Dress Up Day!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 9:37PM 
Ms. P&C as La Reine MarieHappy Halloween Everyone!!!
While Halloween was never my favorite holiday, I do have some fond memories of loud parties, going door-to-door in a pack of rowdy kids, and the tell-tale sound of the first pieces of candy hitting the bottom of an empty plastic pumpkin... There were so many trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood that my sister and I were sometimes forced to hand over our delicious booty to the lot that was going out our own front door, just so we'd have enough for everyone. I didn't really mind it, after all, getting all that candy is much more fun than eating it.
These days, Halloween is less and less among my favorites, mostly because I find it sort of shocking among adults. Why is it appropriate for grown women (ahem, professional women, with advanced degrees and six-figure salaries, etc...) to dress in public wearing nothing much more than what a hooker would wear on a good night? Why do I need to put an effort into a costume when someone's just going to show up as a "sexy nurse" "good cop/bad cop" or "naughty bo-peep"? Let's just say if I didn't know it was coming on Halloween this weekend, I'd have thought there was a sex-industry professionals convention in town.
But, this year I did put in an effort. To be honest, I finally got around to making the costume I wanted to make last year but ran out of time. This year I decided to go for it since I had a ton of parties to go to, and I already had the pattern, fabric, and everything else... I made my Marie Antoinette costume from this pattern and found it was actually pretty easy; it was challenging I grant you, but not the most difficult thing I've ever sewn. It was actually even sort of comfortable to wear. The most difficult thing was managing almost eight yards of fabric on one's body! Stairs were a little iffy, but I learned how to manage. People also treated me differently: doors were held, drinks were handed to me, perfect strangers smiled at me and gave me compliments just walking down the street. An interesting bit of sociology, I must say.
I wanted to do this costume last year when the film came out and I'd just finished reading The Queen of Fashion, but luckily the look was still fresh this year. Marie Antoinette is one of my favorite figures in history - truly the worst example of what happens when you have nothing but bad PR. I think I fell in love with her years ago when I lived in France and actually got to see her bedroom in Versailles. All that luxury, and absolutely no privacy. Poor girl! She tried her best and who can blame her for having some fun in the meantime?!
So, wishing everyone a fun, appropriately-costumed Halloween with lots of friends and tiny little boxes of Milk Duds! To help you get in the mood, here's a little classic:
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