Next weekend I've got to go to a fancy sexy costumes party. Which I'd quite look forward to if the theme weren't "tarts and vicars". As the daughter of a female vicar, the last thing I want to do is go to a party dressed as my mother (although this is only a matter of time. I've already found myself flicking through the Lands' End catalogue and eyeing up Ecco shoes).
Hiring an e sexy costumes might look slicker, but I think it's a bit of a cop-out. Just once, I'd like to see Elton John and David Furnish throw one of their massive charity balls where all the celebrities have to make their own costumes. Imagine David and Victoria up till past midnight the night before adding the finishing touches to their cardboard robot sexy costumes. Or Liz Hurley on the cover of Heat dressed as a wonky pirate.
The fancy dress challenge is more complicated for women, who must battle against any temptation to Just Make It Sexy. Look through anyone's photos and eventually you'll come across some fancy dress party where the girls are all dressed as either sexy cats or sexy devils. The theme? Presumably "half-heartedness". If sexy cats and sexy costumes are the default costumes for women, the default for men is James Bond – whatever the brief.
A couple of years ago I went to a party where the theme was " sexy costumes". Now, you'd have thought you couldn't make "sea creatures" sexy, and you'd be right, which is why most women had come as sexy cats, lamely claiming to be catfish. I'd come as a giant king prawn. The other women looked at me like I was a dick, even though my papier-mâché shell was anatomically spot on. The men came as James Bond.
Don't get me wrong – I bloody love a fancy dress party. I take them very seriously. I've been known to take a sick day from work to make a costume. But this tarts and vicars thing annoys me because it's just so unoriginal. I like a party with a theme that makes demands of the imagination. A good fancy dress costume is all about lateral thinking; you have to consider the most obvious thing you could go as, and then work backwards. The best Halloween costume I've ever seen was someone who arrived in a long white tube with a little round window, and two blue lines painted across their face. They'd come as a pregnancy scare.
Take note of the papier-mâché point here. The best fancy sexy costumes are alway home-made. There's something delightfully stupid about a giant Facebook page made of cardboard, with the wearer's head poking through for the profile picture. You couldn't buy it in a shop, and it probably won't last the night, but it was made especially for the occasion.
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