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COSTUME
November 3, 2009
September 6, 2013
September 28, 2013
Perhaps an odd thing to ramble
about, but what the hell... my
various experiments with costume IMPURE_FORM
(extreme dress?) over the years.
In no particular order
(as far as I know):
The incessant black of goth/industrial
night club events had my contrarian spirit A relatively recent one
swinging in the direction of gray, so I got (where recent means not
together a gray Stetson "private eye" hat, much more than a decade
some gray tights, and a gray herringbone or two ago).
suit-jacket, and on the back of the jacket,
I sewed a black felt patch on the back.
A hybrid angel-eagle:
INBETWEEN
A problem I've often had with
Halloween costumes is that I'm
often more interested in effects Actually, this is a more
than in concepts, and I often common problem in "square",
get people staring at me curiously suburban settings...
and asking "what are you?".
GREEN_BODY_PAINT
Several years ago I thought of
a new dodge: "I'm dressed as an
anime character". That works,
because no one, not even
self-professed otaku, can
possibly keep up with the
bollywood-level spew of
animation coming out of japan.
On that occasion, I was
wearing black and silver Typically I'd cover
carrying a prop I claimed half my face with a
was a "soul shuriken". silver make-up (why
half? I dunno).
The soul shuriken was cut
from some reflective/ One version of this
diffraction grating cardboard had a silver mylar
I found down at Scrap: balloon tied to my
multiple overlapping spikey shoulder.
layers, stapled together.
For several years, my default halloween
cop-out costume was an "Anubis": CARGO
I happened to find an old, hand-made
Anubis mask/hat for sale at an artists
garage sale at her storage space,
a shipping container stuck on a lot Heh. "The Mission"?
in The Mission. Why that can't possibly
be. I must be mis-remembering.
HIPSTER_GENTRY
On once occasion, I did manage
to come up with a Concept
Costume for a party where you
were supposed to bring food
related to your costume.
I dressed in my Urban Camo pants
(black and grey) and did my face
in a similar motif, using some
waxy water color crayons I had Actually, I got quite a bit
kicking around. The food I of mileage out of those crayons,
brought was MREs from a local now that I think of it.
Army Surplus store. I went through a phase where
I was painting on a black
domino mask -- actual masks
never work that well, but
facepaint in a mask motif,
that nearly always works.
One of those outfits had the
usual "but what are you?"
problem: domino mask plus a
bi-color stripe running down
This sparing application my face and down my chest,
of stripes of bodypaint disappearing into the neckline
was my follow-on to the of a torn-up black t-shirt.
"paint yourself green" A woman came to my rescue,
difficulty. offering her interpretation
that I was a "cool superhero".
Efforts with Halloween costumes
when I was 8 or 10 or so:
The first one I did that I actually
liked used a basic plastic Mummy
monster mask that I enhanced with some
bandages wrapped around the mask and
my head. I wore it with an old,
oversized black suit jacket I'd found As I was leaving the
in our basement, with some odd pieces house in this, some
of foam rubber jammed inside to get a loose fabric (long pants
lumpy shoulders and back effect. cuffs? I don't remember),
tripped me and I rolled
down the steps, and had
to turn around and head
back inside to adjust it
all.
Some local girls my age
happened to be passing
at this moment, and
laughed uproariously
at this pratfall.
But I'm over it now,
of course. I just
remember it distinctly
many decades later.
A sequel to this outfit in the
following year was an overly
ambitious attempt at doing a
robot costume made out of an
actual trash can. I thought
this idea was so hilarious, I
cajoled by parents into buying
me a new (and clean) one that I
set about modifying with tin
snips and plyers.
I had trouble coming up with a good
head-piece for it, trying a completely
inappropriate basket (in the direction
of wicker, but coarse slats of thin
wood-- a technology superceeded by One of the local female
plastic soon afterwards), even spray- talent (quite similar,
painted copper it didn't really work. if not identical to the
crew mentioned above),
Before the Big Day, I came informed me that this
up with a better solution: work-in-progress was
a cardboard cyllindrical "a *stupid* costume".
box (packaging for potato
chips) covered in aluminum (I sometimes
foil, with the traditional wonder if young
inadequate eye-hole slots women are like
cut in it. this everywhere,
or if this was an
I copped out entirely on especially bad
arms-- the metalic aluminum problem on Long
dryer corrugated dryer hose Island...)
that's ubiquitous these days
would've been perfect, but
I couldn't solve the problem In later years,
in time, and fell back on a I heard the comment
slot for people to insert that I could take
goodies. being teased really
well.
