Costume Theme #4: Nerds
Not a lot to say here-- this is pretty much all stuff out of my regular wardrobe, worn a little differently than usual.
Time: Five minutes, tops
Reaction From Co-Workers: Lots of people actually dressed up for this one-- and in comparison, my outfit looked a lot less like a costume. The consensus seemed to be that I looked "cute but not nearly nerdy enough".
Reaction From Customers: Bizarrely, this was the first costume that got a reaction. One of our regular customers asked me why I was dressed up.
Would I Actually Wear this for Halloween: Honestly, this costume turned out as kind of a dud. If I really wanted to make this work, adding a bowtie, suspenders, and a pair of glasses would probably do it. But truth be told, I've never seen the point of "nerd" as a Halloween costume. Costumes are about pretending to be something you are not. This costume is taking something about myself that actually exists, and trying to blow it to a ludicrous extreme for comedic effect. Which maybe says more about me than about the idea of "nerd" as a costume, that the real issue is that I'm still learning to laugh at myself. Wow, this got way more philosophical than I think any of us expected this section to get... but the answer is still No.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Let's go with She Blinded Me With Science, by Thomas Dolby
Costume Theme #5: Doctors and Nurses Haha nope
So I had every intention of doing this costume-- it's a pretty easy one, all in all, which worked out because Thursday was a very busy day for my music therapy business and I really didn't want to spend a lot of time on getting out of my costume. I knew my Mom had a set of scrubs, a white lab coat, and a stethoscope in the costume bins, so I didn't even worry about getting anything ready until the last minute.
Except, it turns out that my Dad had borrowed the costume for the previous Pack Meeting and it wasn't in the bin after all.
I really didn't have time to go hunting for it, so I decided to just throw together a costume of my own that was out of theme. Hence, my old aviator costume:
That's my aviator goggles (seen before in Costume #2), a white scarf, and an aviator cap. I got the goggles and cap online for a costume back when I was in college. I put on the leather jacket for this photo and your benefit, but there was no way I was wearing that thing during work-- I'd have melted-- so I just wore the headware and scarf over a t-shirt and khaki pants.
Even so, I had to take the costume off a few times to recover because I was overheating enough to get a bit of a headache. Not fun. This is causing me to rethink some details on other costumes coming up.
Time: Five minutes tops
Reaction from Co-Workers: Generally positive. People are starting to notice the fact that I am dressing up very regularly, to the point where they consult me to ask which themes are coming up instead of the managers. Lots of people showed up in scrubs today-- and one guy from Donations wore skeleton jewelry, a top hat with bones and feathers, and a fancy vest. In other words, he was a witch doctor. I thoroughly approved.
Reaction from Customers: One guy told me that he liked my hat. We are already leaps and bounds ahead of last week.
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Oh, sure, I have before. It's a great last minute costume if you get the stuff in advance. I recommend this one if you're going to be spending the night outside, whether trick-or-treating or at an outdoor party. This is one of the few cases where your Mom making you put on a warm coat before you go outside for the night makes your costume better instead of worse.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: I drew a blank on this and went to Google, but the best I could find was Scary Flying Shark, by Little Red Car. So... that's a song that exists, it turns out.
Honorable Mention: Witch Doctor, by David Seville
Costume #6: Inside Out
I actually saw this movie for the first time two days before dressing up for it-- I enjoyed it quite a bit more than I expected to. A few of my co-workers were confused when they saw that in the list of themes.
"Isn't that a bit... gruesome?" Someone asked me.
"The kids movie?" I asked.
A few explanations later, I found out he thought the costume was supposed to be having your insides on your outsides (like, covering yourself with organs) so that you were inside out.
Only four people dressed up for this one, but at least that made for a pretty good group photo. Here we've got Joy, Sadness, Anger, and myself as Disgust.
Turns out I'm not very good at looking nice and grossed out at the same time.
The garbage bins in the back room are legitimately disgusting, though. We're smack dab between a restaurant and some horses so we attract a truly shocking number of flies.
I didn't have time to put together anything close to what the character wears in the movie, but I borrowed a green skirt and wore a green shirt, pink shoes, and a pink bandanna around my neck.
I colored my hair green using pastel chalk and some green glitter. This took an enormous amount of time and work for rather tame results-- my hair is dark enough that it doesn't show the chalk very easily so I had to use a lot.
I used more of the pastel chalk to do my face, mixed with an alarming amount of green glitter and a little green eye shadow. I did my lips pink, like the character, and I sprinkled glitter on my eyelashes right after adding mascara to copy the huge sparkly eyelashes Disgust has in the movie. I thought it worked out pretty well, but had the odd side effect of making me see dancing lights out of the corner of my eyes all day.
Now, there was another dimension to this costume. You see, my aunt and uncle were having their 50th wedding anniversary up in Logan, and I just had time to clean off the worst of the makeup before hitting the road to make it on time. Which meant I showed up to the family party looking like I'd just escaped from Emerald City.
Eh. Totally worth it.
Some of that glitter got stuck in my pores, though, and I'm pretty sure that in a day or two I'm going to break out into a bad case of glitter pimples.
Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes. I would have saved a lot of time by getting a wig instead of trying to color my hair with chalk.
Reaction from Co-Workers: Pretty good reaction: I got a lot of laughs and comments. A few people who still hadn't gotten the Inside Out Memo had to ask me later what my costume was.
Reaction from Customers: For a while, nothing. I was starting to feel discouraged-- does nothing impress Savers Shoppers? But then one woman, when I asked her if I could help her find something, froze-- then burst out laughing-- then needed a minute to recover before she could even remember what she was looking for. Another man asked me if I was an employee, a customer, or a heart attack. A few kids gave me double takes. And one woman even recognized what I was supposed to be dressed up as (admittedly after talking to the cashier dressed up as Sadness). Finally, I am getting noticed!
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Maybe. If I wanted to do this properly, I'd try to come up with a more figure-flattering and movie accurate dress, not to mention some leggings. A wig would also be a must. I think it would be worth it if I had a group to go out with that were dressing up as the other characters, but I'm not sure I'd do it as a solo act otherwise.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: It's not really a Halloween song, but I had to go with Bein' Green, by Joe Raposo
That's week two! I thought this would be kind of a boring week, costume wise, but it wasn't too bad. I'm really excited for week three-- there's some really awesome costumes coming up this next week (if they turn out how I want them to, anyway). Though I really hope the weather is a little cooler next Saturday, or else I am going to be miserable. (What's the costume? That's a surprise, you'll find out soon enough, but I'll give you a hint and say that it might be the single most make-up intensive costume of the entire challenge. That's actually a really terrible hint but oh well.) Anyway, happy Pre-Halloween!
No comments:
Post a Comment