What is it that people love about that 1970s childhood character Mr Benn, the
cartoon City gent who walks into a magical fancy dress shop and,
costume-clad, leaves through the back door to enter the world of similarly
attired knights, cowboys or sultans? Mr Benn is that rare thing, an ordinary
bloke who is really into fancy dress. What’s more, he knows how to adapt to
his environment, get into the spirit of the thing. He dresses up, therefore
he is. Such is the appeal of our bowler-hatted friend that the comedian Paul
Merton has taken him as the inspiration for his new improvisation TV show Thank
God You’re Here, a kind of live action Mr Benn where guests dress
up in costume and walk through a door into settings they know nothing about,
to comic effect.
Dressing up is what kids do, quite naturally, usually up until the age of 5,
when the dressing-up box disappears in school and serious work begins. Jenni
Smith, a chartered educational psychologist, says: “Dressing up is part of a
fertile stage in a child’s development. They begin to grasp the concept of
stepping into someone else’s shoes, to show empathy. After 5 or 6, they want
to do it only in context, at parties or in plays.”
Saying goodbye to wands and capes
Outside school, the fascination for dressing up may carry on for a few years
still, but the parent who happily lets his or her four or five-year-old
little darling tear around Tesco in a Superman suit, or cast spells as a
fairy princess on the bus, may feel a distinct sense of unease if the
penchant for capes and glitter wands spills into the latter years of
tweeniedom. It’s not so much that self-consciousness puts an end to the
dressing up part of make-believe, but that children lose interest. “They
start to cultivate other interests and activities,” says Smith.
As adults, we feel uncomfortable in fancy dress unless it has a context: a
party, a marathon run, a Star Trek convention, a reenactment,
shaking a bucket for charity. There exists a Marmite polarity with grown-up
fancy dress. Many adults are dragged into it reluctantly or refuse outright,
while others like nothing better than to traipse grandly around in a Marie
Antoinette wig, bellowing: “Let them eat cake.”
Years ago I attended a nature theme fancy dress office party in New York.
Dennis, from marketing, was a bee, swathed in black and yellow Lycra. You
could feel the pain of his forced gaiety. He drank heavily. But his wife
Sylvia, dressed as a flower and looking like a demented escapee from
children’s TV, was loving it. She also got hammered and implored Dennis,
rather loudly, to “suck my nectar, do your goddamn bee thing, Dennis, or
call me a cab”. This memorable episode illustrates the strange mix of
embarrassment and showing off you find when grown-ups play at dressing up.
And the odd thing is, you can experience both these feelings – the desire to
hide within your costume and attract attention – at the same time.
As a PR girl for a Cajun record label, I had to wear an alligator costume for
a record release party. The costume had a removable head and it was
impossible to speak with the head on. Head off I could chat freely. Head on,
I could avoid bores and be just an alligator. I loved the freedom of choice
it gave me, so much so, that I wondered how I would manage at the next
event, sans costume. Is that the draw of fancy dress, a little
flight of fancy from the self?
Dr Colin Gill, a chartered psychologist, says: “There is no complex rationale
for doing it. Fancy dress allows you to be, for that one night, whoever you
want to be: a pharaoh, Robin Hood or an 18th-century highwayman. In real
life you may be Milly Molly Mandy, but for one night you can be Genghis
Khan.”
He adds that, providing everyone participates, fancy dress can be the great
leveller. “The word ‘personality’ comes from the Latin persona,
which means mask. We often assess people by the way they dress. When people
are in fancy dress, you have no idea of their background or job.” This could
be part of the appeal of mass fancy dress events as held by the participants
of Cosplay, a craze that grew out of Japan where people dress up as
characters from video games and cartoons. Is it not all a bit childish?
Harmless fun and a healthy outlet
Ros Taylor, a psychologist, thinks that, on the whole, it is harmless fun. “Of
course, little children love dressing up, and maybe it is a way to get to
the inner child. But why not? Having a temporary alter ego is a great
liberation for some people. Maybe you are a mild-mannered clerk who
participates in historical reenactments and turns into Atilla the Hun. It’s
a healthy outlet.”
