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Fashion

 
 
SMS
00:57 / 29.01.02
Anyone use fashion as a means to practise magic?

I can think of a few ways.
Radically change your clothing style, hair style and the like.
  • Despite the fact that I am much more than what I wear, I can nonetheless distinguish "my style" from "not my style." The purpose might then be simply to make me feel uncomfortable, and a bit less myself. Not feeling much like myself is a wonderful time to change. Comfort is always the enemy of change.
  • It might be helpful for invocations, either to give you a spooky feel, or to bring you into the world of the spirit you wish to invoke.
  • Ghandi worked to bring back the spinning wheel in India, and wore clothes made in India, rather than the English imports. While this may not have technically been fashion, I think it certainly was an act of magic. In my opinion, it was one of the many things he did that helped him focus his mind on what he would call Truth.


I'm interested in other ideas that magic and fashion could be connected. Especially the things you thought this thread might be about before opening it.
 
 
Rev. Jesse
14:06 / 29.01.02
I own an enchanted denim jacket. It is not something that I wear while working, but it has been the subject of workings. It is a regular, slightly oversized, denim jacket with about 130 small pins and buttons on it with all sorts of subversive sayings on them. It is my psychic armor, and creates quite an interesting sensation when I wear it out to a grocery or a book store with everyone gawking at me.

Interestingly, the people who oogled my jacket the most were the folks at the fetish club I go to. These people of course see cellophane diapers as fancy dress...

I used to have bright green hair. That was really weird cause, unlike the jacket, you cannot take off the hair in the same manner and walk around like a norm. I would often forget that I had green hair and wonder why people were starring at me.

-Rev. Jesse
 
 
Re-Set
18:25 / 29.01.02
Clothing can be used in magic as easily as magic can be used to affect fashion. Glamour magic is used a lot in goth/fetish clubs. If you don't beleive me, go home with someone you meet at the Batcave. Chances are amazing you'll barely recognize them in the morning. I also met someone out in L.A. who was a perfectly decent person until he put on this wig....I don't even wanna describe what he was like in his locks.

I almost always select my clothes and jewelry based on what I'd like to accomplish that night, or to illustrate my mood, and I have some articles which are certainly very highly charged, for good and ill.

For clothing that rides on the brink of magic/science, check this page. They are so ugly, I had to order a shirt; but I will attest that it works to a good extent. You can immediately feel a tingle down your spine as you slip the shirt on, it's kinda weird. It also will offend just about anybody who sees it, and looks amazing under black light.
 
 
betty woo
02:21 / 01.02.02
Those shirts are... amazing, and disturbing.

I tend to think of fashion as an extension of mask work, but much easier to get away with in a general social context. I can't really drag out a huge horned mask in order to evoke Pan with the aim of getting laid at a club, but a furry miniskirt will give me a goaty boast in that direction.
 
 
penitentvandal
12:37 / 01.02.02
Those shirts must be stopped. I'm very serious about that.

It's all about costumes, isn't it? If I'm gonna do something in public which is designed to create a particular effect I'll dress in something which brings the circumstances to mind. If I'm invoking a particular godform I'll wear clothes that bring that form to mind.

Don't have any cool enchanted jackets, though: the nearest equivalent I have is my collares. But then I like to be comfy when I'm doing a working: I've been known to do sigil stuff in my keks when they're no-one else around...
 
 
penitentvandal
12:43 / 01.02.02
Yo! 666 posts!

You are officially the Great Beast of Revelations until such time as you make another...

May I just reiterate, those shirts must be stopped...
 
 
Good Antlerhead
16:56 / 01.02.02
Some ideas:

1) I have found that the best way to put together completely surreal, futurist combinations of clothes is to go shopping at a Salvation Army or other thrift store in your local gay district, where they will have the best clothes, natch. One of my favorite finds is a white waiter's coat which I found for a dollar and has become a bit of a magic trademark for me.
2) Had the idea of using my black plether coat to notch out sigils on. Get a white-out pen and draw every sigil you charge onto it; soon enough it'll be loaded down with the things and will scare everyone in addition to giving you more charges every time you look at it, and give you a way to get a sigil at any time to charge with no conscious interference, because you'll forget what they all mean.
3) I would be very interested to know people's experiences/techniques with glamour magick.
 
  
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