Every year at about this time, Halloween sneaks up behind me and hits me over the head with a two by four. Or possibly a baseball bat (since it comes from behind, I never get a really good look at it, obviously). Labor Day passes, the summer is ending, I'm just starting to relax and look forward to a really boring month, and then something reminds me. Halloween.
More specifically, Halloween costumes. I like Halloween and all - ghosts and vampires and creepy crawlies - but it's not my favorite holiday. It is, however, the best excuse all year to dress up in a costume. For some sad, deprived people, it's the only excuse. Luckily, at least one of my friends throws an awesome Halloween party every year, so I have somewhere to go in my costume. (Without that, I might be forced to dress up and just go grocery shopping or something. Lack of venue wouldn't actually translate to lack of costume.)
But being costumically inclined also means that I usually end up in charge of several costumes besides my own. Last year I did four costumes from the ground up and consulted on three more. This year, since I can actually sew a little, I'm looking at five. Admittedly, my sewing skills are still limited, so some pieces from each costume will be bought, not made. My parents' costumes, for the annual 'Witches and Warlocks' party, probably won't take any sewing at all: I've already got the dress my mom will wear as Endora from Bewitched, and we'll just buy the robes my dad will wear as a Hogwarts professor. We'll add a couple of touches to make it clear exactly who they are, like last year when my mom was Minerva McGonagall - a wreath of thistles for her hat, a tartan wrap, Gryffindor ribbons on her broom. But they're basically done.
The other three, though, will be considerably more work. As usual, I'm doing mine and my boyfriend's, and I think this year I'll take over one of my friend's, though I haven't told her yet. Last year her costume was pretty last minute, and I have a great idea for her this year, so I'm thinking I'll just do hers. Especially because I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing for my own yet. I have a couple of ideas, but nothing really inspired me this year like Yvaine from Stardust did last year.
At least this year if I don't come up with anything, I have things to fall back on. My Comic-Con costumes, the Masquerade Ball outfit, or my outfit for the Edwardian Ball will all do in a pinch. The same is not true of my boyfriend. Our friends have seen all of his costumes before, and with the exception of Severus Snape (made by a costumer friend of his years ago), they weren't really made well enough for multiple wearings. (I made them, often without using a sewing machine... sometimes without patterns or measurements... it's fairly miraculous they stayed on.) But this year I'm confident in my ability to make things that actually qualify as clothes. Whether or not they look like what they're supposed to is an entirely different question.
I think this year I might go old school. A lot of things are up in the air right now, and I think next year won't be the same. (Which seems profound, but upon reflection is just obvious. Oh well.) So instead of trying to do something uber-sexy and up-to-the-moment, I think this year I might go with a costume that's been rattling around in my head for a couple of years. I've got the hair for it right now, and there's a great companion costume for my boyfriend. It'll involve some purchasing, some sewing, and possibly some foam molding and shellacking.
It will be fantastic. It will be time-consuming. It will be revealed... in a later post.
Next year, can someone remind me about Halloween in August?
Showing posts with label steampunk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steampunk. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Party at the End of the World
Last night was the second and final night of the 2008 Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball, and it was incredible. As usual, the people from Sypher Art Studios (the organizers) outdid themselves to decorate the Henry Fonda Music Box in Hollywood and to hire amazing, otherworldly dance and music acts to grace the main stage. But the really amazing thing was the costumes people created to wear to the ball.
In this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words, so if you don't want to rely on my descriptions, you can go to Flickr.com and type in "labyrinth masquerade" for over a hundred pictures taken by various guests. But if you haven't got that kind of time, I'll list a few of the ones I liked best.
I think my personal favorites were the team of guys who were calling themselves the Ghostbusters from 1884. They had reimagined the outfits - and more impressively, the equipment - of the Ghostbusters from a steampunk point of view, and it was flawlessly done. Each guy had a detailed and bulky contraption on his back that actually did something. One flipped a switch and displayed trapped lightning in a glass tube; another continuously emitted little puffs of steam. It was original, innovative, and well-executed. Wonderful.
I was also impressed by the couple who had only a very small budget for this years costumes, and were forced to become extremely creative with the contents of their closet. (Admittedly, it was a costumer's closet, so they had some stuff to play with.) But her quasi-fantasy duchess (a hoop skirt minus the skirt - just bare hoops covered in masses of silk flowers) and his six-foot green giant (complete with fuzzy aubergine tie and greenery-covered busby) were a testament to absolute creativity (as well as the insanity of people who like to dress up).
There were also, of course, legions of gorgeous fairies, several stellar aliens, at least a shipful of pirates, and any number of creatures that defied description. Thanks to the incredible creativity of a friend of mine, we wore intricately beautiful wire-and-crystal masks colored to match our costumes, which garnered a fair amount of attention. But all in all, I was humbled by the incredible display of effort and talent everywhere I looked. I immediately vowed to start earlier and come up with something spectacular for next year.
