on love, scholarship, and costume

[rm]

Unless we know each other very well, if you've met me, you've probably met me in costume. Considering that costume is one of the technologies through which I like both to interact with and to examine the world, this isn't really surprising. If you've seen me playing independent academic (hey, someone send me a pic from a panel, yeah?), businesswoman, retrogirl, genderqueer writer, Regency dancer or actress, you've seen me in costume. But for a lot of you, if we're talking about my relationship with costume we're talking about cosplay.

Despite the fact that I talk about cosplay on con panels a lot, it's only adjacent to, as opposed to central to the fanthropology stuff I do. And, despite my love of costume, I've only ever cosplayed two characters: Severus Snape and Jack Harkness (OMG, how can I have so many random pictures of me and can't find a single picture of this cosplay that I feel like linking right now? Anyway, men's clothes, big coat, you know the drill).

Cosplay is, perhaps, the element of fan-behavior most poorly received by those outside of fandom communities, and perhaps even by some of those inside many fan communities (this is, as is quite rightly noted in comments, more a function of Western fandom culture and Western fandom properties than Eastern ones). It is, after all, fairly easy to go, "oh, you know, those people and their Starfleet uniforms" and never think about what those people and their Starfleet uniforms are on about.

There are a lot of things that make people uncomfortable about cosplay. One of the primary issues is that it is play, something that in the West we've been told very specifically is not the domain of adult status (a status that is increasingly difficult to prove by any means other than by what one is not). Another issue, that's closely related to play, is that it's often deeply earnest. But cosplay is also a mode of criticism -- of source materials and their representations (a TV show is just a representation of the work of a writer for starts) certainly, but of also of things, including society, fandom and the self.

Perhaps most troubling for people outside of the world of cosplay is the inability to look at a costume and know what it is: is it play? or is it criticism? does the person doing the cosplay intend it as criticism? and how necessary and/or appropriate is it for us to judge someone else's act of play? Cosplay freaks a lot of people out because it's incredibly hard to divine from the outside what the hell any particular instance of it is about.

While it's no secret that I'm a cosplayer, I often feel it's supposed to be. As someone who is as a guest at some cons and a fan at others, I get a lot of lectures about how it's not done for pros to wear costumes (I certainly don't wear them when I'm working a con as a guest; I certainly do wear them when I'm being a fan, and the notion that it's not appropriate at events where I am not and have never been a guest and am there solely to hang out and have a good time galls me).

The severity of that attitude differs between fandoms and media (I hear it, for example, more often from static media folks (novelists, comics) than from folks who work with the moving image), I've noticed, and it's particularly awkward for someone like me who's become a pro by, through, and about my fannish activities. But the discomfort of others tends to trump frank discussions of cosplay, especially when that cosplay is about things -- like love and criticism -- other than just play.

And the fact is, that no matter what anyone tells you, we don't all put on our pants quite the same way. One leg at a time, sure. But the mood of dressing and undressing, of constructing an identity, varies from person to person and identity to identity.

I find tending to my menswear very calming, and, sometimes, sorrowful -- it is lonely packing myself away in one fashion when I dress, and in another when I undress. I find feminine business wear makes me feel efficient, and 1940's dresses make me want to go shopping using only paper sacks. I find putting on the costume I wore for Snape makes me want to have a lot more physical distance from people than I normally do, and that when I cosplay Jack Harkness, the costume feels truest to me when I'm half dressed and my braces are still hanging around my hips. And all these things tell me something: about the properties and characters I study, about the world I study in, and about myself.

There is little doubt that I engage texts as the "enchanted" believer that I posited in "A Tangible Reality of Absence" (not online yet; sorry, my bad in the self-referencing department, although you can hear me talk about this at Dragon*Con this year), and in doing so I am not just experiencing a passionate relationship with text, but with myself in a reality I've consciously chosen for the duration of an act of play, as opposed to one foisted upon me, or one I only pretend to believe in (i.e, the "ironic" believer).

Snape was never a costume of some Other I longed to be, but a representation of the power I believe my personal uglinesses (an unconventional face, a deviant gender, a difficult manner, an inconvenient intellect) have given me. The Harkness costume has certainly never been about the man I wish I could be, but the one I fear I am: gregarious and yet terribly alone; preoccupied with the past; and unable, too often, to appreciate the affection around, and directed, at me.

Of course, it's highly likely that such an explanation of costume and cosplay serves, not to make anyone reading this more comfortable with the idea, but less. After all, I talk often enough about how we all secretly fear we are -- or everyone else on the Internet is -- one of Snape's Wives.

