and make yourself a bed in one room which still has a roof and glass in the windows. There are wardrobes full of clothes, and as you wear them you wonder about the personalities and lives of previous owners, and what has happened to them.

Love your contributions, @TressiliansStone.

Another idea has occurred to me, which is not a scenario, but has proved useful to me. A therapist’s suggestion (it was alternative therapy!) was to ask oneself on opening the wardrobe, ‘what does the goddess want to wear today? This has encouraged me into some interesting and rather bolder choices.

Ooh I love it!

Ah, excellent. Invoke her as needed. Weight loss is bloody hard, you have my sympathy. Lost 5 stone last year on Mounjaro which whilst a miracle, is horribly expensive. Not to mention the entire new wardrobe I then needed.

There's also a sort of Laura Ingalls Wilder vibe you could tap into, where a new item of clothing was a huge excitement because it was so difficult to get hold of fabrics as they moved around. I remember Baby Grace having some swansdown trimming at one point (on a cape?) after Pa shot a swan.

I think I understand, @StealthSightHound. Now I don’t have dopamine hits from food, I have replaced them with the buzz of acquisition of clothes. I spend lots of time planning outfits too. I think also all my neuro spicy behaviours which food soothed and quietened, have come out to play with a vengeance.

Fortunately I am well stricken in years, so less oestrogen means fewer fucks given!

I hope you get lots of juicy scenarios here that help.

You have been seconded by the university where you work to a vast castle on top of a desolate mountain, on a remote Scottish island, to archive the rare books library in the hope of finding an elusive manuscript. The reclusive family still lives there, so you must dress for dinner occasionally and the library is unheated, and there are glorious frosty walks in the grounds, so you need your collection of thick cosy sweaters and good boots. But no shops, no internet. Not until June when a small seaplane will come to collect you and return you to the mainland.

@StealthSightHound you are travelling around Europe collecting folklore and fairy tales in the late 19th century. This involves meeting with people at all levels, being equally at home in the local village pub and the manor house. You have only a small suitcase, essential to travel light and be able to change plans as opportunities come up.

I like you...

This thread wins the internet for me!!!

@StealthSightHound can you please keep posting about your sartorial adventures? Please! I'm invested now..

Oh that is so interesting and really resonates with me. Having lost 3st on WLI I'm now just maintaining on a low dose. It's rare that I feel the need to Food Soothe and when I do it's not as satisfying.

But instead I have turned to borderline compulsive thrifting in order to self soothe and satisfy. Our house is late Georgian and has always been furnished tastefully, but drearily, in various shades of off-white with very few objet d'art (I'd only ever use that term on this thread though I know that Nancy Mitford would disapprove).

But with fervent determination, I am slowly turning our house into my own private Dark Academic stage set. Both our living room and study are colour drenched in midnight blue. I've bought second hand Bukharra rugs in dark reds and lots of velvet tassled cushions. I have scoured the charity shops for quirky trinkets in dark wood and brass. I've bought heavy candlesticks, bronze bookends and a life size alabastar bust of a beautiful Greek lady (could be Aphrodite maybe?). I already owned over a thousand books but I've bought many more, all old dusty hardbacks with gilt lettering on the spines.

Our house is no longer tasteful but I absolutely love it. It's part Victorian bordello and part Lady Alchemist's Study.