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How goth are you on a scale of one to Wednesday Addams? If the answer is ‘zero’ then get your pastel-wearing backside to Goth Shop, a temporary boutique in the Old Truman Brewery stocked with ceramic skulls, vampire patches, neon angel art from God’s Own Junkyard and photo-zines on the band Bauhaus.
Photograph: Derek Ridgers Editions/Goth Shop
For guidance, look to the gothfathers in the shop’s collection of unseen photographs by Derek Ridgers. Among his shots you’ll find a young, sepulchral Nick Cave with an electric shock of black hair shooting out of his head, and candid snaps of young goths with freshly painted white faces waiting to get into The Batcave – a 1980s London club where Alien Sex Fiend and Siouxsie Sioux once roamed.
Photograph: God’s Own Junk Yard/Goth Shop
Ridgers will be at the shop on Saturday (December 8) to sign his photography books and show a special selection of Nick Cave prints. And next Wednesday (December 11), gothic artist for the internet age Stephen Ellcock will be launching a new series of ‘goth cards’, and signing his new book ‘All Good Things’, a compendium of art and photography inspired by the natural world, as well as the underworld. The whole place will be stacked with art, paintings and prints in shades of raven and T-shirts covered in anarchic slogans, but you don’t have to be a Robert Smith lookalike to visit. Everyone is welcome, whether goth, or noth.
Photograph: Angel Rose/Goth Shop
Photograph: Geraldine Swayne/Goth Shop
The Goth Shop will run at The Old Truman Brewery. Shoreditch High St Overground. Thu Dec 5-Dec 15. Free entry. See more artwork here.
Not enough colour for your liking? Find more Christmas shopping options in London here
For a very different kind of London pop-up try the ‘Snowman’ sculpture trail or our guide to the cosiest pop-ups in the city