Alter Ego Diaries

Alter Ego's On Tour!

2009-12-07T04:33:00.000-08:00

Got a fancy dress party? Who you gonna call? ALTER EGOS!

The word is spreading - and the lovely Sam Chitty came to me for advise on what to wear - happily lent her my halloween clown costume which she so cutely sported at a party in Amsterdam.

We're going global baby!

Here she is doing us proud... kx

Read All About It!

2009-12-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

Never have I been to more of a rubbish party. Pure Rubbish, Pure Brilliance!

I think my costume could have pipped the prize as my all time favourite. It was on theme, it was big and extravagant, it was robust and surprisingly flattering, for newspaper.

The paper mache corset worked so well in holding me in, whilst the pom pom skirt was so huge, everyone had to give me a wide birth to get from room to room.

Crap couture all the way!

Anyone for teaaaaaaaa?

2009-12-02T06:02:00.000-08:00

So the rubbish party was anything but.
A big hit all round.
My tea bag shoulder pads and tea pot were a real hit... I felt like a crazy house wife so added fun eyes and silly cheeks for full effect.
Lucky for me my new 42" TV arrived that day... I had not even thought about the amount of helpful packing rubbbish that would come with!
Who would have thought a tv protector could turn into such a lovely full skirt!
Thanks Panasonic!

Melx

Alter ego diaries!!!!!!11

Tea Party

2009-11-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

Coming up with an outfit for 'rubbish' party provided its own unique challenges.... there were soooo many cool options! I knew from the outset I wanted to go as a tight rubbish 'theme' rather than a collection of rubbish.
At first I wanted to play on 'rubbish' as an adjective and go covered in used envelopes with a postbox hat -this was when Royal Mail was striking etc.. On the other hand I thought a 1920s shift dress made out of tampons was another goodie but thought that might be a bit crude.. even for me!

So in the end I was inspired by a a shop windon on Regent Street which featured tea bags... so yeah... TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

I wanted to dye the tea bags to give them some coolness. First time round I made the mistake of soaking them in differant coloured water and they seriously NEVER dried!

They turned browny too so I will use those brown ugly ones on the back...

It turned out the trick was to just dab them with a paintbrush and coloured water.. they dried pronto. Woooo

Deciding what to do with a bunch of coloured tea bags proved easy enough.. shoulder pads... fashionista styles and easy... staple gun ... wam bam im leaking tea mam.

I think a headpiece is often key.... when shopping on regent street I happened to find a plastic lolly bucket thing on the floor ... (so literally rubbish!) and knew it would come in handy for this party.... I decided to bring back the childhood skills and stuck into some papermaching to turn it into a tea pot!

I am still unsure what to do with this tea pot.. Paint flowers.?.. Make it an interactive rubbish piece? Or simply add more tea bags?.. to be decided tomorrow!

Anyone for teaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
Mel.

We live in Financial Times

2009-11-27T03:50:00.000-08:00

So for the up and coming "Rubbish Party", I have been working of a dress entirely made out of newspaper. More specifically: The Financial Times.

There are so many newspaper dresses posted on web to take inspiration from:

The Ballerina pink tone to the paper inspired the design of my dress.

Last night I spent the evening making a paper mache corset...I'm still waiting for it to dry before I can tell you how successful it was. But little tip from the top: "add cinnamon to your paper mache paste for a sweeter smell"...It's all in the detail!

The skirt, the main attraction, will be a pom-pom slash tutu mix. Inspired by some decoration I made for my housemate's mexican style birthday. Instructions on how to make them here thanks to All star American Soccor Mom: Martha Stewart.

Add some newspaper fake eyelashes and nails...and you have yourself a RUBBISH OUTFIT!

Looking good in a bin bag

2009-11-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

The long awaited annual Evering Road house party has finally been confirmed, giving alteregodiaries two weeks to get cracking on costumes.

And the theme is.....

RUBBISH!

Yes, that's right, it's A Rubbish Party. We decided it was time to get properly trashed. Sorry. I've bin waiting to crack that one for a while. Haha.

Giving new life to the unwanted, delving deep into the discarded, re-using the recycling and making rubbish sexy.

Thinking caps on girls - here's some inspiration courtesy of Rubbish Mag:

H
x

Happy Weekend.

