The Addams Family’s problem child is suddenly everywhere – from the catwalks to a new Tim Burton series for Netflix. Who better to express our existential malaise?
Brooding, maudlin, full of woe: Wednesday Addams is an icon for pandemic times. Who better to express our existential malaise with a world gone horribly wrong than the seven-year-old antiheroine of Charles Addams’s much-loved TV and film franchise? If Wednesday was around today she would probably infect her brother Pugsley with Covid, then observe him sickening with clinical detachment. And she would do it in her signature uniform: black lace dress, white collar and plaited hair.
These are bitter days indeed, and fashion has gone over to the dark side. Simone Rocha’s much-anticipated collection for H&M – featuring gothic black tulle ballgowns and a children’s range modelled by preteens with Wednesday plaits – sold out in hours after its launch on 11 March. Lisa from the K-pop supergroup Blackpink appeared on the cover of Elle in September 2020 in a high-necked, white-collared black dress with a petulant, Wednesday-like expression on her face. And the blood-red cherry on the Black Forest gateau: it has just been announced that Tim Burton will direct a live-action Addams Family reboot for Netflix, centring on Wednesday herself. Wednesday is all around us, our very own venomous little sister. But what is driving this macabre revival?
