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Styles · An idea under Avant-garde

Dark feminine

Black dresses, heeled back zip boots and silver crosses, in silk, velvet and leather, for the evening.

Dark feminine is a way of dressing in black and deep red that pairs soft evening fabrics like silk and velvet with leather boots and silver jewellery. The look is romantic and a little severe: a draped black dress, a heeled back zip boot, a cross on a chain.

It borrows from goth, which grew out of British post punk at the end of the seventies, and from the femme fatale of old Hollywood films. Chrome Hearts, founded in Los Angeles in the late eighties, makes the silver crosses and rings, and Emanuele Bicocchi makes its silver by hand in Tuscany. Guidi, a Tuscan tannery since the eighteen nineties, dyes its back zip boots after they are made. Coperni, the Paris label of Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant, cuts black ruffled dresses and gowns.

Wear a long black dress or a silk top with heeled boots, and keep the silver to one pendant and a ring or two. Utopia in Toronto brings the Chrome Hearts silver, WDLT117 brings the Guidi boots and the Coperni dresses, and Due West adds Emanuele Bicocchi and Stolen Girlfriends Club silver.

Common questions

What is the dark feminine aesthetic?
A way of dressing in black and deep red that pairs silk, velvet and lace with leather boots and silver jewellery. It is romantic and a little severe, and it is made for the evening.
How do you wear dark feminine clothes?
Start with a long black dress, or a silk top and a dark skirt, and add heeled back zip boots instead of a delicate heel. Finish with one silver pendant and a ring or two.
Where does the dark feminine style come from?
It borrows from goth, which grew out of British post punk at the end of the seventies, and from the femme fatale of old Hollywood films. Victorian mourning dress, all black crape and jet, is another source.