☆How to Feel: Dark Academia Edition☆

Inspire your inner dark academia

Dark Academic: How To Feel

• Write words and their definitions on your wrists

• Put flowers in your heavy books; using them as bookmarks

• Write short poems all over your arms

• Always carry a notebook

• Wear a brown coat filled with papers

• Read ‘forbidden books’ at night

• Light your room up with rusty lanterns

• Spend your evenings with tea/coffee; especially on a rainy day, sit by the window sill, listen to ‘Clair de Lune’ with a cup of your favourite tea or coffee

• Be happy when you get to write an essay

• Read ancient stories and epic poems. Suggestions include Homer’s the Illiad

• Mention random mythology facts to friends

• Read sappho

• Wander in the woods

• Stargazing on cozy nights

• Sleep with books under your pillows

• Learn latin and greek phrases

• Practice calligraphy

• Indulge in aesthetic compositions; read novels, especially ones focused upon aestheticism and decadence

• Visit libraries designed in the composition of Baroque, Gothic or Romanesque architecture

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for”

~ N.H. Kleinbaum

"Someday I shall write a great poem to you, so great that I shall make you famous in history, or dedicate a book to you, or collect a fortune & die & leave it to you."

~Edna St. Vincent Millay to Isobel Simpson, January 30 1918

Dark Academia: Style Guide and Essentials

• timeless jewelry

• gold or silver toned bracelets, ornate vintage rings, fine necklace chains with small pendants, heart-shaped lockets, belts, silver cufflinks, statement brooches, cummerbunds

• simple, plain fabrics

• tweed, cotton, wool, linen, crêpe, gossamer

• coverings/outerwear

• trench coats, blazers, pea coats, smoking jackets, waistcoats, duffle coats

• Lots of plaid

• Beige or brown clothing

• Long socks

• Handbag over shoulder

Neckwear:

• cravats, neckties, scarves, ascot ties, bow ties

Tops/bottoms/other:

• blouses, dress shirts, sundresses, turtlenecks, short dresses, patternless t-shirts, cardigans, polo shirts, twinsets, high-rise pants, slip dresses, palazzo pants, cocktail dresses, dress pants, leggings, little black dresses, suits

Shoes:

• leather boots, Mary Janes, dress shoes, black pumps, beige sandals, flats

Accessories:

• sunglasses, gloves, headbands, leather watches

Dark Academia: Playlist

• Requiem Lacrimosa - Wolfgang Mozart

• Ballade Slave - Claude Debussy

• The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act 2: No. 14: Pas de Deux - Pyotr Tchaikovsky

• Chopin: Nocturne No.20 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. Posth. - Frédéric Chopin, Mikhail Pletnev

• The Secret History - The Chamber Orchestra of London

• The Cloud Atlas Sextet for Orchestra - Tom Tykwer

• His Dark Materials - Lorne Balfe

• The Four Seasons - Summer in G Minor, RV. 315: III. Presto Antonio Vivaldi

• Swan Lake Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (choose whatever one)

• No. 13 Dance of the Knights - Sergei Prokofiev

“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.”

~Jorge Luis Borges

Dark Academic: Tips

• Listen to Mozart while drinking black coffee

• Wear big cashmere sweaters

• Being secretly in love with your best friend

• Look at the moon, sitting on the balcony

• Smoking while watching black and white old films

• Spend the evening in the library

• Read odyssey and discuss it with your friends

• Have a large black coat

• Recite poems, sitting in a room lit by candles

• Always have a book with yourself

• Wear a lot of silver jewelry

• Know someone’s secret

Dark Academic: Study Techniques

• Rewriting your notes, over and over and over again, not worrying about the neatness but paying close attention to each and every word

• Muttering every bit you know by heart under your breath as you walk down the streets

• Studying early in the morning, focusing on one sentence or chapter and pondering it through the day

• Researching things that you have questions about on your own, finding books on that subject and leafing through them

• Reciting your notes dramatically to your household companion or your stuffed animal

• Challenging yourself to think, speak, write and consume media only in your target language

• Eating certain snacks with different subjects and letting the smells trigger your memories

• Associating each subject to someone you know by sight only

• Romanticising bite that you have difficulty getting interested in

• Chanting your notes at night on a classical tune

“Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again”

~Homer

Dark Academic: Mood

• A mouth painted red with wine

• Tweed blazers

• A dark coat flapping behind you like crows wings

• The earthy scent of old books

• The clack of polished Mary Janes

• Crisply folded white blouses

• Ivy entangled brick buildings

• The smell of violin rosin

• Pressed flowers

• Old biology textbook illustrations

Dark Academia: Movie/ Book Recommendations:

Books:

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

• If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt

• Dead Poets Society by N.H. Kleinbaum

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde- Robert Stevenson

• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

• Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

• The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (not sure if I should add this one in or not)

• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

• The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

Movies:

• Maurice (dir. James Ivory)

• Dead Poets Society (dir. Peter Weir)

• Rebecca (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

• Black Swan (dir. Darren Aronovsky)

• Atonement (by Joe Wright - 2007)

• Becoming Jane (by Julian Jarrold - 2007)

• Kill Your Darlings (by John Krokidas - 2013)

• Seven (by David Fincher - 1995)

• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (by Mike Newell - 2018)

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (by Chris Columbus - 2001)

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (by Chris Columbus - 2002)

• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (by Alfonso Cuarón - 2004)

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (by David Yates - 2009)

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (by David Yates - 2011)

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” ~Oscar Wilde

"Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.”

~ Oscar Wilde

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