Today Henry Jenkins tweeted regarding this discussion of the acafen perspective, which in passing addresses notions of costume and generally argues against the acafen perspective, essentially saying that love is a blindness.

And yet, it is only the people who know me best, who care the most for me, that have seen me without costume. It is these people who unavoidably know my flaws, and who seek to understand why I have them and how they hurt the person I am both in private and in many different publics.

The idea that love is an obstacle to critical thinking and rigorous scholarship, especially in Fan Studies, and pop-culture related fields, is one that, while I can certainly process the arguments for, ultimately make no organic sense to me. In love, we know the details; get the layers; we peel off the skin.

Love makes me a better scholar and a more persistent one. It is the ever so risky sin of sentimentality that opens more windows of thought for me than any other, and perhaps, even more importantly, is the angle through which I'm able to cultivate a receptiveness to those ideas. It's surely not a style of scholarship that suits everyone as a producer or a consumer, and I am not advocating a conversion of others to the style of it so much as I am advocating a push-back against the shame culture that says love is dangerous because it obscures ideas, when I have always known that love is dangerous because it breeds them.

I wear costumes and am many men who never were. I am also scholar and a fan and a woman and a self-critical blogger and a total geek. And not only do I have absolutely no idea why all those things supposedly aren't compatible, I also know that I can read all the theory in the world and still come to only one conclusion about my existence in this regard: I am as true as any fiction.

Which is to say, yet again (and for surely not the last time): Stories Matter.

And so does how we feel about them.

Stories don't matter less because they never happened. They don't contain less meaning because we love them. And they don't go away or sit in the corner or become less noticeable because we shame them.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I can't respond intelligently to this right now because my inner fangirl is jumping up and down and shouting "THIS! THIS!"

[chicleeblair.livejournal.com]

This is really interesting to me, because I'm in no way a cosplayer. I hate costumes, even in theatre, and I hate wearing other people's clothes. You'd think I'd want to hide my body, and I do, but because it does things that make me self-conscious (drains fluid, bleeds a lot) I feel uncomfortable in clothes that are not definably "mine".

I also hate improv theatre (doing not watching). When I have a character I need lines, and I think that's where I find another bump in costumes, even on Halloween. I have a hard time being not-me. Also it's that no one I dress up as could I be, because of my body, and I'm hyperaware of that.

So when it's something I've never understood due to that, reading your explanation of it opens my eyes to something else.

[rm.livejournal.com]

For me, I don't find cosplay to be like acting, more like being myself in given circumstances. I'm also slightly, alarmingly able to mimic the body language of others, and part of the cosplay charge for me is freaking people out with that (ask redstapler about my hand gestures).

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

One of the more humiliating dichotomies was when I was mocked during NYCC by C for my cosplaying/going to Gally--in front of Tony, btw--and then every time I ran into another Who-related comics person at other for-work cons, being asked, "Will you be in costume this weekend?"

There was never a right answer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know the "don't cosplay at certain times because it's hard to do business when you're a recognizable Other" makes sense.

The "let's deride our audience" and the "let's say feelings (code for "the feminine world") impedes thought" crap makes me want to be far less decorous than this post. Especially when I'm dressed like Jack ;)

[marchek.livejournal.com]

Jack photo option: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26374245@N03/3287869809/

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm so Jack. I look at that photo and I'm all cringey and "oh god, that angle."

Vain. Very vain.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Blind or obsessive love may make a person unable to criticize or accurately observe their object, and we do see that in fandom. But what I see in you and many other emotionally mature fans is more akin to devotion - in much the sense of Middle Ages religious scholars who criticized the Church because they loved it, or patriots speak up about problems in government because they love and are devoted to their country.

How much of that "no cosplay" aspect is about wanting professionals to appear professional, do you think? Or about wanting creator A to not appear to be critical of creator B (or supportive of creator B) by wearing their costume? And yet I've seen creators wearing T-shirts and the like supporting others' works. (And a fine thing it is when a T-shirt is professional but dressing like Ianto isn't. Tsk.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

The thing about the "rule" is it's not about all the reasonable elements of common sense for Getting Stuff Done. It's largely, in my experience of the nervous warnings I've seen myself and others receive from pros we know, about people still being afraid to be seen as the loser nerds the metaphorical folks in the Starfleet uniforms are.

Cons I'm working at, I don't obvious costume at, although my wardrobe often contains lots of in-jokes. Cons where my status is weirdly amorphous, I try to only cosplay at theme parties where the idea of "fancy dress" is a shield.

