I’m writing from New Orleans, where I am celebrating with my bachelorettes (sue me for being basic!) by visiting the Voodoo shop where I bought a love potion for my then-best-friend and now soon-to-be husband on my 21st birthday (slightly less basic?) and it seems we’ve all dressed a bit witchy for the occasion.

I’m thinking about the looks from witch movies that I incessantly moodboard on Pinterest: Fairuza Balk in The Craft, Sandy B in Practical Magic, Debbi Morgan in Eve’s Bayou, Cher in The Witches of Eastwick, and the list goes on and on. Who hasn’t obsessed over the costumes in Anna Biller's The Love Witch and Robert Eggers’ The VVitch and the rest of the “good for her” canon?

The witch is as commonplace as it is subversive. The iconography of witchcraft is everywhere in fashion, from subtle allusions to oversized pointy hats on the runway. The witch is a political figure, evoking ideas of sexual liberation and harmony with the natural world. Witches in pop culture are cool and sexy, but feminist way. Unlike other things that go bump in the night, their rage and violence is gendered and, therefore, usually justified. At the touristy but respectfully spooky esoterica shop, I’m struck by just how neutered the pop culture image of a witch has become.

To this day, when I see witchy aesthetic tropes deployed as political shorthand, I’m brought back to the political landscape in the immediate wake of the 2016 election. You know what I’m talking about: that Broad City episode, the popularity of teeshirts emblazoned with the slogan “Daughters of Witches You Couldn’t Burn,” and the online witches who cast monthly spells on Donald Trump. Weeks away from another woman vs Trump election, I can’t help but notice the degree to which it’s all out of vogue now.

Does the witch deserve a comeback? I think so! Maybe if we all work together, we can Make Witches Cool Again. In this week’s STAR✦MAIL, author Heather Akumiah dresses the characters of her new novel, Bad Witches, and Broey Deschanel meditates on the concept of “female rage.”

Writer Heather Akumiah co-hosts the monthly reading series and literary podcast Limousine with Leah Abrams and is the author of a new must-read from Blackstone Publishing: Bad Witches, in bookstores now!

The book opens in New York on the 22nd birthday of three young women: a public relations assistant, a teacher, and a former child star, and follows their journey into a new, fantastical reality as they learn that they posses magical abilities.

For STAR✦MAIL, Akumiah draws inspiration from the fashion obsessed YA that inspired her and dreams up some witchy looks for her characters Maya, Gabbie, Delali, and their mysterious mentor Nadia:

Which NYFW Looks Would the Bad Witches Trio Wear to Save the Sphere? 

by Heather Akumiah

My debut novel, Bad Witches, has a lot of influences, but none more important than Gossip Girl. Many know Gossip Girl as the era-defining TV show that launched fashion trends, careers, and new cell phones, but I was in the trenches with Gossip Girl before it ever reached the screens, reading every bizarrely-titled installation as soon as it hit the shelves of my public library. It’s kind of hard to explain how I decided Gossip Girl would be a defining influence on my debut, a story about three Black girls who find out they’re witches on their shared 22nd birthday. Maybe the simplest explanation is that I wanted to write a book that put Black girls in the center of the playful novels that had nourished my suburban imagination when I was a preteen, but also I was thinking about witches and Sex and the City a lot at the time. 

Using Gossip Girl as reference helped me hit these notes. It (hopefully) makes the book feel fun and nostalgic, transporting readers to a time when the natural outgrowth of our culture was a conspicuous consumption Bible for teens that regularly described noses as “ski-sloped,” but with the political sensibilities and cultural references of present day.

