A Fancy Sort Of Confession

Now I am about to reveal something to you that may surprise you a little, if you know me at all (or read my blog often enough to pretend that you do.) Hold on to your hats, folks, it's a shocker.
I have been a student, and a teenager. I love to go on stage and spend a lot of time in very silly costumes of one variety of another. I have even worn a beard in the interest of performing and have included a picture for your pleasure (because I know you were all dying to see it). I'm largely unafraid of making a fool of myself in most situations, but that is not the the thing that I have to confess, because you should all have realised this by now.
No, what I have to say is this:

I'm not very good at fancy dress.

I'd go so far as to say I'm completely and totally pants at it. I either always over think things and end up as something that no-one recognises and I have to spend the whole night explaining it to people, or I try so hard to be different and do something that no-one else will think of that I end up as something that no-one recognises and I have to spend the whole night explaining it to people, or I don't really know how to make the theme work for me so I end up as something that no-one recognises and I have to spend the whole night explaining it to people.

I mean take the last time I did anything to celebrate Halloween. I had a thought about it and didn't want to do any of the usual stuff-witches, vampires, pumpkins etc. I thought I'd be clever and go as 'Death on Holiday' (I might have been reading too much Pratchett at the time...). My other-half-at-the-time made me an excellent anatomically correct skeleton T-shirt with ribs and bones drawn on. Well...it was anatomically correct until I put it on and suddenly my skeleton grew...protuberances. I teamed this with a Scythe and a grass skirt and would have had facepaint too had it not made my skin feel like it was melting off. I felt so cool and unique. I spent all evening explaining what the hell I had come as and felt like an idiot. That is the best picture I could find (after much Facebook searching.) Yes I have a zombie hand on my boob, sorry, ribs. It's just not worth questioning these things any more.



Then there was the occasion that I decided that people should come to my birthday dressed as their favourite musical characters. This was, admittedly, not a sensible option, not everyone likes musicals and apart from obvious things like 'Grease' or 'Cats' people are probably not going to be able to recognise you.
What did I dress as? A bohemian. From We Will Rock You. Only I didn't have anything skimpy enough or leathery enough or covered in studs enough. Basically I just wore odd clothes and bright makeup. It probably didn't work. I also spent all evening pointing out to people what I was. Again.

Then there was the time my friend had a "cartoon" themed birthday. See if you can guess who I was-big pigtails with purple ribbons, short purple dress, orange sleeves and hideous blue and green tights. I even had purple shoes. I thought I'd nailed it this time, there was no way people wouldn't know who I was, right?
WRONG. I had to spend all night explaining that I was Angelica from the Rugrats-I even had a Cynthia (apparently the actual one wasn't really naked but hey ho).



I am so done with fancy dress. I'm not even sure I like it that much any way. I'm not completely against it by any means, I don't hate and loathe it like some people, but I'm just a bit 'meh' about it. Yeah, it's kind of fun when you're all in a big group together looking a bit mad. When you're on the bus, or in the queue for the loo, or at the bar you look a bit weird, and not in the good way. And it's so much effort and for what? For people to not know who you are, for someone to always have made a tonne more effort than you did and look a million times more amazing, for someone to have gone out and cheated by hiring a proper costume from a costume shop. For strange looks and comments and for people to just not get it. I'm tired of it.

We've had a good run, fancy dress and I, I had lots of fancy dress birthday parties as a child, and had lots of fun with them, I've tried a lot as an adult and had less success. But I think we should amicably part ways here. I'm just not that into you, fancy dress, it's not you, it's me, I just don't like you enough any more, I think (shock horror) I might have outgrown you a little. Sorry I'm not sorry.

-Jenni-

And for your enjoyment, and because I didn't want to spam you with too many pictures, here's a slide show of some more of my fancy dress win/fails. Mostly fails, let's face it. There are many more than this, but I can't find pictorial evidence of them any more =( (I have spent a LOT of time scouring FB today for you folks, hope you appreciate it!)