Last summer, during our Viking Holidays 2012, Guitar Güero and I had the opportunity to visit some friends in Gothenburg. After a glorious evening seeing Alice Cooper perform his own particular brand of macabre rock antics in the middle of a Disney Wonderland-like amusement park (Liseberg Park), we went for a light, sunny stroll around the city's charming cobblestone streets. The area is full of little quirky stores and eye-catching designer items. One of my absolute favorite stops of the day was this store: 
The Science Fiction and Fantasy store of my dreams. It was not particularly big, but it had a wonderful selection of books, comics, manga, figurines, gift ideas, and lots of magazines and publications that I had not seen anywhere else, covering everything from mythology and magic spells to japanese fashion and making your own Star Wars figurine terrariums. 
One thing that caught our eye was the abundance of H.P. Lovecraft works and related material, especially elements depicting his mythical monster creature, the terrible Cthulhu:
(May not be so fear-inducing in this presentation)
I wanted this edition of the Necronomicon so badly, but Guitar Güero said that it would be unpractical to carry during the trip, so we better get it in the UK before coming back. We never did... Booo!
"I didn't know that Cthulhu was so popular!" Said Guitar Güero, and we chatted about how sometimes the most unlikely elements end up being readily incorporated by pop culture. Shortly afterwards, in a coincidence that made Sheldrake's theory of the Morphic Field seem a bit less unbelievable this appeared on the Black Milk Clothing website:
A Cthulhu dress! Why not?
I really liked the concept, the print and placement. Also, for some reason, that particular model from the Black Milk Clothing website makes me want everything she is wearing! Well played, James Lillis, well played.I imagined myself strolling around the funky graffitied streets of Friedrichshain wearing a dark green depiction of a tentacled creature around my body, and knew that the dress had to be mine. A few weeks later, I made my vision come to life:
Best worn with Rollerball-style boots, for an urban warrior, Mad Max-esque look.
I would like to make a note on the sizing of Black Milk's dresses. As it sometimes happens, the Cthulhu dress suddenly went limited and many of us who coveted it missed out on the right size (at least I didn't miss out completely!). Therefore, in these pictures I am wearing a size M instead of my usual size S. Nevertheless, comparing it to my other Black Milk dresses, the size M doesn't seem to be considerably wider. The only difference I found is that it fits without stretching much (which I think is a good thing, since the print remains undistorted that way), and the bottom part is a tiny bit loose, but I can live with that. I have also found that there is some variation within the same size in Black Milk dresses, given that while my Bone Machine Dress 2.0 size S fits very comfortably, my White Cherry Blossom Dress—also a size S—is pretty much skin tight and unforgiving of even the slightest belly bulging.
It was my high school Algebra profesor—who had an impeccable taste in books and music—that first recommended Lovecraft to me. He saw me reading a copy of Stephen King's Night Shift and grimaced (to this day, I still enjoy reading that collection, though, as I think that the stories are very imaginative). I don't know why, but I never followed his advice on reading Lovecraft. Still, he was responsible for my discovery and further obsession with Philip K. Dick.
Long story short, on this occasion, fashion was a gente reminder to go back and fill one of my cultural gaps by exploring some very valuable reading material.
Did you know that a couple years ago Alfonso Cuarón was planning to direct a cinematographic adaptation of this story? Sadly, it didn't take off. Still, first read, Cthulhu is next on the line...
At least now I have the right outfit to go with it!