But really, the issue isn't about what settings cosplay is convenient in. It's about the suspicion of anyone who has ever engaged in a public acts of text-based love.

It's not useful, this idea that I can only study that about which I do not care.

I also don't believe it's love that makes people unable to be critical about the stuff that really interests them; I believe it's not knowing how to do criticism or, quite legitimately, not being interested in doing it.

(also, not cranky at you, just going "ack, need to clarify, clarify, clarify" which I have now done in the original post, so thank you for making me do it).

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

I should, at some point, write about my identification with the Byzantine cultural mentality, because yes. Love, and obsessive love, and identificatory-desire, which forms the basis of my scholarship.

But on the question of cosplay, first of all, YES, yes yes yes, wearing the skins of other people, of men and women and things I'm not which are, by their differences and their lacks, also things I am --

It's been one of my real pleasures of discovery in the past two years, that kind of cosplay.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It certainly also opens a whole place to do scholarship that looks at cosplay and its purposes through a historical lens. Not my department but I want someone to do it (much like the slash and the Latin love elegy thing).

[kproche.livejournal.com]

Last month I hosted a "Diversity Jeopardy" game show as part of our annual (required) EO meeting.

As befits the role, I was wearing my business suit. (It's not nearly as nice as yours, but I only need it occasionally). The suit was causing more double-takes than when I do obvious costume pieces for our annual haunted house!

This is particularly ironic, since what I've been wearing the last several years as "costume" for my storytelling host role in the haunted house is from my Imperial wardrobe, all of it the over-the-top formal wear with skirted frockcoats, silk waistcoats and matching cravats, jewelled studs and cufflinks, etc.

Ordinary business formal? Stopped people in their tracks.

[wynkat1313.livejournal.com]

And this is one of the reasons I really appreciate your postings, discussions like this that are both thoughtful about the topic and honest about your relation to the topic.

I used to think that I didn't like or do coplay then I realized that while I have never dressed as a character from what I would consider fiction, I used to do ritual/religious dress up all the time (would still if the health thing weren't an issue) I have a closet full of costumes that are my liturgical gear - items that are only for specific deities - Demeter's golden chiton and Hella's white robe. And i have jewelery that is specific to individual gods - an only worn for them or at least in honor of them when I wear them. And all of these pieces were handmade with love and devotion like any good cosplay costume. Sure I do it as part of my spiritual work and my connection to the gods, but I'm not sure that changes the dynamic all that much. Both are still works of love and passion.

I guess that brings me down squarely on the side of love being important to all of the work we do. It inspires us to invest our time and energy and to give a damn about spirits or characters and tv / movie / books or myths.

Thinking about my own work this way, and then reading about your experiences with fandom cosplay gives me yet more perspective on the whole topic, so thank you.

Also, for whatever its worth - I adore that genderqueer writer picture of you. I think it stunning and you look gorgeous.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It's my favorite picture and most how I see myself. However, because it's been the hottest month ever here I've been dressing femininely just so I can be more naked in public all summer.

Sure I do it as part of my spiritual work and my connection to the gods, but I'm not sure that changes the dynamic all that much.

This, exactly. We all have so many little, and at least quasi-secular, gods.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

This is going to sound extremely weird... but I don't understand cosplay because I spent so long in competition costuming.

Cosplay is a term I've only even heard in the last six or seven years, and I still haven't figured out how it is different than what I'd call hall costuming or possibly LARPing without an official game in progress.

When I moved to DC in the mid 80s, I joined what was then a vital (opinionated, cliquish) and thriving competition costuming community. Even if you weren't competing officially (the in-crowd was ALWAYS measuring itself against itself against what that person had done previously) you wore costumes for two reasons:

1) Love of character. Sometimes a character you created. Sometimes regardless of whether you "ought" to be a media character. (There were plenty of discussions of whether you should be playing to your own race/gender/background/size. Suffice it to say that I didn't let being a shortish, fat, white woman stop me from starting work on a Lord Bowler costume)

2) Love of challenge/learning experience. Can fabric be found that matches a faded print from 1910? There isn't any commercial beaded trim like that, but if you loom this bit and add that bit... What happens when you put two colors of dye in separate spray bottles and let loose on a piece of wet silk with both hands? What would a fat white female Lord Bowler wear and still be recognizably Bowler?

I'm making myself a bit nostalgic! I enjoyed the learning and experimenting part.

