baltimore is an old city. there are historic neighborhoods that go unappreciated, historic neighborhoods that are comprised of beautiful, expensive brick homes accessible only to those who live in them, & some historic neighborhoods that have been actively preserved for the public to enjoy. fells falls into the latter category. fells point, which dates back to 1763, when it was founded by an english shipbuilder. currently acting as a manifestation of baltimore's historic value and its residents' attention to that history, & serving as a site for complacent entertainment removed from the rest of the city's urbanity, particularly for tourists, fells is a cutesy world of cobblestone roads & shoulder-to-shoulder pubs. why am i writing what sounds like a description for a baltimore travel guide? did i forget to mention i'm majoring in travel agent proficiency? no, it's because i spent night three of three celebrating halloween at fells point, where the cutseyness was transformed into vile, mesmerizing belligerency & chaos thanks to the presence of hundreds of scantily-clad women & creepily-but-thankfully sufficiently-clad men.
enough of this weird marketing syntax. my halloween costumes this year included a princess ballerina, a mechanic, & finally, lady gaga. tR!Ck 0r tR34t h0ll4~~*!
1) ballerina
i chose to be, gathered the materials to be, & got dressed up as a ballerina within 20 minutes, tops. it just so happens that i decided a leotard & tutu were necessities i could not leave behind when i packed for college.
the costume was comprised of my black leotard (a la single ladies), white tutu, black striped tights, little pale pink pumps (see goodwill post to come), & a barbie crown. i wore an obscene amount of glitter & sequins & stick-on gemstones around my eyes. the ensemble fell somewhere between weirdly childish & awkwardly slutty, due in large part to the fact my tutu is the same tutu i wore as a child, and is thus a sad excuse for an article of clothing on my 18-year-old body. this outfit is survived by one lonely picture, courtesy mah gurl laura.
2) mechanicthere are two reasons why i decided to wear my ambiguous blue jumpsuit on the saturday of halloween weekend. firstly, because i own it. secondly, because it was both warm & revealing. this is an incredibly hard combination to come by. bearing an "hello my name is miss fix it" nametag & my reliable tools - a hammer that becomes several screwdrivers in a stacking doll fashion & duct tape - i went as a mechanic. this was mostly hilarious because of the size of my hammer, & because i expected my costume to be obvious to any onlooker.
*update* scanning asos for my christmas wishlist, i happened upon this pantsuit. oh, so my $20 probably-previously-owned-by-a-mechanic-or-a-doctor jumpsuit is trendy now?
3) lady gaga
the only costume that really mattered, though, was the one i saved for the fell's point celebration.
what i find most noteworthy is that even this costume was comprised entirely of items i already owned. what made lady gaga challenging was the hair-do. i committed myself to the hair bow seen in the "poker face" video (2:44), which was easier to execute than i had anticipated, but time consuming. the other problem i faced was wearing nothing more than a leotard in 40-degree weather. 
so, i piled on three pairs of sheer tights, the infamous long-sleeved leotard, a tank top, & my strong-shouldered long-sleeved t-shirt, the latter complete with two pairs of unattached shoulder-pads - go big or go home - to best brace myself for the frigidity. consistent with the themes of the outfits in "poker face," i wore my mirrored belt & heavy metal bracelets, & ditched the signature lightning bolt makeup. i wore my black foot-binding booties, the closest thing to mcqueen's armadillo shoes in my wardrobe. sure, there were probably a dozen other gagas roaming fell's that night, but i felt i truly did her justice through non-commercial commitment & creativity. luv u gurl!*~~xo0 |  |
