Voltaire rents, which he calls the “Lair of Voltaire.” He pays less than $2,000 a month for the rent-stabilized unit, which he moved into 20 years ago, about two decades after he came to New York at 17.īorn in Havana and raised in New Jersey, Mr.

Much of “Gothic Homemaking” is filmed in the East Village studio apartment Mr. For special occasions, he’ll vamp himself up with Maybelline eyeliner, Big Sexy Hair hair spray, and a tiny black heart drawn just so on his cheek.

Voltaire, who has been compared to Dracula, Vincent Price, Elvis and Doctor Strange, likes to pair tight black Ezekiel pants from Nordstrom Rack and DieHard work shirts from Kmart, both of which he purchases in bulk, with more expensive John Hardy rings, John Fluevog shoes and Jean Paul Gaultier blazers. “As long as you’re wearing all black, you’re already three-quarters of the way there.” “People think it costs a lot of money to be goth,” Aurelio Voltaire, 55, said.

From it he pulled a black velveteen Victorian-style tuxedo jacket called the “ Baphomet.” Made by the label Devil Fashion, it had embroidery at the collar and cuffs, a braided frog closure at the chest and tails as pointy as the horns of its namesake goat-headed deity. At the Gothic Renaissance store near Union Square in Manhattan, a man clad in all black, with his hair and beard dyed to match, navigated a maze of corsets, steampunk goggles and winged harnesses to a rack of outerwear.

Martha stewart halloween magazine 2022