On Theming your partyAs previously mentioned, costume parties are rarely left free and unleashed these days. Deciding the theme for one’s is usually at least as important as the date and far more important than the occasion, the guest list or the venue (although it influences all these things). Your theme choice will tell guests a lot about you.
Are you a High Concept themer? (“The theme is T”, announces a highly finished powerpoint presentation with a range of Clip Art featuring things beginning with T)
Or a Hilarious Themer? (Hey! It’ll be wild! We’re all going to dress up as Pat Butcher!)
Or a Classic Themer? (“Cowboys and Indians in the Summer House for an evening of whipcracking cocktails and native american nibbles”)
Or an Evil Themer (Bad Taste costumes. No one with good taste gets in!)
Don’t get too carried away with the prospect: themes aren’t all about you are they, sonny Jim?
Sonny Jim: What?
They are about your guests.
Sonny Jim: Oh yeah, them.
So lets imagine the creative journey your guests take from receiving the invite, to unveiling themelves at the door of your event.
The No-Theme, Generic Costume Party:
Its hard to know where to start without a theme, so people tend to opt for very straight costumes in a Generic Costume Party. (Cowboy, Cat, James Bond).
Figure 1: Although there is nothing at all wrong with coming as a cat if you do
it right.
There is something quite classy about a Generic Costume Party, as a result, if you can rely on your guests entering into the spirit.
But be aware that at least some of your guests may well have spent 6 weeks agonizing over their costume, only finally settling on something they can make out of the things they’ve got at home (or spending a fortune in the costume shop) and may arrive feeling downright worn out and kind of resenting the whole enterprise. They may feel even less cheerful when they look around the room and see seven other Cowboys; Seven cats and one Wigwam who is getting all the attention.
Themes are quite helpful in persuading people to dress fancy. Its hard to think of a costume that says everything you want to say about yourself and nothing you don’t, without a theme to work from. But with a theme to stick to, people let their imaginations run wild. Its about what they did to the theme, or with it. Its not their costume choice any more, it’s the theme’s costume and they can prance about in green body paint and strategically placed shells without explaining why this may or may not turn them on personally.
Furthermore, the theme explains your costume. Without a theme you have to come as something everyone will understand immediately. Its an embarrassing personal party failure to come as, say, Teenwolf, when all anyone else can see are some hi top trainers, a bad wig and some fake fur sellotaped around your hands.
‘I’m Teenwolf’, the man with the fake fur sellotaped to his hands says, and everyone raises their eyebrows and says
‘oh, right’. Someone says…
‘’You should have brought a basketball’ and the man with fake fur sellotaped to his hands wants to kill him.
“I thought you were that one out of the X men’ says someone else, and the man with fake fur sellotaped to his hands thinks, god, I should have come as frigging James Bond.
“There’s a brilliant Teenwolf over there you should meet” says someone else, pointing at a little guy channeling Michael J Fox surrounded by Cats and Dolly Partons stroking his lustrous mane “You could borrow his basketball!”
Another good thing about themes is that it gives people something to talk about when they get in to the party. It’s a common fondue pot in which each person can dip their conversational bread. People with lateral, whacky interpretations of the theme can explain themselves, to crowds of rapturous amusement and applause. People who have come as the same thing can shuffle toward each other and discuss their common ground, whose moustache is best and where they got the green body paint from. People with natural pairings, or unnatural ones can join up and get jiggy without having to make an excuse. Themes act as a raison d’etre in themselves, without guests having to explain how they know the host. What do you care who knows who, when you know she is Miss Piggy, he is Kermit and we’re all eating TV Fondue?!
Of course it is very important to get the balance right. Theme too loosely and everyone will turn up as a Cat or Cowboy or James Bond, but theme too tight and no one will come at all (they will be at home clutching their heads and sobbing, surrounded by PVC and foam and photocopies of old Dandy annuals, the classic symptoms of Costumers Block.)
This brings us onto…
Getting What you Want Out of Your Theme
Your choice of theme will dominate the party atmos, so its important consider the likely effect of the theme choice on how your party will go. Some pointers are included here, although even the most controlling of control freaks would admit that parties rely on a little unpredictability to really swing, so the following should be taken as directional only:
You want a Classy Do
Bad themes for a classy do are Bad Taste, 70s (although I understand that there were Classy Parties in the Seventies, its just that people rarely opt for this interpretation of the decade’s fashion.) and anything that allows for the crasser brands of filth (I’m thinking Vicars and Tarts and something like ‘Celebrity Bash’ which will result in lots of Jordan’s and Dean Gaffneys Funny if you have actually invited Jordan and Dean Gaffney, though…)
However, as we all know, filth can be very fine if done properly, so, great themes for a Class Do can include ‘Burlesque’ and ‘7 Deadly Sins’ (so long as you don’t invite my friend Mark who once went to a party on this theme dressed as ‘Gluttony’ with a chocolate éclair smeared over his face and the remains sitting on a plate strung around his neck and who was known for the duration of the do as ‘The Shit-eater’)
Figure 2: Burlesque is the Home of Corsetry and the Corset is a Friend to
ladies with bosoms.
