In the last week of June, I celebrated my 2 year anniversary of writing this blog and running my Instagram page by creating a different and personal Horror Fashion Week. I posted to my Instagram a new movie every day for 7 days and wrote about fashion and life and all the shit that I think about. No it wasn’t at the time that most would talk about Fashion Week, it wasn’t about brands you could buy or trends that you need to follow. It was just another version of me doing what I’ve always done here at Horror Fashion Review.
Enjoy ❤
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 1 ~
💜 Frankenhooker 💜
I’ve been listening to Cindy Lauper’s version of Girls Just Want To Have Fun, and thinking about what it means to grow up and become someone’s fiancé.
I’ve had some pretty bad relationships in my short little life. When I thought I had learned everything I needed to from my own upbringing, I fell into an abusive relationship in my mid 20s. It broke me down to almost nothing. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore.
The song has a line, “Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide them away from the rest of the world.”
The next line goes, “I want to be the one to walk in the sun.”
Day 1 of Horror Fashion Week I’m lifting up Elizabeth Shelley who is the eternal Frankenhooker 🖤 the ultimate story of true undying love and a fiancé who will stop at nothing to bring his partner back to life.
Elizabeth’s main outfit is a combination of vibrant violets, dark purples and black. Very simple, very effective. 💜🖤
The color helps elevate the playfulness, wittiness, and mystery of Elizabeth’s character. Purple is a bold and powerful hue. Elizabeth has literally been stitched back together with exploded hooker body parts by her betrothed. The sweetest thing🥹 So, it’s cool to see the color give her the strength that she herself doesn’t entirely possess at first.
No matter how you feel about hookers, marriage, or bringing your dead fiancé back to life, we can all agree that yes, girls just want to have fun and yes we need respect and yes purple is undeniably the color of a summer night. Especially a purple lip.
The answer is, I don’t really know what it all means to be someone’s fiancé. But I do know that whoever you end up loving and dedicating your time to, just be sure they are the kind of person that can help bring you back to life when you feel dead inside. Someone who will fill your veins with a violet colored estrogen based blood serum to keep you going. But mostly, make sure you can wake up every morning, after counting your money from all those hot dates of the night, and know that you are still you.
Oh, and like the song, you better walk into that sun, babe, with them AND without them. 💟
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 2 ~
Ghoulies II 🎡
Horror Fashion Week Day 2 is all about Nicole from Ghoulies II because she is the kind of girl who won’t risk things unless she’s sure of herself. We can fully trust her decision to not fall for P. Hardin just as much as we trust her decision to wear the black ribbed halter top with a mock turtle neck collar for the final battle scenes with the Ghoulies.
We know that she is in full control when she pairs it with banana cream pie yellow high waisted denim. It’s easy to be sure of yourself when you wear yellow.
Getting a group of friends together, putting on your favorite summer outfits and going to the carnival is one of the greatest things we still get on this earth.
It’s my kind of chaos. Music from all the shitty games jamming into each other all around you, the pop of darted balloons and kettlecorn filling the open air while the smells of cheap perfume and fried Oreos hangs over head.
There’s dirt on your shoe and there’s a sparkle in your eye.
A few years ago at the fair, a carnie with frosted tips invited me to hang out with him at the workers tent after things shut down for the night.
Though I was DYING to see what the carnie after-hours tent was all about, I just couldn’t lead a boy on.
Thankfully he was cool and gave me the best tasting caramel apple I’ve ever had. So, let this be a lesson to all of us that we can no longer judge a guy with frosted tips.
Later, in the cotton candy line, I told my then-boyfriend now fiancé what happened and he said I couldn’t blame a guy for trying. Though he took the words out of my mouth, I secretly wanted them to fight.
Frosted tips or not, two hot guys fighting for your honor at the fair, knowing that neither of them will win your heart, is the ultimate funfair attraction. I wonder if that’s how Nicole felt being in the middle of carnival corporate goon P. Hardin and sideshow bad boy Damon.
This summer, when you are getting ready to spend a day at the fair and climb up the Ferris Wheel at the carnival to face your fears and save your friends, don’t you dare forget those banana yellows babes, because it’s the move. 🍌🎠
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 3 ~
Slumber Party Massacre II 💦
Day 3 of Horror Fashion Week is all about the blessed blues of Sally Burns. Sally is so damn cool she lets the loudness of her clothes do the talking because she’s too busy chewing bubblegum anyway. Nothing can phase her, not a tricky drum solo, a hysterical friend, or a mega huge exploding face zit. The teal blue bathing suit she wears for the pool seals the deal on quiet cool. The cropped tank she changes into is an electric blue cherry on top of everything. It’s all too good.
