Skull Jewelry

Once the post-punk scene began to fragment at the beginning of the 1980s, one of several subcultures to come out of it was the Gothic community, centered on enjoying bass heavy, brooding music and largely all black clothing borrowing from styles 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 started to be linked to the Goth scene, although many of these afterwards dissociated themselves with it. Nonetheless, in reality whatever was adopted by Goths was Goth, as there was actually no uniting sound; even lyrical themes, although usually downbeat, were dissimilar; think about the introspection of “Pornography” era The Cure, in contrast to the bombastic noise of The Sisters of Mercy on Floodland.

As well as the black clothing, hair dye and eyeliner, a lot of Goths also chose to don crucifixes and religious emblems. With the Bauhaus anthem “Bela Lugosi Is Dead” came the cod-horror theatricals favored by artists such as Alien Sex Fiend, and in addition to the bats and crosses arrived skull jewelry and other items.

Although many misitreperted the symbolism of Goth, believing it to be connected with violence or suicidal tendencies, in fact the movement was in fact an open one - “anything goes” it was saying, and the visual aspect of death in the imagery was more related to the concept of taking pleasure in limited time, as opposed to actually wanting it. In this manner it was like the veritas veritatum paintings of the renaissance, where painters contrasted man’s vanity - cerebral pursuits and enjoyment of life - with the vanity of life. The latter was highlighted by a skull, and also at times underlined by an hourglass or candlestick.

Following the use of skull jewelry by Goths, the death’s head image was also used 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 without any actual substance behind it.

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