Right now what we think of as New Wave is much more specific to a certain underground look and feel of the 80's. It is the first pop music form to use synthesizers and keyboards on a regular basis. There is also a certain glamour and camp to the band members. Many older Gothics love 80's music because that's what they grew up on. People who are into this type of music are called mods or wavers .
Wavers is a somewhat antiquated term although mods is still used.
What we now call gothic was a fairly small group of people. Goth was not yet used as a term and they were generally lumped together with all other underground groups as wavers or freaks. In the late eighties and early nineties Gothic gained a lot of visibility with the emergence of the second generation . Mods became somewhat retro in their love of eighties music, fashion, and British pop music. There is a significant crossover between modern and gothic music, although these are separate music classifications.