Credit Where It's Due
The Health Goth aesthetic started around 2013 when Portland-based artists Mike Grabarek, Jeremy Scott, and Chris Cantino created a Health Goth Facebook group. It started as an exploration into athletic wear as a potential goth aesthetic. They started by simply collecting adverts and clothing photos that had a dark, moody feel. The Portland artists wanted to push a dark physical aesthetic towards the future with high-tech fabrics, biotechnology, anti-aging research, and pursuing perfection.
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By 2014, Johnny “Deathface” Love, a Los Angeles personal trainer, added on the fitness aspect of Health Goth (site). The sudden awareness of goths at the gym gradually took off and a healthy gothic lifestyle soon formed with high emphasis placed on action.
Health Goth is still emerging and forming into whatever it will become. It is influenced by dark, moody athletic clothing, often with minimalistic or dystopian influences. It does emphasize going to the gym on a regular basis. It does emphasize a healthy lifestyle. It is not simply “goth athleisure”. It’s not typically worn to clubs.