Sadly, among all the lovely pageantry, there were a few missteps. A number of otherwise superlative costumes were diminished by their wearers' eyeglasses. I'm sorry, but if you're going to put in that kind of time and effort on a costume - especially if this is something you do even semi-regularly - you need to bite the bullet and upgrade to contacts. Maybe even just for when you're dressed up. Nothing sticks out quicker (especially at a MASKED ball) than a pair of utterly mundane spectacles. And if you can't give them up (although I really do recommend them - I've worn contacts for nine years now and the difference is amazing; no more accidentally looking around your frames), then at least work them into your costume. Steampunk is very in right now, and the Victorians had eyeglasses.
The other tragic misstep was the one that always seems to occur at events like this. I'm a big proponent of "if you've got it, flaunt it", but I'm an equally big believer in its corollary: if you don't have it, know it! There was one girl last night, who is probably quite pretty and not at all overweight in street clothes, who looked quite simply atrocious. She wore a skintight bodysuit of flesh-colored mesh, and accessorized it with a wide, tight belt that sat, unfortunately, just across her hips, cutting into her stomach and giving her a rather prominent potbelly. It was painful to look at her. It was even sadder when you consider that she could have been pretty - possibly even wildly sexy - in an outfit that flattered her assets. Instead, her outfit said "I'm deeply unattractive, and I don't have any friends to stop me from walking out of the house like this."
But tragedy aside, the ball was a rockin' good time. Toward the end, standing off to the side of the dance floor, ignoring my unhappy feet and watching the dancers, I was struck by the idea that this was what a party at the end of the world would look like. People from all different times, worlds, alternate universes, and magical places, pulled out of time and space, brought together in one room to dance and drink and party the night away until the countdown to apocalypse. And if that's anything what the end of the world looks like, I hope I'm invited.
(SemiGeekGirl's Guide to Comic-Con will continue in the next post.)
In this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words, so if you don't want to rely on my descriptions, you can go to Flickr.com and type in "labyrinth masquerade" for over a hundred pictures taken by various guests. But if you haven't got that kind of time, I'll list a few of the ones I liked best.
I think my personal favorites were the team of guys who were calling themselves the Ghostbusters from 1884. They had reimagined the outfits - and more impressively, the equipment - of the Ghostbusters from a steampunk point of view, and it was flawlessly done. Each guy had a detailed and bulky contraption on his back that actually did something. One flipped a switch and displayed trapped lightning in a glass tube; another continuously emitted little puffs of steam. It was original, innovative, and well-executed. Wonderful.
I was also impressed by the couple who had only a very small budget for this years costumes, and were forced to become extremely creative with the contents of their closet. (Admittedly, it was a costumer's closet, so they had some stuff to play with.) But her quasi-fantasy duchess (a hoop skirt minus the skirt - just bare hoops covered in masses of silk flowers) and his six-foot green giant (complete with fuzzy aubergine tie and greenery-covered busby) were a testament to absolute creativity (as well as the insanity of people who like to dress up).
There were also, of course, legions of gorgeous fairies, several stellar aliens, at least a shipful of pirates, and any number of creatures that defied description. Thanks to the incredible creativity of a friend of mine, we wore intricately beautiful wire-and-crystal masks colored to match our costumes, which garnered a fair amount of attention. But all in all, I was humbled by the incredible display of effort and talent everywhere I looked. I immediately vowed to start earlier and come up with something spectacular for next year.
Sadly, among all the lovely pageantry, there were a few missteps. A number of otherwise superlative costumes were diminished by their wearers' eyeglasses. I'm sorry, but if you're going to put in that kind of time and effort on a costume - especially if this is something you do even semi-regularly - you need to bite the bullet and upgrade to contacts. Maybe even just for when you're dressed up. Nothing sticks out quicker (especially at a MASKED ball) than a pair of utterly mundane spectacles. And if you can't give them up (although I really do recommend them - I've worn contacts for nine years now and the difference is amazing; no more accidentally looking around your frames), then at least work them into your costume. Steampunk is very in right now, and the Victorians had eyeglasses.
The other tragic misstep was the one that always seems to occur at events like this. I'm a big proponent of "if you've got it, flaunt it", but I'm an equally big believer in its corollary: if you don't have it, know it! There was one girl last night, who is probably quite pretty and not at all overweight in street clothes, who looked quite simply atrocious. She wore a skintight bodysuit of flesh-colored mesh, and accessorized it with a wide, tight belt that sat, unfortunately, just across her hips, cutting into her stomach and giving her a rather prominent potbelly. It was painful to look at her. It was even sadder when you consider that she could have been pretty - possibly even wildly sexy - in an outfit that flattered her assets. Instead, her outfit said "I'm deeply unattractive, and I don't have any friends to stop me from walking out of the house like this."
But tragedy aside, the ball was a rockin' good time. Toward the end, standing off to the side of the dance floor, ignoring my unhappy feet and watching the dancers, I was struck by the idea that this was what a party at the end of the world would look like. People from all different times, worlds, alternate universes, and magical places, pulled out of time and space, brought together in one room to dance and drink and party the night away until the countdown to apocalypse. And if that's anything what the end of the world looks like, I hope I'm invited.
(SemiGeekGirl's Guide to Comic-Con will continue in the next post.)
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