2009-11-13T07:31:00.000-08:00

Dress-up deserving praise

2009-11-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

An old friend of mine, Charlie Gee, definitely deserves a mention here for the genius displayed in his Halloween outfit of last weekend. (Actually I believe he was also owed a mention in the last post as the ideas man for the impromptu spider dress up, thanks Charlie).

The theme of the party was 80's horror and his costume brought back a distant and long-forgotten 80's memory for me that will ring bells for some of you out there too and made me laugh a lot.

Here's the outfit:

Now, you may get it instantly, it may take a couple of minutes, or you may not have a clue, ever. And your enjoyment of it does depend on your knowledge of a ghost sighting in a 1987 film starring Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and a baby..... bells ringing yet?

Here's the big reveal........

Brilliant.

H
x

5 minute dress-up

2009-11-08T03:36:00.000-08:00

It's 11pm, you've had a couple, you're dressed for the cold not the party, and your flatmate reveals the potential of a dress-up party in a Dalston warehouse. You obviously want to go, but you can't possibly go without dressing up.

Here's how to create a (kind of convincing) costume in 5 minutes:

Theme: 'ANIMAL'
Ideal dress-up: a snake - luscious green and gold bodysuit with cobra-esque body ridges drawn from cleavage to chin breaking into a beautiful snake mouth with red fork for tongue.
Likelihood of creating ideal costume in 5 minutes on the number 277: Not likely

Available materials: Black eyeliner
Obvious costume choice: spider

And here's how it looked (apologies for the dodgy photos):

The eyes on the lids is actually an amazing trick, and it's so fun to order drinks at the bar with your eyes closed. Freaky sh*t. And if you dance like a spider the whole thing becomes fairly convincing....

Stuart however just looked like Sloth from the Goonies:

H
x

Happy Weekend.

2009-11-06T04:40:00.000-08:00

Costume Couture brilliance thanks to Jean Charles de Castelbajac at Paris Fashion week this year..
Pics thanks to Zimbio
I feel a big face on a costume coming on... watch this face.. I mean space. :o)
Mel

Clowning Around.

2009-11-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

So at the risk of sounding over confident the three of us were well pleased with how our skitzo clown vision manifested itself....

I was quietly nervous about how we would pull off the make up... the make up was key to looking like clown freaks but we managed to do it. We have learned the trick with the almighty 'white face'.... many make the mistake of just putting the 'paint' straight on.. this then cracks and looks crap by the end of a night out. The trick is to firstly apply a light foundation then powder... THEN use a sponge to apply the white paint... you won't need much. I digress..

What worked really well about our clown collection is that we were a set yet still individual.. each with our own clown materials, make up, masks and other finer details. This is great as it allows us to apply our own individuality while still having a big group impact.

The masks on the back of the head freaked people out all night.

Some of the best shots below thanks to our photographer friend Stuart York

Mel.

Make up & mask preparation

Ready to hit the town.

Our ring master (Kerry's boyfriend) is mad with us!

Happy vs Crazy clowns on stage with the band The Vamp

Halloween 09 - Dressing The Vamp

2009-11-04T02:42:00.000-08:00

1 Halloween Night Down, 1 to go. When it was not only ourselves we needed transform, but also the 5 members of the band The Vamp, ready for their performance at Passing Clouds.
"Mummie Chic" - we wanted it to look like these 5 guys had woken from death sleep and decided to dress in their fineries and go to a party.

The band had soundcheck till 8:30, rushed round to my flat, we had 1 and 1/2 hours to dress them all, then back to Passing Clouds to be on stage for 11pm.

We were ready...

So the classic mummy bandages we first applied (previously distressed with tea and fake blood).

...then over to the make-up station, where we were able to demonstrate our newly-learnt make-up skills to create Zombie Look (thanks to the Lost in Beauty team)

...the chic gentlemanly parts of the costume added: top hats, shirt panels, cuffs, cummerbunds and bow-ties - thanks to Melanie's bow-tie wearing colleague, who taught her to tie a real bow-tie.
A few gory drip of blood were added ("it's all in the detail")

...and voila!

