Maybe you should look at how YOU feel comfortable with goth. For example my everyday where is not flouncy black lace and velvet. I have a two year old son and Im not ruining clothes that I like to wear by him rubbing Marmite and Ribena into them!
Think about the different styles of goth and maybe have a couple of outfits that are really goth but mix and match other styles. I am currently going very hippy goth what with the warm weather we are having here. I have also topped up the small amount of tan that I can naturally get. Dont worry about what others tell you goth is or is not and be yourself. I am a huge mix of genres within my wardrobe and music tastes and I would say Im goth. I cassify myself this way so therefore I am.

I find it difficult to wear overly bright colours, it's been years sine I've donned them! Although I find dark colours such as blue and purple worming their way into my wardrobe. An easy way to inject a bit of colour is coloured tights, I have several pairs of them in tourquise, green and blue, but if I find them too bright I put a pair of thin black tights over which makes a nice effect as the colour shows in bright light and when you bend your legs or move them.

Also putting fishnets over them look good! I still love stripey tights but always put fishnets over the top.

*dons acid green jeans*

I don't really think it matters all too much I mean with fashion boundary's and rules can always be challenged. Okay, for instance women wearing jeans use to be looked down on because it was said to be only a thing for men but that clearly changed for the better. So why not have goths with bright colors? I mean personally I don't think it honestly matters all that much.

Phew! I was about to say!

<= Dark steampunker and adamant DIY-er, but not rich

I'm an open and honest person when I say that I wear a fair amount of color, sometimes it being color+some black instead of black+some color (alas, despite the amount of color that I wear, my mom puts on her tunnel-vision glasses and refuses to see me wearing any color unless it's - yellow *shudder*). Usually when I do wear color, it's often very shiny, in the form of crushed velvet. For example, I have a sky blue crushed velvet dress that I believe to be very gothy when matched with the right accessories. The same can be said for a lot of stuff I wear.

I wouldn't wear two bright colors together just because of the high possibility that they'll clash like Blackavar mentioned, not necessarily because it'll be less goth (the only exception would be if I were to wear white, which is the substitute for black, and another color, like purple). Akin to what Midi said:



My scheme: when I wear all black - and I'm trying to not be the "Oh I'm so Gawf" persona by wearing black everything- I wear colorful makeup, and when I wear color, I tend to wear black or mute makeup.



This would be another exception, which was my color scheme before I became goth (brown and green - with the black combat boots ).

In the end:



Don't limit yourself. If you see something you want to wear, just wear it. If you constantly wear all black just to appease other people who might judge you, then goth isn't something fun - it's a chore. And because chores suck, you won't like it anymore. And then you get sad and annoying. And we can't have that, can we?