" Nothing about her is human except that she is not a wolf"

At the Libertine's New York Fashion Week show, the nails of the models ruffled more feathers than the clothes.  

This 'trend' has certainly got people talking and it did get me thinking about the relationships between skin and fur and the implications of 'fashioning fur'. 

The title quote is from Angela Carter's 'Wolf Alice' tale from her Bloody Chamber collection, and I feel this unusual trend somewhat visualises the essence of Carter's re-writing of Little Red Riding Hood.  The fur has caused such a sensation online and amongst beauty bloggers, a large majority of which have a singular response: EWW.  I find this fascinating because fur has become such a glamorous adornment (don't get me wrong it is not without controversy regarding how it is procured) - but, in the fashion world at least, it is beautiful.  

Why then the horror over its presence on this particular catwalk?  

It is the placement of the fur that incites such disgust; upon the skin fur easily takes on the property of our own skin as boundary.  When we step into the wolf we are strong, we are fierce, yet we can also be beautiful- even superior as fur is often an indicator of class, wealth, or status - even outside of Western Culture.  Nail's are essentially claws, albeit our 'claws' have been evolutionarily watered down as we have no need for them.  Now nails can be a site of beauty and there are numerous ways to decorate them, but this practise is almost exclusively a feminine act.  If you walked into Boots you would find polishes, false nails, files, buffers, tints, tips, stickers, decals, gems, overcoats and undercoats and all are marketed at women.  

(I am not in any way saying guys do not/should not wear nail polish, just that they are often not the target audience!) #rockitjohnny

In placing the fur on the nails a site of beauty has been aligned with the beast.  The nails have no vulnerability, unlike the skin, they have one purpose and even in masquerade they still evoke their one function: violence, survival, predator. 

The She-Wolf has left her closet and regained her claws. 

Peggy Dreadful

Who else would you like to see join the Peggy Dreadful line-up?

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The zombie is maintaining strength into 2016 with the awaited return of The Walking Dead in Spring also. 

 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies appears to be following the trend of the grotesquely rotting corpse; as opposed to a pale and wide eyed animated body as in their earliest risings, or simply a bleeding viral victim as in 28 Days Later (2002.  

I'm particularly intrigued by how skin will be treated in the film and to what extend the bodies 'rot' - or as in Warm Bodies (who took a step back from the 'rotting' likely because it's probably a step to far to fall for a guy with a weeping eye socket) the 'zombification' is more stylised when romance is also at play. 

So, really hoping that early reviews are correct and that the film is as good as I am hoping it will be - or at least interesting enough that I will have lots to say about it!

Fondest Creation - Farewell American Horror Story: Hotel

I decided very early with in this series to focus on the surface.  Did it loose it's way with the many lovers of the Countess-maybe (but I enjoyed the flashbacks it afforded us).  Was John a loathsome character right up until he realised he was a sadistic killer? Of course, and it made me feel slightly shameful that he had to artistically spray a man's insides across a wall for me to tolerate him but this series really was all about the LOOK. 

I didn't really care what they were doing, or more who they were doing, I just wanted to get lost in a sea of historical costumes, glitzy make up and killer (literally) accessories.  The finale made me realise this is okay. 

Never before has Ryan Murphy, the show's creator done anything more PopGoth than to give Hypodermic Sally a release through the internet.  I LOVED IT. I loved how accurate a reflection of contemporary society the ghost was, shouting out words to anyone and no-one , leaving footprints in a mass of void and noise, and yet we are all unnatural online (and the irony of me sat here writing this blog is not lost on me). 

Donovan's beyond the grave revelation that his heaven consists of an eternal childhood Saturday morning with pancakes was tender not because he was reaching out to the Mother he scorned for a lifetime.  His 'happiness' was a memory.  It seems the truth of Gothic to remind us that although we look continually to the future with planners, diaries and holiday countdowns (both of which I have), it is the assured passage of time and the fact that everything becomes, past, that haunts and revives us. 

I don't really want to end on such a sombre musing, so I want to thank Murphy for his 'revamping' theme, bringing together vampiric creatures, fashion, rebirth, trauma and death has resulted in the American Horror Story I've been waiting for.  

It truly was my fondest creation of his. 

Vampire Knight

Started watching a new anime after hearing such great things about it; Vampire Knight.  I will update further once I've enjoyed a few more episodes! 

The sympathetic vampire as a character will be interesting to explore through the character of Zero, who lost his parents in a vampire attack four years previous to the start of the series.  Zero's resentment of the "beasts" is understandable, and yet very early on we are given hints that there is more of the beast in Zero than he would care to reveal... 

His 'sister', Yuki, (both child victims taken in by Vampire Hunter/Headmaster Kaien after being attacked by vampires) has an entirely different view of vampires.  Yuki's was saved by the vampire, Kaname, so her loyalty to him is immediately demonstrated however, she also spends much of her time 'crushing' on him.

The vampires are already alluring; their eyes glow red when about to feed, however this feels more like it recalls the Romantic vampire's hypnotic powers than signalling a terrifying monstrous attack.  The night school students are also in almost identical uniforms to the day students, except theirs are white, and in a pleasantly quirky contrast it is the human day students dressed in black.  I quite like this move away from the black-clad vamp - even in The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural it is common place to dress the vampire in black leather or a brooding amount of metal chains.  Understandably this styling aligns them (or tries to) with an appropriation of 'goth' culture and indicate their 'dark' character but I am quite refreshed by Vampire Knight's preppy vampire denied to us in Twilight.  Much like Pam's Walmart sweatsuit, the vampire is as threatening in mundane clothing because their clothing gives nothing away about their identity.    It is comical to imagine a vampire (ala Dracula) in a school uniform but maybe that's how modern vampires want us to react, to laugh when really we should run...