Slumber & pool parties go hand in hand in the summer. When you’re young, it’s like a right of passage. They reveal things to you that you wouldn’t have otherwise known. It was at a sleepover pool party when I found out I was into girls; post-swim wet hair on pillows, playing that game in the dark where you draw pictures onto bare backs with your finger tips and guess.
A slumber party is where I got drunk for the first time and the house mom told us if we ever drove drunk to, “look out for the diamonds and brake for the rubies.”
In high school, every moment feels like a car wreck. So the parties and plans of high school girls become small, silent wars.
One day I was hung over at a friends house after a sleepover. We picked tapes from her giant entrainment center to watch and help burn off the headaches from our tiny brains. The night before, she used her kitchen phone to call my crush to tell him I liked him after I begged her not to. When I was growing up the last place I wanted to be was at home, home was still worse than anything else, so I stayed after the phone call had ended and she had made her power move. I sucked it up. Be quiet. Be cool.
Thankfully during those days of slumber parties, no one ever had dreams of a hot supernatural rockabilly guy playing a drill guitar and we all made it to the next morning, mostly unscathed.
Point is, shit goes down at a slumber party, and as you walk back home the next day, dirty and dying of thirst, you don’t know it yet, but you have changed. Maybe for the better, maybe forever, or maybe just for a few days. Let’s just hope you wear the summer blues to get you through it.
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 4 ~
💚🧷 Killer Workout 👟💚
Day 4 of Horror Fashion Week is none other than Jaimy from Killer Workout and the force that comes in green. If there was ever a color combo to express rage, it would be that lime neon green workout fit that she wears so well.
She might be late to a workout class, but she’ll fucking be there. With a fire in her neon that cannot be explained. The black accents in her top and tights keep the vibrants balanced. The green is charged, voltaic. It’s a spark. Especially the matching green leg warmers. It’s fear and it’s strength all at once. This babe knows what it feels like to run on rage. She knows that it’s all she has.
Rage. Rage for all the moments I won’t have. Rage for all the time that’s gone that I will never get back. Rage for all the nights that my body hurts, my spine caves in and my seizures spike. Rage to write. Rage to write when my eyes keep closing. Rage for space. Rage for breath. Rage after standing in pencil skirts on high heels selling diamonds to the rich men with golden watches. Rage to the gym. Rage to sweat. Rage to stretch when all I want to do is cry and punch and scream and die. Rage.
Rage. Rage that keeps me from being the person who says they don’t go into the city. Rage for the girl of my youth. Rage for one who was quiet in jelly shoes who got hit too young, too often. Rage for the days spent in fear. Rage for the confusion. Rage for the sadness. Rage for the night that is short and days that are shorter. Rage before the giant safety pin kills you, babe. Rage before it is too late.
This summer, go to the closet and grab an outfit for the gym that makes you feel good and strong and that keeps you going.
Rage to make you forget. Rage to make you remember. Rage in neon green forever.
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 5 ~
💕Nightmare on Elm Street💕
Horror Fashion Week Day 5 is Nancy Thompson. The purity in pastel pinks is the perfect color to lure a sleep stalker. Nancy knows to never underestimate a girl in a pink color pallet. Whether it’s the chunky light pink sweater vest, the pajamas with the pink floral embellishments, or the baby pink zip up hoodie she wears to save her friends, Nancy’s pinks prove that she can be a babe who won’t go down without a fight.
She may look innocent in those powder pinks but that’s okay, because she’s the only one who is aware of the dangers that lurk in the dreamscapes.
When I was 17 and living on my own, I got extremely bad nightmares. The kind that feel like you’re seeing the future, or solving an actual crime, or interacting with the dead almost every night. It’s the clairvoyant kind, where you know they were people who died and you speak to them or are spoken to. Those are the most horrifying because somehow you know it’s all real.