Where my subject matter strays, my style in Bad Witches minds many of the delightful conventions of Gossip Girl. I of course did away with some things I never liked, like varying dialogue tags beyond reason and the compound adjective “too-tight.” But Gossip Girl (and its cousins (Pretty Little Liars, The A-List, Private, The Clique) can be found everywhere in the structure of my sentences, the italicized asides characters make to themselves, the rhetorical questions, and Maya’s bratty voice, among other things. And you can read Gossip Girl in the convention to top all conventions, the sentence structure that is the hallmark of girly early aughts YA, and that, to this day, scratches a weird itch in my brain: [Character] [verbed] her [adjective] [brand name] [clothing item or accessory] as she [verbed]. Any Gossip Girl fan knows that clothes, even designer ones, are always in need of adjustment in the Gossip Girl universe. 

In early drafts, I wrote the sentences just like that, brackets and all, intending to fill them in closer to my final editorial deadline. But long after my plotlines were perfectly measured out, my dialogue read aloud for rhythm, and action scenes polished, many of my characters were still naked, sliding on their [adjective] [brand] sneakers as they spoke. Because while Cecily von Ziegesar knew enough about the fashion milieu of her characters to mention a Birkin bag in a novel published in 2003, I was– and still am– pretty ignorant about fashion. So I had to work backwards. Fashion in the Gossip Girl novels was, obviously, used to communicate that the characters were rich, carrying five-figure bags to high school and buying lingerie by brands the average reader (a girl in the suburbs) had never heard of. But they also communicated a character’s values, hopes, and limitations, just as fashion does in real life. Chanel and Tiffany for uptight Audrey Hepburn wannabe Blair Waldorf. Prada and Roberto Cavalli for high school siren Serena Van der Woodsen. Unbranded items for the poor, like Jenny Humphry; the ugly, like Cyrus Rose; or the downtrodden, like Serena when she’s sad. 

That’s how I approached dressing Gabbie, Maya, and Delali. When guided by their extreme archetypes and character journeys, I didn’t need to know too much about fashion to figure out their wardrobes. What’s the item you should’ve thrown out years ago but never did because you don’t quite know when it became unfashionable? That’s what people-pleasing school teacher Gabbie is wearing in the early scenes, before she finds out she’s beautiful and is still facetiming her Nairobi-based white boyfriend. Delali’s wearing a sweatshirt so pedestrian it becomes cool, plus an unreleased luxury sneaker or pair of well-tailored designer jeans, because she is famous after all. And what’s Maya wearing? Everything. She’s identified as hot since second grade, is offended by all things weird or ironic, and sees every social interaction as an opportunity to strike insecurity into the souls of others. With personality and plot as guiding principles– plus a lot of time building outfits on Pinterest, badgering my friends who know how to pronounce Loewe, and trawling Vogue – I got the process down to a science.

Here’s what Gabbie, Maya, Delali, and Nadia would wear from SS25 collections that showed at last month’s NYFW, and why.

Delali 

Delali isn't dressing up unless she’s getting paid to do so. If she’s not on a red carpet or a set, she’s a jeans-and-a-top girl– and who can blame her really? She spent her childhood years getting photographed by adults, zipped into dresses that restricted her airflow, and buckled into shoes that numbed her toes. 

• I can see her in this leather jacket from Coach, which looks a lot like the one she wore over her University sweatshirt when she went to see Adrien in Friday Nights and Civil Rights.

• She’d make good use of these Alaïa bandeaus and long-sleeve crop-tops. 

• From time to time, Delali, a consummate heterosexual, gets in her butch bag, and this Hermes vest would help her along nicely. So too would these slouchy khakis.

• A lover of streetwear who dresses like Rihanna would if she didn’t have a stylist (Delali does have a stylist, to be sure) Delali has Off-White on regular rotation, and would find innovative new ways to dress down this letterman jacket.  

