After two years, are girlhood and coquettishness loosening their cultural vice grip? Signs point to more of an evolution: as summer gives way to cooler temperatures and shorter days, the trend is taking a dark, goth-inflected turn of its own. Over the weekend, reactions to Sabrina Carpenter’s music video for “Taste” made the rounds on social media as Carpenter, everyone’s favorite fan-casting for Bubbles the Powerpuff Girl, duked it out with Wednesday star Jenna Ortega in a stylized, slasher-inflected spectacle. The music video’s thumbnail—and scene de résistance—depicts the duo as a couple of funerary-chic femme fatales.
Two days later, the fashion designer Yoon Ahn introduced Naomi Osaka’s “‘lolita’ goth” look, created with Nike for Osaka’s competition at the U.S. Open. Its preponderance of bows, tulle, and a vampy black satin bomber coat balance Osaka’s love of Harajuku fashion and Sailor Moon with an armor-like edge. In her interview with the New York Times, Osaka gave a ringing endorsement for the galvanizing power of the color black: “For me, black is strength,” she said. “For me, that’s the super-suit color. I feel a little bit like Black Panther.”
As the U.S. Open winds down, New York Fashion Week will ramp up. This season, front rower–favorite Elena Velez—whose previous collections have paired undone corsets, cascading ruffled trains, and ribbons with raccoon eyes, chokers, and black lipstick—will return to the runway after a one-season hiatus. In between her February presentation and next month’s runway show, she had her hands full crafting a steampunky, black Victoriana gown for Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” music video this past spring.
