By K. A. Laity
It's that time of year again: fancy dress calls for the spooktacular season. Forget about the tired old superhero route, pirates have been done to death and no, you can't go as a naughty nurse again. You have to try to be a little bit imaginative.
If you want to be like the hip kids, then steampunk is a must. Jump on this bandwagon before the rest of the world does, because the costumes are totally awesome. Like the recent exhibit at Oxford's Museum of the History of Science, steampunk paraphernalia rocks because it is both elegant and wicked cool.
Something about all that shiny brass, weird fixtures and retro fittings always manages to look really dashing. The additional accoutrements of Edwardian jackets and lace up boots just add to the picture. After all, while dressing up is fun, you want to look good, too.
Look at our poster girl, victorian_squid above: she's got the right idea, building her ensemble from the delicious song "Victorian Squid" by BitchBuzz fave musician, Robyn Hitchcock. The costume is elegant and strange, like so much of Hitchcock's music. It's a rich brainstorm of potential: consider the possibilities of the Queen of Eyes, Furry Baby, Insect Mother or even the Man with the Lightbulb Head. A veritable treasure trove of inspirations!
Anaïs Nin once attended a party where guests had to dress as their madness: she wore a golden birdcage on her head and no top. What's your madness? We've all had a good bit of stress the past year—how does your madness manifest? Take that lingering anxiety and make it manifest. You may terrify your friends, but you may also liberate some of that tension.
In the last few years, I have impersonated a wide variety of gods, goddesses and mythic figures. A dangerous thing to do, you never know what powers you might invoke (see Ovid for more examples of falling afoul of gods). Maybe it's just that I am surrounded by people who take Halloween costumes very seriously, whether it's appearing as Christ on a Crutch or as the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Once you raise the bar, it's hard to go back. I'm trying to figure out how to make myself look like a Francis Bacon triptych. Madness, madness… but it's better than that naughty witch outfit you're looking at now.
Image via The Laszlo Shop Live Journal Group