Other great ideas for keeping your guests looking glamorous as well as be-costumed (which is the desired effect for a classy do) are Jazz Age, and Masqued Ball. Be warned that James Bond sounds like a brilliant idea for a classy do: basically just a more stimulating way of enforcing black tie, right? Wrong. The following costumes are to be encouraged at a James Bond do, in my book, and if you don’t want them in, then don’t invite me or anyone in my book:
The Titles: You’re in a tux, but you’ve somehow attached various pairs of arms with guns, shiva-like to your back
I Want you to Die Mr Bond: Any of the following: circular saws attached to leg, paper piranhas dangling around face, etc
Bond Girl just come out of Shower: Naked but for two towels and a gun
Grace Jones: Naked but sprayed gold
Get the picture? Although, this could just go to show that any theme, in the hands of people who want to mess with it, is likely to result in some nudity and probably, for those with controlling party instincts, worse, some high-maintenance PVC/Foam/Cardboard proppery. Deal with it, Sebastian.
You want a Rocking Do
Figure 2: In this picture we see Joe, Rocking, at Bestival to the Scissor Sisters
Whilst rocking dos are largely down to the guest list, the theme has the power to make or break the rocking-ness of the party. If it’s a bit forced you can look a bit like you are the school spanner who invited all the cool kids to his house and then shouted ‘Hey! Lets Have Fun, Guys!’ To this end I would avoid themes with inbuilt ‘whackiness’ (Bad Taste, Austin Powers) or try-hard Sexy Themes (School Disco[1] Orgy, Vicars and Tarts)
However, rocking dos can be created just through picking a theme which allows people to, like, express their secret, more rogueish selves. So, great themes for rocking dos include Rock Idols; Burlesque (again); Heroes and Villains; or in fact anything so long as it isn’t too prim (Nautical, Grease, Literary) and allows people to come as things like Hunter S Thompson, Zorro, and Cleopatra and to bring all those people’s naughty bits with them. (no not in a jar, I’m talking metaphorically).
You want to have a Pictureque Party
Figure 3: You should always be prepared for an unpicturesque punter. Here, Ian has come as Magnum PI. I know. But that's who he's supposed to be.
Sometimes its all about the pictures. I’m thinking of parties where you might be in a picturesque setting, or parties where you might want to have the pictures on our wall to keep to remind you of when you turned 21 or when you had your 20th Anniversary. For these parties sometimes its worthwhile thinking of themes with an inbuilt aesthetic. Consider Jazz Age for this sort of a party, or Literary, Theatrical themes. Think Nautical or Black and White. Okay so some people will rebel, there will be the odd Capn Birdseye, or Pelican Cossing sidling around in the background but surely you don’t mind a bit of that? Its like the spice added to a particularly pretty and piqant dessert: it only serves to set off the otherwise delightful concoction. You are going to look fabulous darling (just before you throw up on your spats).
You want to have sexWell, a party is one way of pulling and it beats speed dating, right? The important thing here is not to get carried away with what you want your potential partner to be wearing and to focus on how sexy you will look. The secret is this: Uniform. Everyone looks hot in uniform, from the air stewardess to the Navy Seal to the Fireman to the (I’m sorry, people, but Prince Harry had it right on the button from a costume point of view) comedy Nazi. And yes, pervs and wishful nostalgics, there will be ladies in gymslips. See? The right theme can cater for everyone.
You want to know your friends much better
Figure 4: Dave IS Hunter S Thompson
There is always the option of making the theme explicitly revelatory. All themes offer people the opportunity to let on a little bit about their fantasies safely, but what if they were actually asked to come as their Alter Ego? Or their favourite member of the opposite sex (yes, gooey couples will come as each other: “But, Mike I don’t understand… why wouldn’t you come as me it would be so FUN babes…Anyway I haven’t got any thing that would make you look like Britney Spears” But also your best boy mate will spend an evening dragged up as Pat Butcher and two girls will turn up as Ant and Dec and what could be more fun?) The thing is, these sorts of themes are brilliant when you all know each other a bit well but are very High Risk for the invitees. I mean, you don’t really want people to think your alter ego really is Pat Sharp if its just that you’ve got a Mullet wig left over from Halloween and can’t think of anything clever and low risk…So if you don’t know anyone there who knows better, and you can’t think of anything funny you probably won’t come at all. As a host it is your responsibility that all your guests are comfortable with, nay, enthusiastic about coming to your party. If people are not coming because they think they have to come as Pat Sharp then you, I’m afraid, have failed them.
PS ([1] for the record, from now on, anyone who defines their theme as School Disco is clearly identified as someone who has only held the party so they can perv over their friends and imagine they were in the fifth form again, only this time they have got friends or at least enough drugs to bribe people into attending their party. They will inevitably spend a lot of the party grabbing their friends’ girlfriends’ tits and will end up sweaty and defeated, slumped in the corner with their tie comedically tied around their head, watching more attractive people than them remove each others gymslips to Bon Jovi. )
I don't know what it is, but it kind of works... And here we see a perfectly normal Halloween ghoulie fest gatecrashed by a cheerleading Superman. Actually that really is scary.
Figure 4: Dave IS Hunter S Thompson