One gets used to
it eventually...
As an undergrad at Stony Brook, I
took some time out to work on a
T-shirt concept: I started with a
white shirt, dyed it green with
some supermarket (RIT) dye, then
stenciled a pattern of parallel
diagonal lines using black spray BLACK_AND_GREEN
paint, which I then sprinkled
with some silver glitter.
This didn't come out as neat
as I would've liked, but it
was an okay job I thought--
Somewhat appropriate for
that period of history in
the punk/new wave era.
When it was done, I put it
on and walked around campus
somewhat aimlessly, feeling IMPURE_FORM
distinctly out-of-place.
I look back on those days
with a distinct feeling of
"that kid had to get off
Long Island", and indeed
after a number of stops I There's a long series of
eventually gravitated toward "Folsom Street Fair" outfits I
San Francisco and environs. could write about, many of
which were recombinations of
different pieces collected
over the years. Black bikini
underwear or black leather
The jockstrap I've worn on jockstrap (Stormy Leather) or
many occasions (which some black leather pants (Mr. S);
people seem to find Leather jacket/no shirt or no
amazingly risque, but I've shirt+liquid latex or black
gotten used to that), as I latex shirt; the black choker
remember it I bought in collar (snap on) with silver
during one of my trips back chain motif...;
to New York, when I was
getting an outfit together Another variant is the
for a goth event (even white frilly "pirate
though I suspected-- shirt" plus black leather
correctly-- I was too sick pants.
to make it).
I brought a latex t-shirt with me-- I
never really could make it work in an
outfit, but I had it, and it was light
enough to take on the plane easily-- and Later, at Folsom
I planned on shopping for a bottom to go Street, I believe
with it (the lighter the better, for that I did wear the
particular August was an amazingly New latex shirt with
York August). I looked in multiple the jock strap,
places without much luck (staggering with an "SF Bike
around with a fever, in heat that would Coalition" sticker
have anyone sweating in any case), on the back of the
evenutally I was determined to find shirt, over my
something in a fetish store in the West butt.
Village. Everything I looked at struck
me as remarkably goofy, e.g. one of the Another joke
least bad ones was a black jock strap concept that I got
with bright purple stripes across the tired of quickly.
crotch.
Finally, I turned up a plain black jock strap
with an elastic waist band: this was okay, at
least it was wearable by my standards... I
looked at the label, and realized it was from
Stormy Leather, a San Francisco company,
A memorable Folsom
Street Fair outfit:
One year, I had an idea for a
design to paint on my chest in
liquid latex: three, nested
rough triangles (point down),
centered on one nipple.
Dangerbaby helped paint the
design on, after I shaved half
of my chest to make it easier.
Interestingly: the design
filled the visual field well A following year I
enough that it wasn't at all tried something
obvious to people I'd shaved similar with a
*half* of my chest hair. design on the side
of one leg: having
only one leg shaved
didn't look right at
all. I'd expected a
Another memorable piece: similar effect to
the chest shaving
I've become fascinated with bike experiment, but it
innertube rubber: this is essentially didn't work the same
a free source of an infinite amount way.
of black latex, though limited in
width to two or three inches.
I take old innertubes and slice them
open, then run them through the washing
machine to take off the corn starch/talc There's a lot of things
from the inside, then spray it down with you can do with this.
something like "Slick Stuff" to make it I've made a tie out of
shiney. strip of inner tube
rubber: a half-winsor
One year, for Folsom Street, knot around the neck,
I made a relatively simple with the ends tucked
outfit out of this stuff, down into my pants,
something like a pair of anchored to an
suspenders, but laced up improvised harness tied
between the two, and with an around my legs.
additional strap going
around like a second belt,
higher up, above the navel.
This has turned out to be
easily re-usable (latex
being latex, you can stretch
your way in and out), and
I've trotted it out several
times now, wearing it with
different bottoms.
I mean, pants.
There are no doubt other odds
ends I could talk about...
One gimmick I came up with
was too cut the tails off of
a pair of dark green plastic
dionsaurs, and attach them
to my forehead with crazy glue.
That, plus appropriate dark
make-up was an instant "devil"
look that could be worn even
on halloween without fear of
the dreaded "but what are
you?" question.
I wore this out to a party in
SF once (with black tights,
and black leather jacket),
and on impulse carried two of
my pez dispensers, a skull and
a clown. I would offer them
to people, with one in each
hand.
They would look between them
nervously, and carefully choose
the clown.
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