Gothic clothing brand Forest Ink released its first collection of 2025, the Midnight Menagerie collection, which takes on the 1920s vintage circus aesthetic most associated with American showman P.T. Barnum.
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The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, a traveling show that spanned the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries before closing down in 2017, influenced not only the world of entertainment in the early 20th century, but the world of fashion. The circus aesthetic—also on very queer display in Todd Browning’s Freaks—has inspired plenty of modern media, such as Carnivale and American Horror Story: Freakshow, due partly to its queer-adjacent history and what would now be considered human rights violations in certain sideshow acts. This dark, morbid aspect has also long inspired certain subsets of gothic culture, combining geometric patterns with dark color schemes and jester-like makeup. It’s harlequin meets sideshow chic.
Forest Ink also plays into that idea of scandalous fanfare in its advertisements for the new collection, in which a Burmese python is prominently featured along with her owner.
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As for the items in the collection, the geometric patterns are used to great effect. Beetlejuice stripes aand Harlequin V-neck tops use muted color and bold design to evoke a vintage feel.
Added to this collection is a pair of Forest Ink’s velvet Rosemary bloomers in red. Other red items include the Alice Flare pants with a laced-together front split design. There’s also the Red Lovesick Cardigan for an extra bit of whimsy.
This might be my bias as someone who loves burlesque-style performance, but I cannot say there is one bad design within this collection.
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