Alan Magnus-Bennett, a 65-year-old cartographer and spokesman of the Stuarts
of Appin reenactment group, which specialises in living history and battle
events of the 18th-century Jacobite period, says: “It’s a hell of a laugh
and pure escapism from the 21st century. You get into character as soon as
you put on the costume, which is , basically, a loose shirt , lace-up
Highland shoes and six metres of wrapped tartan plaid. The battles are a way
of releasing tension and aggression in the workplace, though nobody gets
badly injured.” If being an 18th-century Jacobite is so much fun, is it not
difficult to turn back into a 65-year-old university cartographer? “It’s
nice to come home and have a bath,” Magnus-Bennett says.
Dressing up for justice
Of course, it’s one thing if you are all being manly Jacobites together to
bring history to life and quite another if you are dressed like Batman,
scaling the walls of Buckingham Palace because you want to make a point
about estranged fathers getting a raw deal in the UK. Matt O’Connor, the
founder of the activist group Fathers4Justice, whose campaign involving
portly, middle-aged dads clad in unflattering superhero gear was “ironic and
iconic”, says people were laughing with them, not at them. “Some people
didn’t understand that the humour was intentional, the absurdity of a grown
man in superhero Lycra. Dressing up was a way of sugar-coating the bitter
pill of the injustice of the system as we perceive it.”
Interestingly, O’Connor, who conceived the whole campaign, which ran between
2004 and 2005, shunned the Lycra look himself. “I would look less like
Superman, more like Michelin Man.” This raises the point of fancy dress as a
release from the tyranny of the body beautiful. If you are a pineapple, you
are not going to wonder if your bum looks big in this.
Lizzy Wilson, a professional costume designer and fan of fancy-dress parties,
says the most difficult costume to work with in films or TV is contemporary.
“You put an actor in a tracksuit and he doesn’t like it because he has his
own idea of what he should wear, and I am saying, ‘But this is a character’.”
Wilson’s personal favourite fancy dress outfit was a Hollywood-themed one,
where she went as Diana Dors. “I put on fake breasts and backcombed my hair
and put on bright lip-stick, and it was great fun. The downside was I
couldn’t sit down in my corset.” Still, what price pain when it comes to
escaping real life?
The fancy-dress refusnik CLAIRE BOWMAN explains why she’s happy to be a
party-pooper
Oh, fabulous, a party, I think, propping the invitation on the mantelpiece and
mentally dressing myself in the new dress that I’d picked up in the sales. A
fortieth birthday with old friends and a river of champagne; what could be
better? But hang on a minute: what’s that small print at the bottom? Oh God,
it’s a fancy dress party. Not only that but it’s also an Eighties fancy
dress party.
The spoilsport in me lets out a low groan. I know I should be thinking,
“Yippee, rah-rah skirts, T’Pau, big hair!” but all I can think of is the
sheer effort that it will take to look good in order to look ridiculous. My
floppy-haired husband can think of nothing better. His mop is just a
hairspray away from a Flock of Seagulls’ quiff; squeeze on a pair of
drainpipe jeans and a blouson and he’d pass for an Eighties pop star.
He has been waiting decades for a party like this. I, on the other hand, have
been avoiding it my entire adult life, and with good reason. I still cringe
when I recall my early teenage forays into fancy-dress land: the lazy 101
Dalmations outfit fashioned from polka-dot pyjamas; the Out of
Africa khaki combo circa 1989 complete with pith helmet.
For years I have managed to avoid a fancy dress party, until now. “Come on,
it’ll be a laugh,” says the birthday girl, who has already sourced the
obligatory electric-blue mascara and purple tights and is raring to go. “You
can get your legwarmers and rah-rah skirt on eBay.” I rest my case.
Dressed to thrill
DITA VON TEESE
The queen of burlesque is as famous for her dramatic corsets, feather boas,
stockings, suspenders and garters as she is for her erotic dancing.
MARILYN MANSON
The rock icon, and Von Teese’s exhusband, lives up to his satanic-worshipping
reputation with gothic make-up, lizard-eye contact lenses and vampirish
clothing.
ELTON JOHN
The singer has made an art out of his over-the-top wigs, jewel-rimmed specs,
stacked heels and loud suits. His annual White Tie and Tiara ball is the
hottest ticket in town.
ZANDRA RHODES
The fashion designer is no shrinking violet: she combines rainbow eye make-up
with fuchsia hair, and likes to wear clothes that are as elaborate as those
she designs.
CONRAD BLACK
The disgraced media magnate and his wife Barbara Amiel’s choice of fancy dress
reflected their extravagant lifestyle. Dressing up in prison garb may not be
such fun.