But anyway - this is a wordy way of saying that I hear the words "play" and "criticism" and they are so far from my experience of making and wearing costume that every time the topic of cosplay comes up I'm sitting uncomprehendingly with my head on one side like a dog in front of a victrola. This post is pointing the way to a whole new perspective.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Lord Bowler? Are you talking Brisco County Jr fandom? Most of the characters on BCJr were fun. Especially the Swill brothers. Or Pete.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I love costuming and have done quite a bit of it. It's just the word cosplay I hate - it seems to be very recent, and to me trivializes the work people put into their costumes.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Not that recent. It's a Japanese loanword dating back to at least the early 80s, which was later adopted by anime fans in the US by the early 90s and then spread to "mainstream" fandom.

Besides, why not play with costume? The whole idea is that it *is* fun, right?

[muntahz.livejournal.com]

I so want to meet and discuss this at DragonCon.
Cosplay, for me, is about fun and touching on other parts of our reality.
For some of my friend sit is about seduction.
Having to only cosplay sexy characters.
That is about who they are just as the fact I have cosplay-ed TimTom from Venture Brothers was about what I felt I would be comfortable with character wise.
I ended up having great lingeree on underneath because I lost so much of who I was with that character.
Stamped on stubble and a switch blade.
I had a blonde wig on which made me look like my sister - that was very hard for me!
I may cosplay TimTom again and I will have to find that place in me where I can put the wig on and be an evil minion.
There was a moment when I was TimnTom that was hilarious - well 2 minutes.
One was when this guy came over to tell me how impressed he was with the costume and was stunned I was a girl.
We met again the next day adn he was open mouth stunned to see what I normally looked like.
I think that was a good thing. ;)
The other really odd moment was that when we did the photos there was drama due to confusion over which group I should be with - girls or guys.
I ended up in both photo groups and I like to think it helped open a few minds that day.
Appearantly people had such issues about a female, that is very female, to play a rough male character.

It really boggled my mind.
I was asked how I could choose that charater and not do something like Dr Girlfriend.
I do plan to cosplay a Venture Brothers character that is a female someday, but I am not there yet and TimTom was sort of how I felt.
On a last note - cosplay has been around for centuries in some form or other.
Masked Balls.
Dress as your favourite female character was something in the Victorian era.
Women would dress as tragic literary characters.
Art history is actually full of art work showing people dressed as literary charaters or historical characters.
We emulate what we love and sometimes what we fear.
Or, as shown by how many mass produced costumes are out there, what we want guys to see us as?
Slutty pirates, slutty Raggedy Ann, slutty incredibly fake Goth girls, and now slutty My Little Pony!
It seems as long as Slutty is in the description less phone is made of a person cosplay-ing.
Slutty TimTom?
Slutty Snape?
PS. I met you and spoke to you as Snape.
I think you were in something else the next day because I remember speaking to you then as well but you were more comfortable.
You had your Snape on! ;)

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Great read, as ever.

The thing about cosplay -- and I really, really want to do it at Dragon*Con but I'm not certain I will -- is, it's different. I'll dress up at the drop of a hat for a costume party, but having my picture taken in an environment like that feels intimidating for some reason. Judgy, maybe...what if my costume is stupid? What if someone has a better version of the same costume? If I could sew, maybe I wouldn't feel that way. :) (Or if I actually resembled anybody on any of the programmes I watch.)

On the other hand, I think a lot of fannish people do this element of partial cosplay IRL. I'm an X-Files fan and used to have red hair and a Scully cut, for example. And a black suit! A fan homage but enough plausible deniability (heh) that I was a complete nerd, because it's not obviously costume. And of course people buy things copying what Carrie wears on Sex In The City, and it probably makes the wearer feel a little more awesome when they wear it.

[pineapplechild.livejournal.com]

I love your point about the stories that people wear. Sometimes they're more recognizable stories-- Jack, Snape, Sam and Dean Winchester, etc. Sometimes they're more personal, like people who would normally feel alienated by a situation getting through it because they have underwear on that is BRIGHT BLUE with PENGUINS, ADORABLE PENGUINS on them.
I've always liked the clothes as amour idea. This is what you wear to signal that you are "one of the guys", "one of the pack", etc. It's been weirdly prominent for me lately, as I have an internship in a company working with computer developers. As they are notorious for, the developers are super casual. Cargo shorts, battered shirt, somewhat questionable hygiene. But the marketers and salespeople are always *at least* in slacks and a polo. The bossman wears *very* nice suits and ties daily. It's a small company, and we intermingle a lot. It feels so weird, esp. as I fall much closer to the dressier default.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

A thought and a random anecdote:

I sort of wonder if all academic work is done from a position of love. You're free to chose your subject or a topic, so why would you not pick something you love? The difference between, say, math and fannish or pop culture subject is probably only that the outlet for loving math is to do math, whereas perhaps pop culture offers more options for engagement.

