Bela Lugosi

Skull Jewelry

Once the post-punk scene began to fragment in the early 1980s, one of several subcultures to emerge was the Gothic movement, based on enjoying bass heavy, brooding music as well as primarily all black clothing borrowing from styles as diverse as Victorian times to bondage and fetish wear.

The Cure, Bauhaus, Souxsie and The Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy and The Cult all started to be associated with the Goth world, despite the fact that a number of these afterwards dissociated themselves with it. Nonetheless, in reality anythin that was was adopted by Goths was Goth, as there was really no uniting sound; even lyrical themes, although normally downbeat, were dissimilar; think about the introspection of “Pornography” era The Cure, in contrast to the bombastic sound of The Sisters of Mercy on Floodland.

As well as the black clothes, hair coloring and eyeliner, many Goths also chose to wear crucifixes and religious emblems. With the Bauhaus anthem “Bela Lugosi Is Dead” came the cod-horror theatricals popular with artists like Alien Sex Fiend, and as well as the bats and crucifixes came skull jewelry and other objects.

Although countless misitreperted the imagery of Goth, believing it to be associated with violence or suicidal tendencies, the truth is the movement was in truth an accepting one – “anything goes” it was saying, and the appearance of death in the image was more related to the idea of taking pleasure in limited time, as opposed to actually wanting it. In this manner it was like the veritas veritatum works of art of the renaissance, when painters contrasted man’s vanity – intellectual pursuits and pleasure of living – with the vanity of life. The latter was illustrated by a skull, and also at times underlined by an hourglass or candlestick.

After the use of skull jewelry by Goths, the skull image was also adopted by Heavy Metal and bikers, even though the use was very different. While Goth was introspective and at times self indulgent, Heavy  Metal was a kind of cartoon rock with no real substance behind it.

These days skull jewelry is available in many styles. Not just the stark metal death’s head, it can also be seen in examples of precious metals and diamond covered.

Bela lugosi Dracula