23. Dark Academia: Genre or Aesthetic?
Where does one end and the other begin?
Type ‘Dark Academia’ into Pinterest and maybe you’ll pull up a listicle, or something based on ‘The Secret History’. But more likely you’ll find pins upon pins that show off Dark Academia as an aesthetic.
It’s a vibe. It’s having a *moment*. Heck, it even featured on the fashion website Cider recently as a trending collection.
And despite my digging, I can’t say for certain which influenced which. Was the term borrowed from a rising trend in literature? Or did we transplant it from an emerging fashion and lifestyle aesthetic?
The interesting thing about Dark Academia as a fashion choice is that it’s based on this idea of elitism and exclusivity. It’s the middle-upper class tendency to reach for tweed and tartan and wool and darker, sullen colours that epitomise the idea of the English countryside in winter.
If you want to follow this aesthetic into summer then sorry, you’re stuck with rolled up shirt sleeves and very sweaty butt cracks.
If you want to dig right down into it, then it’s also deeply rooted in outdated class systems and colonialism.
I kind of like the idea of taking some of the power away from that by making it accessible. For it to appear in fast-fashion outlets means it is also stripping away the exclusivity and academic snobbery attached to it. You don’t have to go to Oxford or Cambridge, you don’t have to be accepted into an elite and hardly heard of arts conservatory in Scotland to dress like you spend your academic holidays in an English country manor, or go have a summer house in the South of France.
You can dress the part, read the part, and feel the part. Without adding on the negative impacts of being an absolute twerp (if you’ve read *any* Dark Academia titles the you’ll know what I mean).
So go forth. Wear that green plaid, that blazer, and those leather buckle shoes. Spread a blanket beneath the Autumnal sky and read Aeschylus and Shakespeare. Be morose. But enjoy it ;)