Skull Jewelry
Once the post-punk scene began to fragment at the beginning of the 1980s, one of the subcultures to come out of it was the Gothic community, centered around enjoying bass heavy, brooding music and mainly all black clothing borrowing from fashions as varied as Victorian times to bondage and fetish wear.
The Cure, Bauhaus, Souxsie and The Banshees, The Sisters of Mercy and The Cult all became linked to the Goth world, despite the fact that many of these afterwards dissociated themselves from it. However, the fact remains whatever was followed by Goths was Goth, as there was actually no uniting sound; even the lyrical themes, although typically 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.
In addition to the black clothing, hair coloring and eyeliner, a lot of Goths also opted to don crucifixes and religious emblems. With the Bauhaus anthem “Bela Lugosi Is Dead” arrived the cod-horror theatricals popular with bands like Alien Sex Fiend, and as well as the bats and crosses came skull jewelry and other items.
Although countless misunderstood the imagery of Goth, thinking it to be associated with violence or suicidal tendencies, in fact the movement was in truth an accepting one – “anything goes” it was saying, and the appearance of death in the imagery was more to do with the concept of enjoying finite time, rather than actually wanting it. In this way it was just like the veritas veritatum paintings of the renaissance, where painters contrasted mankind’s vanity – cerebral pursuits and enjoyment of living – with the vanity of life. The latter was highlighted by a skull, and also at times underlined by an hourglass or candlestick.
After the usage of skull jewelry by Goths, the death’s head image was also used by Heavy Metal and bikers, even though the use was completely different. While Goth was introspective and at times self indulgent, Heavy Metal was a kind of cartoon rock with no real substance behind it.
Nowadays skull jewelry is available in many designs. Not just the stark metal death’s head, it is also seen in examples of precious metals and covered with diamonds.