The right sort of black

'Wash dark colours separately.' Separately from...?

'You just go and find this Omnian and keep an eye on him.' 

'What should I look for?' said Agnes sourly. 'A column of smoke?'

'They all wear black,' said Nanny firmly. 'Hah! Typical!'

'Well? So do we.'

'Right! But ours is... ours is...' Nanny thumped her chest, causing considerable ripples, 'ours is the right black, right? Now, off you go and look inconspicuous,' added Nanny, a lady wearing a two-foot-tall pointed black hat.

Terry Pratchett: Carpe Jugulum.

Doreen Valiente

You can no doubt find the question of what a witch looks like answered in many ways on the internet. An image search finds the classic pointy hat and warty nose image, while many modern witches will tell you that witches look like anyone else. This is a valiant attempt in public relations terms but I doubt that it is quite true. There is certainly no uniform look for witches, but the one thing that is sure is that we tend to look like nobody else, we are always somewhat marked out as the weirdos. In some cases this may be the conscious reason for dressing a certain way - adolescents and young adults often seek to identify with their peer group as a reaction to an identity as their parents' children, or else rebel as a means of self-definition.
I love some of the older pictures of witches of the past. Certainly in the earlier days of the movement witches did tend to look like anyone else - but this is probably best explained by the fact that a greater variety of individual choice came in the sixties; certainly in the fifties people would have had fewer clothes than we have now, and there would be much less choice for people on an ordinary income. Gerald Gardner looks like any other old colonial in the earlier pictures of him: it was only after the publicisation of Wicca that he began to look more witchy with pointy beard and capes. Rae Bone looked like a normal person. The surviving pictures of Robert Cochrane show him in a suit or tie or in potholing gear: once again he doesn't look like most people would expect a witch to look. I particularly like the earlier pictures of Doreen Valiente in which she looks like someone's secretary (which was exactly what she was during the day), and I always think Patricia Crowther's theatrical background is apparent in her appearance and demeanour. The common theme here - all of these people come across as larger than life characters, with their own individual style.

Z Budapest

The next generation began to look a bit more witchy. The pictures of Alex Sanders look surprisingly old fashioned. There is one picture of him towards the end of his life (which I'm afraid I have been unable to find online and can't remember where I saw it), bare chested and shaven headed, which gives a much greater impression of mature wisdom. In his younger photos he tends to come across as rather shifty. Maxine Sanders is almost unrecognisable from her pictures in the seventies and is a very good example of dignified ageing for a witch. Janet Farrar had the best-known Wiccan breasts for many years but it is difficult to know where to go from that as you get older. Stuart Farrar fitted his role of grand old man of Alexandrian witchcraft down to the ground, and just look at the pictures of him with Janet in the Witches' Bible: he is absolutely devoted to her, exactly as it should be for a Wiccan priest. Another recurrent theme becomes apparent: how we look gives an impression to the world outside. The impression could be a 'glamour', a deliberately projected impression intended to deceive, or it could be a genuine expression of an interior reality. Either way, appearance is part of the magic. It is possible to do magic completely mentally with absolutely no props at all, but the props work their magic on us to set the stage and get us into the right world to do the magic. In a community where a major principle is 'as above, so below, as within so without,' this movement from within to without and back again is an important act. Similarly an external appearance can be intended as a magical act in itself. Witches wear an awful lot of black for reasons of psychic perception, power, and protection from other people's stuff. It's also slimming, stylish, you can dress in the dark, and wash everything together with no runs.

Christian Day

The following generations are probably the most public of modern witches yet, and so there is even greater variety and individuality, so the people I will pick of younger generations will be deliberately for the purposes of this post. Of the feminists it is difficult not to mention my beloved Z Budapest. You can feel the power of the woman in the photos of her in her younger days: there is no doubt that this woman is a witch and a force of nature and not to be trifled with. She has also aged with grace: her hair is its natural colour, and though she has begun to look more frail now she has wisely chosen her publicity photos to be a reflection of who Z Budapest is. Starhawk is known for her activism and concern for ecology, and I believe that this is expressed in her garb. Some witches may wear a lot of fairly traded or organic or hemp clothes, because this is what their concern is as a witch. A female witch whose look I like very much is Dorothy Morrison, who wears a lot of business suits, and commented on an interview that at a Pagan festival, she is the one you would remember because she would be the only one not running round in a sun dress and flip flops. Again this is dressing for her purpose: giving an impression of Dorothy Morrison as the sort of person who wears business suits, creating the sort of relationships with clients that are businesslike and being remembered! Which brings me nicely to Christian Day, who pumps up the witch (or rather, warlock in his case) look to the maximum. He often talks about this aspect of magic in his radio show, how magical people throughout history will deliberately be different so as to be a spirit magnet. He also talks about garb as a manifestation of ones inner witch. I love the way he talks about wanting plastic surgery in years to come and fighting the ageing process as hard as he can: once again all acts are magical acts and there is nothing to stop a surgeon's scalpel being a magical tool if your will is that you look different. Of male witches another person whose look I like partly because it isn't that witchy is Jason Karl. I wasn't aware of him being open as a witch before he wrote a book about it, but his interest is apparent (to those in the know) in the series of Most Haunted in which he appears. Apart from anything else he's hot as f*ck, and that's almost the definition of witchcraft in many people's book.

Jason Karl. Yum.

I said that it was apparent to those in the know that Karl was a witch, so quite apart from the image we project for everyone else, how do witches recognise each other? I think we pick it up on an energy or even astral level, and in fact can often tell when witchcraft is crying out for a person before she can herself. What we pick up is the inner, more subtle, expression of what is expressed externally by the way the witch chooses to appear. On this level, whether dressed in Ren Fayre garb or jeans, a witch is always recognisably a witch.
This post would be incomplete without some mention of the witch undressed. There is a great tradition of ritual nudity as an expression of equality and priestly power in modern witchcraft. The historical source for this is more likely to be twentieth century naturism than any ancient religious tradition. It was thought that nudity was in some way good for you. It may well still be thought so, I don't move in naturist circles. Certainly the evidence would suggest that the tendency in recent years of covering up compromises vitamin D absorption. How often we faggots have thanked the Goddess for the urge of working class men to get their shirt off at the first sign of sun. Anyone growing up from, say, the nineties onwards, will have grown up in a world where it is much less acceptable for men to be bare chested in public. I think the reason for this is that it has become sexualised (remember Marky Mark?), and there is more pressure on men to look a particular way (i.e. six pack) nowadays. I think this is a great loss. As a witch my instinct is to think that very few things should be considered wrong in and of themselves. A disparagement of body uncovering can lead to shame and embarrassment. In the right company nudity shouldn' be a problem. But the key thing here is that it should be the right company: the witch should have a certain effortlessness of action, and so should also cultivate a certain effortlessness in this area. Other people's discomfort and possible consequences of wearing the 'wrong' thing would be the test: just as you wouldn't wear cut off jeans at a Buckingham Palace tea party, so you should pick the right moment when to prioritise not causing embarrassment to other people or when boldly to go without... Of course I would hate anyone to think that I believe the witch's choices should be decided by others' norms and expectations. The witch's approach would be more to think that if you cannot face wearing the sort of clothes that would be necessary in a particular function, wild horses wouldn't drag you there unless you particularly want to go, in which case you would make a point of superficially fitting in, but leave nobody in any doubt that you're all witch underneath!
(With thanks to N who reminded me of the Discworld quote with her comments on the right sort of weird. I thought it was Granny Weatherwax who said it: imagine how pleased I was to find it was Nanny Ogg!)