Fashion Sucks … Blood: Clothes and Covens in Twilight and Hollywood Culture

Abstract

In late September 2009, the online shopping website Bluefly ran a web promotion for vampire-inspired fashion titled “Fashion sucks… blood.” In the opening sequence to this shoot, shoppers were shown a series of photographs. The first featured an elegant brunette in a long red gown. The second image was a close-up of the face in the third photo, which highlighted a blonde-haired young woman with dark eye shadow, staring pensively into the distance, wearing layers and layers of silver chain necklaces and bracelets. The detail that struck me the most was the slender trickle of blood dripping down from the corner of her left eye. The next few photographs presented young couples—the men with black slimcut suits and peacoats or dark jeans, the women in black leather and dark ruffles, always accessorized with lots of silver and rhinestone studded jewelry (even a spider ring). The last shot was of a sultry brunette, drinking what appeared to be blood out of a straw stuck in a soda bottle labeled “Tru Blood”—presumably part of the viral campaign for Tru Blood, the synthetic blood nourishment beverage created to promote the popular HBO series True Blood back in fall 2008. Online shoppers could then click on a link to watch the YouTube video “Killer Vampire Fashion,” a one-minute, forty-second documentary of the fashion shoot, or they could purchase the items spotlighted in the session.