Gabbie 

Gabbie, our sweet Gabbie, who over the course of the novel starts wearing less and going out more, has one of the most satisfying arcs of all. Everyone knows someone who bought trendy items one time in high school and never again after that. Millennials, picture the Aeropostale long sleeve, the moccasins, the skinny jeans. Gabbie, hemmed in by low self esteem and an inalienable dorkiness, starts Bad Witches frozen in 2011. But by the latter half of the novel, up 800k followers and basking in the rewards of female friendship, Gabbie refines things, realizing the guiding adjectives of her wardrobe don’t have to result in outfits that are puerile or homely. “[A] long night on Pinterest helped her define her style as hyper-feminine Rachel Green ’90s revival French girl normie,” we learn in chapter thirty-two. Is this description a deliberate mashup of microtrend gibberish? Yes. But tell me you didn’t imagine a Sandy Liang girl when you read it. Liang, whose creations reflect a reverence for girlhood that might rival my own, is perfect for Gabbie 2.0. 

• Gabbie would wear the hell out of this Sandy Liang ruffled hem short set, transitioning from a parent-teacher meeting to an influencer dinner without a change of clothes. It’s easy to see her in these capris, though she’d swap the glamorous puff-sleeve top for something more obvious and agreeable, like this form-fitting cardigan. And she would add a bow, even if they didn’t make an appearance on Liang’s runway this fall. 

• Both the embellished sweater and dramatic mini skirt in this Self-Portrait look are perfectly on brand for the new Gabbie, and this cropped Self-portrait jacket would make a great replacement for the peacoat she gave to Goodwill around the time she hit the 500k follower mark. 

• She’d jump at these floral Chloe jeans, because she’s teaching a lesson on photosynthesis soon, and loves when her clothes tie into the lesson plan.

Maya 

Maya, a PR assistant at Clarkle Stein, is our fashion girl– but not in a wearable art, ten pairs of Tabis way. More like a slicked-back bun, Bottega Venetta cassette bag, proud label whore way. Which to some may sound like a drag, but to me seems like a totally normal way for a gal to live. Maya’s released herself from delusions of individuality and personal style. She knows that following a Dressing Weird & Unique trend is ten times more tragic than following a Basic Bitch TikTok trend. Sure, she’s got respect for fashion history and shops vintage. But when Maya West gets ready in the morning, she’s not looking for acceptance from the coterie of coastal elites who press publish on Vogue articles. No, she’s dressing to be understood as hot and upwardly mobile by as broad a swath of the population as possible. 

• Maya would reach for items by her foremother in posheness, Victoria Beckham. Who said body suits and blazers were dead? How could Maya, who so cherishes her “VS runway legs,” ever turn down a thigh-high sock boot? 

• This corseted Schiparelli one-piece is absolute baddie bait, and as such, would immediately find itself in Maya West’s shopping cart.

• She’d carry this leopard print Luar mini bag to remind you she knew about Raul Lopez before Beyoncé was front row at his show. 

• Trust LaQuan Smith to provide her the perfect cutout dress to wear to the Gathering, should the opportunity arise. 

• And no, she’s not too shy to wear this Sergio Hudson halter minidress to the office.

Nadia 

Nadia wears black. Seeing as black is something approaching a holy color in the Sphere, we wouldn’t expect anything else from the daughter of an esteemed Council family (and her generation’s Executioner). Her tastes skew punky and aggressive– leather and patent leather, chunky footwear, silver jewelry, highly structured pieces– but she also loves mini dresses and hyper-feminine items that add dimension to her neutral color palette. Nadia’s my favorite to dress, because at least I don’t have to think about color when I’m searching the internet for her outfits. 

• Nadia would serve dutiful-daughter-finding-her-voice in this leather Loewe poncho, or in this whimsical collared mini dress. 

• These satin stiletto Mary Janes by Dolce & Gabbana are exactly the kind of borderline ironic femininity that Nadia loves.

• She’d wear this quietly dramatic Ganni puffer dress to a Council meeting if she felt she needed the extra confidence.

• Or she’d layer this Sandy Liang mini dress under her lab coat for another day of working overtime to solve the Typic Crisis.

Cultural critic, podcaster, writer, and YouTube video essayist behind the Broey Deschanel page Maia Wyman writes about the empty catharsis of so-called “female rage”:

Just Rage

by Maia Wyman

It’s 2018. I’m in my friends’ apartment, and we’re yelling at each other because they think I gave them lice (I did). I storm out the door and down the stairs and find myself in my own apartment twenty minutes later, several blocks away. There is a dent in my wall, my phone is shattered on the ground beneath it, and I do not remember how I got home. 

