Dark Academia

 

I made mention of Dark Academia earlier when I discussed Donna Tartt’s debut novel, The Secret History. Truth be told, I’d never heard of this aesthetic movement until recently: not surprising, considering where I live, far removed in Northern Ontario.

It’s a new thing, apparently, emerging on Tumblr in 2015 and finding wide appeal with young adults (most notably within higher education) during the dark days of COVID. The fashion of the 1930s and 1940s loom large with its adherents: Oxford collars, Oxford shoes, houndstooth and tweed and all things wool. It earns its name from its colour palette, largely blacks and browns, and darkly red and green.

This is all well and good, but it is actually “new.” It’s not, not to my mind, anyway. This “aesthetic” rises up periodically and has throughout my relatively lengthy life. I recall suits and fedoras becoming fringe fashion during the 1990’s Swing Revival, to say nothing of 1980’s Preppies. Colours change, as does cut, but suits and ties are nothing new; indeed, suits and ties have only fallen out of fashion with the young since the latter 1960s; prior to that, young adults dressed as their parents did (feel free to watch just about any film from the 1950s if you doubt the veracity of this observation). Truth be told, suits and ties have never fallen out of fashion with the business set: it’s the uniform, as it were. Suits and ties only become an aesthetic when adopted by the young.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about this newfound aesthetic. I rather like it. I always have, so much so that I’ve always gravitated towards this newfound aesthetic ever since I’d had disposable cash. This is not to say that others of my generation followed suit. They did not and have not. Most members of my generation, that cohort that slides in betwixt Baby Boomers and GenX (Generation Jones, if I must put a label on it) have lived in plaid and jeans and running shoes, and probably ever will. I have too. And not. I wish I could cite my time away at university for this deviation when I attended university in Southern Ontario, but I did not, however, see a very different fashion sense there, either. I might city might love of classic film for that: Bogie, film noir, Beatniks. I might even cite a night club in working class Sudbury Ontario that required me to buy my first ensemble to conform to their dress code (suits and ties for males, dresses for females). Long story short, I’ve always thought that looks the high watermark of cool. John Hughes taught me that blazers and ties and wingtip shoes were infinitely cooler than running shoes and “relaxed fit” jeans. Time passed and though I still owned my fair share of plaid and 501s, I evolved into Doc Martens, wool turtlenecks, tweed overcoats, and the like. And Ray-Ban’s! All paired with baseball caps – Detroit Tigers, at the time, D for David. Tweed sportscoats would follow.

I’m getting away from the topic at hand, aren’t I. What’s germane here is Dark Academia and whether there is anything new about it. Dark Academia is just a new take on an old desire for an elevated sense of style. Perhaps it’s a rebellion against the slow devolution of elegance. Against PJ loungewear, yoga pants, and the chaotic, cacophonic of fast-fashion.

But is Dark Academia merely a desire to elevate wardrobe. There are those who profess this newfound aesthetic to be a redressing of life, a “longing for the picturesque at all costs”, as Donna Tartt says in The Secret History. They are terribly Beatnik in their desire to drink coffee and read poetry, although their tastes tend towards Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley and not Allan Ginsberg, to Jane Austen and Dickens and Oscar Wilde and not Jack Kerouac and Ken Kensey. They embrace Shakespeare! So too Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the works of E.M. Forester. Do you see a trend? They lean towards Victorian and Romantic ages. One wonders if this grew out of their from having grown up watching Harry Potter films. That may be, but Harry Potter is a long way from Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. That’s a good thing. Harry Potter is good – I love Harry Potter – but Harry Potter is not on par with Donna Tartt’s contemporary literary novel.

Why do I keep referring to The Secret History? Because that novel looms rather large with this aesthetic set.

Is Dark Academia the only aesthetic? Apparently not. There is a Light version, as well. And further subdivisions, if I believe the YouTube videos I’ve been prompted to pursue. I wonder if there is much difference. Or whether it matters if there is. I expect not. What does it matter if one reads more Jane Austen or Emily Bronte, or prefers Brideshead Revisited to Bleak House? As to their colour palette and fashion choice, I believe it matters little whether one prefers beige cardigans and dark brown or black. It’s mere dressing. What matters is its approach. And its intent.

“Over time, "aesthetic" has evolved from an academic word and something utilized by artists and auteurs to something to categorize our own identities by. It can mean both personal style and a vague stand-in for beauty.” Sara Spelling, Vogue, May 2021.

Sadly, these aesthetics have found criticism. Some believe them shallow. Others decry their perceived Eurocentrism. Their lack of diversity, etcetera. Shall I criticize the critics? What is wrong with pursuing the Western Canon? Its music is rich, its literature profound. Yes, one might damn it as the product of white males, for the most part; but it also embraces Mary Shelly, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell, and others. If you are literate in Western classical music, you will discover feminine composers, too, Clara Schumann, for one. One is only limited to one’s imagination. And one’s prejudices.

One need not confine oneself to products of the 18^th and 19^th centuries – although one would not be disappointed by any Art produced during the Enlightenment or Victorian Age – one might find a great deal of wonderful works in the 20^th century as well: James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, to mention a few. Or contemporaries like Jon Batiste. Nothing is stopping you. No one is stopping you. There is nothing wrong with embracing whatever Eurocentric or North American works you desire; but I am biased: I am a product of their legacy.

I do wonder how long lived this aesthetic will be. Fads come and go, after all. It’s probably not even be widespread, however prevalent it is on the internet. Indeed, I’ve no clue how popular it is, really. I live too far north for it to have taken any root here. I do wish it had, though. Perhaps it will creep north as the decades pass if this aesthetic has any legs. Time will tell. 

I, myself, if I may be so bold as to say, beat its curve. I’ve always leaned towards something akin to it. And still do. People took note of my personal aesthetic, my style, as it were. A few even remarked that I was brave to stand out, as I did. I’d not thought about it much. I liked what I liked. That remains true in the music I listen to, an ever evolving animal that has embraced classic and yacht rock, New Wave, Ska, Reggae, Alternative, Grunge, the American Songbook, Swing, Classical, and Jazz over the years. I could say the same of my choice of literature: Tolkien, SF, Beat, the Expats, History and Philosophy, Poetry, Pynchon, Salinger, DFW, and Donna Tartt.

What does it matter. Not a jot. And everything. It’s all personal. But it is also what we project into the world. One might say we all don masks, but I wonder if that is true. We all don an aesthetic; one we hope will attract like souls with whom we hope to alleviate the loneliness we all feel inside.