I stopped watching horror movies for a few years because of this. It was a sad time, but once you have people spray holy water on the walls of your studio apartment, or you keep seeing the monsters from your dreams standing in your room after you wake up, and have enough spiritual cleansings to keep the demons away from you, you chill out on watching that kinda stuff for fun.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, walking around in a nightgown all sweaty in the dream world is pretty awesome to watch but when it happens for real, no thanks.
Sometimes the demons don’t go away and you have to see them, greet them, and learn how to live with them. Sometimes the devil that you dream about isn’t wearing a dirty red and green sweater. He will roll up to you in the cover of night and meet you in sleep in a silver convertible. He’ll wear sunglasses on a face that changes shapes and he’ll say, “You know I’ll be back, right?”
So whenever you get scared of being alone in bed this summer. Put this tape in the VCR, wear your pink 50s nighty and just know that maybe Freddy is coming for you, and maybe your demons will haunt you forever, or maybe it’s just another day in the life 💖
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 6 ~
🤍Phantom of the Mall : Eric’s Revenge🖤
Horror Fashion Week Day 6 is Melody. The whites of holding on and the blacks of letting go. ▫️▪️
From the white pleated dress she wears to the Midway Mall grand opening, the powder lace top she wears to dig up the past, the cream ivory satin nightgown worn in her flashbacks and the perfect pearl stud earrings, we see her sadness. She wants to be open to the experiences of a future without her past love but is still clinging to the hope that there is more to the story.
When she shifts to her black heels and black outfits for work at the mall, we don’t spend too much time mourning. We acknowledge the black as her eventual fate to happiness beyond the before. Saying goodbye to the past and welcoming a new life.
Babes, we gotta give it up for the mall. The golden age of shopping malls was a sight to behold and an energy that may never be felt again. It was everything.
The mall was a magical super center with wide glittering floors and shiny white walls. It had everything. Anything you could dream of would be there. If you ever got hungry for a snack, you would go to the food court and order a vanilla ice cream cone to keep you going.
Thankfully, no severed ears or eyeballs ever made it into the ice cream cups at the mall when I was young, but I also didn’t have a stalker ex-boyfriend who set mall security cameras to spy on my movements either.
With summer in full bloom and malls disappearing all over the nation, it’s hard not to have a chip on my shoulder for the people that won’t get to have summers spent with friends laughing and getting into trouble at the mall.
Times are changing and the mall is no longer the place it used to be. Just like Melody, we learn to let old things go that no longer serve us. We learn to grow and change and go with the flow of life in flux.
We will take the memories and save them in our minds, hidden like orchids in our work lockers, kept like phantoms in the nooks and cranny’s of our thoughts. But mostly, we will be happy we lived those moments at all and when we put on our black heels, stepping into our futures, we will smile.
~ Horror Fashion Week Day 7 ~
❤️Summer Camp Nightmare❤️
You can’t be a horror babe in the heat of summer without a summer camp. Summer Camp is one of the greatest achievements in human history. It’s beyond ideal. I never went to camp as a child because we couldn’t afford it. Instead, I got a job at a camp in high school and happily skipped town in the summers to stay and work on site in the mountains.
When I wasn’t cooking in the kitchen I was swimming in the lake, flirting with camp counselors, going on outdoor adventures, or roasting marshmallows around the fire. I died for summer camp. Those years changed my life. I loved it so much, in fact, that I’m getting married at the same summer camp I worked at all those years ago. 🖤
Summer camp is still alive now as it ever was before. Some things are too great to die. And at least for now, camp isn’t full on Lord of Flies vibes where bully’s run makeshift revolutions and kill their counselors. At least, for now.
Horror Fashion Week Day 7 is for Heather because she’s sugar and spice and she leans into those reds to make sure everyone knows it. From the intensity of the all 80s red skirted dress she wears to the talent show, down to the iconic classic red wilderness plaid she wears when the boys and girls camp finally merge together, she is fully embracing her ability to stay hot in those woods.
She makes not wanting to be a part of a weird summer camp revolt look effortless. Red is the color of confidence, red is the color of caution, and red is the color or a bad ass babe that knows a North Pine dream boat when she sees one.
When you are up in the mountains at camp this summer, remember to wear those bright smart summer reds because as we all know, you just can’t go to the all girls camp at South Pine without them. Plus, you’ll want to look your best for the annual co-ed party. Camp bonus points if all camp long you color match with your cute counselor boyfriend 🏕
Xoxo,
Grace
Horror Fashion Review 
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