I have a problem.

My problem is not “female rage”, but you think it is. I don’t blame you, you see it everywhere. Female rage takes its form in a blood-spattered face or one loud, satisfying scream in the car. It’s Carrie setting her schoolmates ablaze. It’s Jennifer Hills stalking through the woods and bludgeoning her rapists. It’s Pearl shoving her oppressive mother into the hearth. 

It’s me in 2014, using both hands to push a man down a flight of stairs in a nightclub, after he uses both hands to grab my ass. He crumples at the foot of the stairs and I walk away, laughing. 

Female rage is pleasing to other women, begetting a clap on the back from other clubgoers who see you push a man down a flight of stairs. This is because it’s permissible — a response to the conditions of gender. A great cry of injustice, where the scorned, violated, or oppressed woman outwardly unleashes all the wrongs of the patriarchy onto whoever steps into her path. It’s also sexy - organizing itself into pleasing images of gun-wielding, ax-wielding, tear-stricken, screaming women, for other women to lust after. They lust for the satisfaction of this “silent but electrifying” female rage. 

Even experts agree that female rage is sexier when silent. They say that of course there is power in women’s anger, but “when outrage is not suppressed or turned inward but, rather, sublimated, we all fare better.” Sublimated female rage, they say, is “where the energy of a biological impulse — in this case, anger — is diverted from its immediate goal to one of a more acceptable social or moral use.” And thus, female rage has a place in society. 

But my problem does not.

Female rage does not make itself known in the everyday, it is a momentary release of anguish. It is not: punching a mattress; kicking a doorframe; crying and yelling at a disinterested transit operator; or breaking a phone. No, that is just rage. 

Rage, just as it is, is the unbecoming expression of emotional dysregulation which takes itself out on inanimate objects, or unassuming strangers, or close friends. Dive inside me at any time and you will find a well of anger, a general assholishness that lies just beneath the surface. 

Writing for Frieze, Megan Nolan observes, “There is a sense now that female anger is something to strive toward – that its ostensible root in reacting to injustice makes it inherently noble.” Women who have female rage are noble and, thus, transgressive. I am neither of these things.

If my problem was transgressive, I would tell you that I have a premenstrual disorder, which hunts me down each month, deprives me of sleep and makes noises intolerable. I could say that, during these times, I transform into something ghoulish. But to do that would be to hide my true disposition. My rage does not choose worthy targets, or acceptable moral uses. It explodes inconveniently, whenever. It is not striking or cathartic, but ugly and regular.

And that, reader, is my problem. 

If you were to be on the receiving end of my rage, you would be stunned. For such fuckery to come out of a young woman can be rather alarming. 

The event is terrifying to behold. From inside my womanly casing burbles up angry, genderless atoms that can confound even the most suspecting of witnesses. What scares you is not that I am a monster, but rather that these atoms threaten to rip open my casing and reveal to you a naked self that is not pleasing to look at. I cannot satisfy you. 

And it’s in these moments that I feel deviant, hideous. To have rage is to live in fear of yourself, to be caught in a punishing frontier of gendered mores that no social media post has ever traversed. I am misanthrope, grump, abuser of phones. And I make you uncomfortable. 

There is no place for just rage in a woman. You may not want to burn me at the stake or spike me with a pitchfork. But you do find me unsexy. And what could be worse than that?

Gotta thank the Consumer Aesthetic Research Institute for coining “Whimsigoth”:

Amazing witchy music video for Tasmin Archer’s Sleeping Satellite:

A few underrated, and super stylish, witch flicks you can find on Tubi or YouTube:

Martine Sitbon Spring Summer 1993:

Want to hear more from Heather about modern witches? Read her fantastic guest column in Mixed Feelings:

And, finally, someone please buy this amazing witchy Victorian coat off eBay: