Castlevania vampires were my fashion inspiration

Goth fashion isn’t new, but fashion associated with the vampire scene has seen a resurgence as the vampire has once again grown in popularity through the success of the 2022 adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the VampireCastlevania’s Netflix series has also seen a rise in popularity. As the vampire has once again become a popular character, it has also sunk its fangs deep into a whole new generation. This is coupled with heightened interest in historic fashion, and the symbolism of this immortal creature. In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, sometime in 2021, while cleaning out my wardrobe, I decided to dress like I could fit into one of Koji Igarashi’s Castlevania games.

It is hard to describe the look of a vampire, as it has no age. The look of the vampire is somewhere in between Victorian style and gothic subculture. It has evolved into many different microtrends, subsets, and subsets throughout history. It can be black frocks or Tom Cruise’s frilled shirts and brocade vests in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. It could be one of Ayami Kojima’s gorgeous oil painting illustrations of Alucard and various Belmont family members from the Castlevania series.

I was inspired by my love of period fashion, and the various subcultures to dress up as a Castlevania Vampire for an entire year. It was also because I had disposable income. What would I have worn as a teen? Probably. The modern vampire has often been associated with androgyny, and it’s something I’ve always personally gravitated toward. Of course, this also has subsets. There is the more industrial goth that is sometimes blended with mid-’80s aesthetics, extremely heavy makeup and all, or the “romantic” goth associated with ruffled shirts, corsets, and modified pieces of Victorian clothing.

The vampire is associated with so many various interpretations that it’s hard to pin down just what exactly defines it — outside of fangs, odd-colored eyes, and a penchant for the night. (I didn’t end up ordering a pair of fangs — I’m a little too self-conscious about my teeth — but someone else I know wears their pair almost religiously.)

Kazuma Hashimura is the author of this photo

Kazuma Hashimura is the author of this photo

Image: Konami

I scoured the internet for sellers that would provide exactly what I was looking for: linen shirts with ruffles, tightly-laced corsets, leather trousers, knee-high boots, everything I associated with the gorgeous Gothic designs Kojima incorporated in art of characters like Alucard and Mathias Cronqvist, and in one-off illustrations she’s done that feature these ephemeral creatures. Dark in Love’s velvet capelets filled my closet. Then I scoured antique shops to find Victorian brooches. And I bought silk ribbons for my shoulder-length hair. To cement the vampire image, I ordered matte black lipstick to use exclusively on my upper lip, in combination with full-coverage foundation to get that perfectly flawless countenance coined as “vampire skin,” which appeared as a full-blown trend in 2022. To further enhance the look, I wore heavy eyeliner and colored contacts.

The outfits I put together were very stylish and comfortable. Spending the time on perfecting makeup and practicing made me happy. Random passersby would stop me from time-to-time, but because Germany is known for its vibrant goth culture and scene, they never made any negative remarks. I received nothing but compliments. This boosted my confidence as I walked around in my best outfits inspired by some of my favourite artists and video game series.

Others are attracted to the ways in which the vampire aesthetic allows for self-expression while combining various interests. “Being into Victorian fashion, architecture, and even smaller subcultures like Visual Kei when I was a teenager was sort of how I got my start into vampire fashion,” said Storm, a former member of the fang community (slang for vampire communities, or in some cases even clans) when asked about what drew them to the subculture. “My interests in fashion and subculture merged with my nerdiness when I discovered the game Vampire Masquerade.”

Kazuma Hashimoto is the photographer.

Kazuma Hashimura is the author of this photo

Image: Konami

Don Henrie, “The Human Vampire,” was a popular internet personality in the early 2000s, and was even featured in a National Geographic program and appeared on SyFy’s Mad Mad House. He gave one of the early glimpses at how the Vampire lifestyle was merged with the fashion movements in that time. It was also a (moderately) successful movie. Queen of Damned, Van HelsingThen, UnderworldAround the same time. VampireFreaks, a website that began as MySpace for Goths in 1999, still exists as an online store selling gothic apparel and other goods.

The style has created an entire community. “I ended up becoming part of an online community in the early 2000s, which was super into all of the Vampire Masquerade clans. It’s actually how a lot of ‘vampire clans’ in the physical world formed,” Storm said. One of the more popular “vampire clans” was featured on Buzzfeed in 2018, where host Selom received her own pair of vampire fangs. Vampire fangs can definitely be a fashion statement; I know a few people who wear them without joining a clan, as they’ve become more accessible through sellers like Kaos Kustom Fangs. But for clan members, it’s more or less a lifestyle they subscribe to. I never joined a clan myself, and only learned the inner workings of them through friends who had participated in the culture, but living in a major metropolitan city meant that I definitely wasn’t alone in dressing outside of the norm. While they were more or less toning down their look, I had friends who used to be cyber goths. Although they wore mostly black, they favored voluminous, black dresses and heeled booties.

After having travelled in those circles, and seeing vampire media resurging again, I feel like we are on the cusp of a boom. Would I dress like a “vampire” again? The answer is maybe, mostly because where I live now doesn’t accommodate it all that well. (Wearing black velvet in sweltering summer heat doesn’t bode well for anyone.) This was undoubtedly one of my most favorite fashion periods, as well as a time of great self-expression. So maybe I’ll throw everything together for a night at the club. Regardless, it’s great to see this subset of goth subculture still alive and well.