Beauty and Decay
Some notes on the philosophy of metal, and my favorite party trick.
When I reference metal music, or people that listen to it, you might immediately think of black clothes, studs and skulls, ripped tees, Doc Martens, face paint or dark makeup; brightly colored hair — essentially a visual shorthand of something purchased at a long-forgotten mall that somehow still has a Hot Topic and a Spencer’s in it.
But all of that feels… performative.
Which is precisely why, during a period of temporary insanity, I quit my job and started this whole crazy adventure I call Double Kick.
You see, I had a thought in the middle of the night, as one does, back in 2023 and immediately texted my two best friends, “What if I started a brand that does metal gear that’s minimalist and feminine (but not flowery)? I feel like there’s a gap in the market, and women like us are looking for a solution.” That moment, right there, that split second it took for me to send that text? It turned my world upside down.
I won’t retell the entire story. If you’re curious, give this article a read. But what I’ve come to realize over these last few years of building this brand, is that the actual throughline to everything I make and do and write and create isn’t about the genre of metal in the literal sense. If you’ve spent more than five minutes with me you’ll know I don’t look or sound like someone who blasts Swamp Coffin in my car regularly (although my favorite party trick is telling people that I’m a metalhead and watching their eyes pop out of their heads). Therefore, Double Kick is decidedly not “just a metal brand” and it never has been.
Case in point: my aesthetic north star. Ancient instinct mixed with contemporary precision, embodied ritual meets primal materialism. It’s severe, intellectual, sensual, and architectural.
What I’ve finally come to is this:
It was always about the worldview that underlies metal, not the literal expression of the genre’s known style. Akin to the difference between buying an identity and expressing one you already have.
It’s about refusing the easy interpretation, sitting with the uncomfortable thing instead of resolving it fast, holding beauty and decay in the same hand, meaning what you say in a culture built to reward you for not meaning it.
That, is metal.
Once I saw it that way, everything that I’m drawn to stopped looking like a random collection of interests and started looking like one long string of connectivity. The art, the graphics, the music, the writing, the apparel. It all connects.
I don’t actually think Double Kick is getting less metal as it gets quieter and more refined. I think it’s the first time it’s looked how I meant it to the whole time. Not performing metal, but embodying the values behind it.
Switchblade Minimalism was never a contradiction to resolve, I just hadn’t fully written the backstory until now.
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Sara
Founder & Creative Director, Double Kick