When I was in high school, the math team dressed as Star Wars characters for Halloween. It's the source of some slightly amusing anecdotes--I've watched Star Wars for the sole purpose of looking at Alec Guinness's legs--but somehow, for me, it's as if the whole project became embodied in Obi-Wan's lightsaber. Somehow it entered my head that the believability of the costume lay entirely in the lightsaber that no one remembers the details of and not the cloak. It was a very good lightsaber handle, though.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I sort of wonder if all academic work is done from a position of love.

That is deep in the center of the discussion I linked to that Henry Jenkins tweeted about.

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is an excellent post. My husband absolutely loves to costume and I've watched him through the years costume differently but very much reflecting both his non-fiction/historical interests and fantasy interests. We haven't really talked about it but it seems to me that he is a performer in personality and very much likes to be "in control" of the situation so he does this by assuming a persona. He is only comfortable in situations where he knows everyone well or is the one telling a story.

Lately, we are both into the Steampunk costuming scene and I've noticed that so are a non-trivial amount of SCA members. I'm thinking this is because Steampunk is a little more free to interpretation than SCA persona costumes are. Anyway, I have been able to put together two distinctly different Steampunk costumes. One is more "prim and proper" female (but I won't wear a corset) and the other is more of a steamship mechanic. Given my body shape and other features it would be a little more difficult for me to pull off a genderbending costume but I definitely tend to like to role play males or females masquerading as males. This makes it painfully external what I do in my everyday life as a systems admin in a predominately male field. I also find that wearing the "prim and proper" costume tires me out faster (maybe it's just the shoes).

BTW, I don't find you ugly at all but I do understand what you are talking about in this paragraph in both your Snape and Harkness characters. I think that at times we all feel similar feelings and insecurities.

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

Wow, now I really wish I was going to Dragoncon this year.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

A thing that just occured to me.

There is a huge difference between the social position of cosplayers in Western-media and anime-fandom conventions, based on what you're writing here. There's much, much less inter-fan stigma, especially for good cosplay. It's a positive, not a negative status marker.

Lots to think about.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Did we even have a brief conversation about this in the UK, about why is that shame cultures don't have shame about fiction the way guilt cultures seem to?

Anyway, post edited to reflect this.

[graene.livejournal.com]

*blink* side-stepping the whole point of this post...I seem to remember seeing a picture of you as Lucius at one point?

Tired. Injured orphan kitten hijacked my day.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

How is kitty? (Sorry animal lover here.) All but one of my cats were alley cats. It's like there's a sign over the house saying "Vacancy: Orphan kittehs knock on door or meow at window."

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I realized something today during a brief respite from an otherwise crazy, stressful day.

The more pro I am, the more I think I will want to cosplay.

Not all the time, and probably not whilst doing official work things, but those "down" times when things are basically a party? Fuck yes, bring out the cosplay. Blue drinks in hotel lobbies at 3 AM? Fan-bloody-tastic. Now pass me my Curse of Fatal Death Dalek Bumps.

[rm.livejournal.com]

We shall be transgressive pros together!

[loveslashangst.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

That's all.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

One of the things that I find interesting, as an anime fan....

Pros from Japan—anime creators, video game creators, and mangaka—don't seem to be as embarrassed about cosplay as Western pros are. I don't just mean that they're less embarrassed to be approached by fans in cosplay: I mean they seem less embarrassed to appear in cosplay themselves.

I think there must be a cultural difference there.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Ha, remember Otaku no Video? Or Otaku no Bideo? For those who don't know, it's an anime where a group of Otaku (or fans) make their own anime and has 'interviews' with other real life otakus. It's pretty funny.

[arcaneblades.livejournal.com]

This brings me, again, to the point of "Who are you, to tell me what my reality is?" And I don't mean that in the sense of having no grip on the common one. But if wearing this or that, or *being* this or that, allows me more successfully to interact, then I see no reason I should not.

Going to work, at times, feels like an act of drag. And this in jeans and a uniform shirt. Because I am always thinking about which jeans, and shoes, and appropriate jewelery. Mostly as camoflaugue, to blend in with my co-workers. And the first of any of those items that I am most likely to throw on to step out the door, are not the items appropriate for my workplace.

