The Halloween Costume Interludes, Final Round: the Riot, the Kitsch and the Wardrobe

In which Team BadRep discuss Halloween costumes via email in a thoroughly serious and academically high-flying manner.

Final Round: What are you wearing?

Miranda: Before we answer this question, I have to say I was almost tempted by this, the most surreal thing Yandy has ever spawned. I give you ARCADE CUTIE. So unhinged I might actually wear it.

Look at the FACIAL EXPRESSION on the skirt. The skirt is actually embarrassed to be part of the outfit, which contains not one but THREE STRATEGICALLY PLACED FACES. It’s even better than Boob Fury. Absolutely blew me away in the sheer entropic blaze of its own wrong-glory. Katy Perry has nothing on it. But anyway, what are we all wearing? I suspect almost none of us are going down the off-the-peg costume route?

Sarah J: I’m going to two parties so I’m attempting to combine the themes The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Le Tigre into one outfit. I haven’t really worked out how yet, but I think I’ll probably be Riot Lucy (who looks pretty similar to Manda Rin from Bis).

Miranda: Alternate-Universe Lucy, who survives that horrible train crash in The Last Battle! Maybe you’re undead, too, and vowing revenge on CS Lewis for such a terrible plotting decision.

Jenni: I was actually the wardrobe from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe one year at school.

Miranda: I dressed up as Anne Bonny last year. Needless to say, I did not use a shop-bought costume. Pirates do particularly badly in terms of costume-shop gender separation – all the women’s clothes are labelled “VIXEN PIRATE”, “WENCH PIRATE”, “MAIDEN PIRATE”, and so on, while the dudes get to be “CUT THROAT JACK”. So I just bought some plastic pistols and raided Age Concern. There was slightly more boob-coverage going on than in this 1700s etching. This year I think I’m going more trad-gothic-novel-heroine, but hopefully with an impressive amount of lace and waft.

Rhian: My Halloween costumes tend to be ridiculous rather than sexy – in the past five years I’ve dressed as Terry Hall (incredibly vague tangential ‘Ghost Town’ joke), Patrick Bateman once, and Thatcher twice. Last year I had an entire party themed around Tory/Coalition Horror, but I fully accept that’s just me being slightly self-parodic. I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly done Sexy!Halloween, it feels like a bit of a cop-out almost in the dressing-up stakes (as in, I’d far rather someone react to me with ‘That’s really funny’ than ‘Wow, you look hot’).

Jenni: Your predilection for dressing as Thatcher has always worried me, Rhian.

Markgraf: As I warned at the start of this chat, I’m going as a sexed-up Misdreavus. That’s a Pokemon. And I’m not even sorry. I love the shit out of Hallowe’en, and dressing up, and monsters, and bodypaint, and Pokemon, and horrible outfits that try to be sexy but aren’t. I love the former five for obvious reasons, but I love the latter because they’re so incongruous. I mean, sexy takeaway food? What the fuck? The allure of dressing as a tarted-up cartoon ghost from a videogame with the assistance of stripper heels and bodypaint is always going to be too much for me to resist. Also, I’m a boy. Hyper-femme incongruous drag is something I can pull off. So why not? Halloween is for dressing up as things that’ll impress or terrify, and I can’t think of anything more impressive and terrifying than sexy Pokemon cosplay in little more than paint and a wig.

Miranda: Thatcher, a sexed-up Pokemon, and Riot Grrrl CS Lewis. We know how to party in here. How do I compete? Maybe I’ll just build some kind of furry several-headed contraption that fits over my shoulders and just go as Three Wolf Moon.

Jenni: Or the Pixar lamp.

Miranda: That person wins the entire internet.

Rob: Well, I was going to dress as a pumpkinhead – as in, I am going to hollow out a pumpkin and wear it on my head – but this whole exchange is making me think maybe I should sex it up a bit. Me, with a pumpkin on my head… and a bikini.

Happy Halloween from Team BadRep!