Every year in downtown New York, in the week or two leading up to Halloween, you can always find a flock of people waiting in line on 4th Avenue—the queue sometimes snaking around the block to 10th Street. The last-minute shoppers are all waiting to peruse two specific stores: Halloween Adventure, a traditional kitschy costume shop, and Gothic Renaissance, a staple goth boutique open since 1999 that has since become a hot spooky season destination, too.
This year, Gothic Renaissance is already busier than ever. “It becomes a mad house around Halloween,” says Lili O, a senior stylist at the store. “It’s going to be insane this week—we’ve already started cutting lines on the weekends.” Though it is not a store that was specifically built with Halloween in mind, the shop has become a cult favorite for finding pieces for that unique, one-of-a-kind costume. The well-clad employees take great delight in working with customers to craft their distinctively eerie outfits—whether it’s an apocalyptic vampire, or a Mad Max-inspired look. “We are the place to build your outfit, not give you a costume,” says manager Persephone Plexidas. “The way that we style things bring it to life, and make it look like it’s not out of a package.”
Of course, the store is so much more than a local Halloween haunt. Year-round, Gothic Renaissance offers staple pieces for alternative and goth style enthusiasts. (According to its website, it proudly outfits goths, club kids, ravers, freaks, geeks, and more.) It is also a popular place for TV, movie, and editorial costume pulls: Saturday Night Live loves to source from the store for various skits.
While it may not always have the huge crowds of customers that it draws around Halloween time, Gothic Renaissance has a community of frequent shoppers, all of whom frequently stop in for new edgy fashions throughout the year. “There are a lot of diehard regulars,” says assistant manager Stanislav Mass. “We try to bond with them—to sell, sell, sell isn t our bottom line. I think it’s the way that we interact with them that makes people want to come back.”
It helps that many employees at the store have been longtime fans themselves. “We all have our own histories of coming here for years,” says Plexidas. “When I was in high school, I used to come here and marvel at the beautiful, gorgeous clothing.” Uniting the clientele and workers is a proud sense of self-expression; the store encourages folks to try new looks and experiment with their wardrobes. You can find luxurious Hoss International corsets (which can be custom-fitted to you), Dark In Love dresses, Windy Willow frog bags, and platform Demonia boots (a must for any good goth). “It’s very warm and inviting,” says Plexidas. “In other spheres of our lives, we have very much felt like the outliers; we dress and think differently. The community is one where we can all explore our different interests, and incorporate them into what we wear.”
Aiming to offer something for any and everyone, there are many different subcultures one can partake in with the fashions for sale—including romantic goth, cyberpunk, gothic lolita, steampunk, and more. “So many people actually want to wear creative things—all you have to do is press them a little bit, to find out what they want and what they think is cool,” says Lili O. “Bringing that out in people is so interesting and so fun.” And do not expect to only find head-to-toe black looks, either—a common misconception about goth attire. “A lot of us are incredibly colorful people—we just express it in slightly different ways,” says Mass.
A strong passion for music is another factor uniting the clientele who come to the store: Gothic Renaissance dresses a lot of people for music festivals like Burning Man and Coachella. “Goth style has a lot of overlap with club and party style,” says Lili O. “We dress a lot of high-style New York party people, or kids who saw us on TikTok and came from fuck ass nowhere—those are my favorites.” Celebrities such as Mariah Carey and Aubrey Plaza have even paid visits to the store, when in need of event looks. “Aubrey Plaza buys a witch hat from us every now and then,” says Lili O. (She in fact dresses up as a Christmas witch every year.)
If you happen to find yourself at Gothic Renaissance this week for a last-minute Halloween find, be sure to delight in the eccentric stock—and appreciate all it has to offer beyond just the macabre. Come November 1, however, the hardworking employees will be taking a well-earned break post-spooky season. For a second, that is—because the need for cool goth style never stops. “If you ve ever been out and about early after Halloween night, it feels like everyone’s still sleeping—the whole city feels hungover,” says Mass. “But the city never stops partying. Within a week, people are coming in again. The looks never stop.”