Costuming, in a way, is just another facet of wearing a mask. And most people wear masks, whether or not they are aware of them. It's just that some of the pieces some of us use to wear them, are more obvious to other people.

-m

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

I love watching cosplay.

That said, I've never been able to carry it off successfully myself. I just can't get into the groove of another character that way. I think that I have to be able to shut it off, and if you're in cosplay you can't really do that. (Might why I prefer fan fiction. I can shut off the character with a click of the mouse.)

Way back in the 80s I had several friends who were really into punk. I tried dressing that way myself, but I felt 'silly.' So not the point. When one dressed 'punk' you were supposed to feel 'bad' and 'tough' like the world couldn't conquer you.

I later felt sorry for the kids who didn't have punk growing up. I can see where it appealed to us insecure teens.

But now that I see it making a comeback, I'm so tempted to hug these recent punk teens and tell them how cute they look all punked up. Somehow I don't think that's the reaction they want. lol!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I'm insanely jealous of people who cosplay.
It takes a lot of courage, in my mind, to don someone else's guise and walk among the other people as them, which is different from acting on stage.

One day I may find a character that I think needs my voice on the floor :)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

After reviewing my pictures of me on facebook I think it's safe to say that I'm about the outfits. Sometimes it's cosplay (like when I'm an HP character or Drusilla) sometimes it's just showing affinity for the story (my Mrs. Weasley sweater and my wedding dress (I wanted to look like a Degas ballerina)) sometimes it's all about the skill (my Edwardian walking dress, the Mrs. Weasley sweater, both of which I created on my own without a pattern), often it's about performing (all of my belly dance outfits), (yay! oxford comma!) and sometimes, it's even just about playing dress up (my faerie and dragonlady outfits).

There's also a bit of giving the finger to society when I look at my non-costumes and see that they are generally a couple of steps away from what society tells us a white, upper middle class, suburban, 41 year old, married moms with a professional career ought to wear.

Since I am a maker, a good part of the thrill of the outfit, is the creation. It's taking the disparate bits of yarn, beads, fabric, and thread and turning it into something amazing. Something that moves the way I envisioned it, that gives me the sillouette that I wanted, and evokes the paintings, books, movies, or show it was based on.

Another part is when I've nailed the look I'm going for. My current favorites are my most recent bellydance outfit (the black and red tribal), my 2nd season Drusilla, and my Edwardian walking dress. When I put them on, I look exactly as I want to and feel as though I have free reign to act as one would wearing those outfits. I can be mercurial, crazy Dru and blither about cherubim singing to me, or be an aloof, unattainable but thoroughly desirable dancer, or the beautiful star of pick your famous Impressionist or pre-Raphaelite painting.

It also gives me a valid reason to practice certain highly disdained activities, whether it's sewing (I'm amazed at how many people think homemade clothes and think of it as being low quality; I've always seen the stuff I've made and my grandmother made as being way better, for numerous reasons) or the arts of arranging hair and putting on make-up.

I don't feel like I'm wasting time when I spend over an hour doing my hair for Drusilla or a dance performance, it's part of the look. If I spend more than five minutes on my hair at another time, I feel guilty because I could be doing something less frivolous. (There are days I freaking hate the patriarchy!)

I always enjoy your musings on costume and looking forward to seeing you at Dragon*Con, where I hope to debut my Capt. John outfit. I really hope to have time to put together the hussar's jacket after Pennsic.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

It also gives me a valid reason to practice certain highly disdained activities, whether it's sewing (I'm amazed at how many people think homemade clothes and think of it as being low quality; I've always seen the stuff I've made and my grandmother made as being way better, for numerous reasons)

Oh, yes... I've run into that attitude. For the local church carnival, some of us discussed maybe having a workshop (like they used to when I was a kid) and making stuffed toys and doll dresses as prizes for the kids. But most folks seemed to think that no one wants handmade stuffed toys and the idea was voted down. Ergh.

Or they think you're crazy for making your own stuff. Like buying is the only option, you're not supposed to want to create it.

I like to make my own jewelry. If I could use a sewing machine, I'd make my own clothes too. My mom used to sew a lot of our clothes when we were young, so I've see the quality that comes from the handmade stuff. I have seen sloppy seams on stuff at the store, or no seams on ruffle edges.

And I so want to see a picture of what you made without a pattern! I've heard that 50 years ago some home sewers were good enough to never need patterns but I've never known anyone who could sew without one. That said, in college I did know some girls who could make their own patterns.