The band looked great on stage - and sounded amazing - such a brilliant set that got the crowd pumping and stomping and ya-ya-ya-ya-ing. The lead singer very sweetly did a shout out to alteregodiaries.blogspot.com and got us up on stage to dance one track with them.

It was a proud collaboration.

Halloween 09 - the broken hearted warm up

2009-11-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

Things began with a gruesome bang for what is arguably the biggest dress up weekend of the calendar, Halloween.

Our Broken Hearted damsel outfits were suitably grotesque yet eerily beautiful and kept it together til the early hours despite the disappointing Work It party (music the volume of a mouse and an early police close-down - which led us to the Horse and Groom where great disco pub vibes made up for it all).

A funny aside for you before the all important dress-up run down - having been dumped earlier in the day (very amicable, no need for sympathy) the costume choice for Friday evening was a little prophetic! Maybe we have inadvertently become dress-up genies - as Mellie remarked, next time maybe we should go as lottery winners... Send us your wishes and we'll see what we can do ;)

Aside over, the costume creations went smoothly. Faces first, we re-created the classic zombie look - pale foundation and powder, overlaid with white face paint, dark purple round the eyes with black kohl lines and terracotta lipstick dabbed underneath to create the perfect bloodshot circles that capture the 100-years-with-no-sleep effect.

The chest wounds were made with latex and tisue, layered up, left to dry then dabbed with yellow, brown and red to create the bruising and extra latex added for flaps of skin. They really were disgusting.

Then the rubber hearts were simply pinned on and a hangman's noose added round the neck for extra deathly effect!

Lucky Nina also got the gruesome treatment with a bloody gash across her neck, complete with flaps...

And finally, the all important detail - we wrote, printed, tea stained and tied up little suicidal love notes to give out to deserving strangers. There were varying reactions from joy to fear but all in all plenty of participation.

H
x

Happy Weekend.

2009-10-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

A Tim Burton Halloween Special For You

How To: Gouge Your Eye Out

2009-10-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Last week we attended a workshop hosted by The Last Tuesday Society to learn the craft of Halloween Make-Up. An amazing evening where we learnt everything from zombie make-up to bloody prosthetic wounds, all demonstrated by the lovely ladies from Lost in Beauty. We got to practice on each other and went home with a little goody bag in time for the 31st.

A brilliant evening - and FREE!

Clowning all around

2009-10-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

I think Show Studio must have seen our blog this week and realised the time was ripe to release their beautiful film of the recent harlequin themed shoot 'Dark Annie'. Beautiful imagery, check out the photos too, oooo doesn't it just make you wish and wonder......

Click on her to the left to see the film.

Happy weekend!
H
x

Broken Hearted

2009-10-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

With all this talk of clowns and mummies we have neglected the second costume of the weekend for Work It on Friday night - the Broken Hearted Damsels.

Being a Friday we have gone with a simple yet striking concept to allow for minimal get-ready time and maximum fun-time.

This idea came out of nowhere really, inspired by one photo, found on White Mischief:

And the rest just happened - bloody hearts will hang out of our chests, red gunk oozing onto pretty white nighties as we wander round, sunken eyed and forlorn, lamenting our lost loves and broken hearts to anyone who'll listen and giving out suicidal halloween love letters to the specially selected.

Obviously we'll be cranking out to the early ninties hip hop on the Work It dancefloor at some points throughout the evening too.

The hearts arrived in the post at work today and my boss screamed like a girl when he opened the package. The desired affect:

Breaking News

An exciting new addition was confirmed today as we will be joined by The Heartbreaker - an Italian Stallion who leaves a trail of female destruction in his wake, collecting broken bloody hearts like trophies. And probably eating them for breakfast too. We are his latest victims.....

Mwaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa.......

Project for Alter Ego Diaries: Dressing the Band

2009-10-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

So - word has got out to the wider public of our dress-up desires and we have been asked to dress a band that will be playing at Passing Clouds in Dalston for Halloween night! How exciting!

Planning started last week - we gave them three options: the winning dress up?......

MUMMIE CHIC

Spookily sophisticated, gruesomely grandeur, eerily aristocratic these 5 mummified gentleman will the best dressed band ever to grace the graveyards of East London.

To give you a better idea (thanks to ellie):

It's all in the detail

2009-10-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

One of our main dress-up rules: the brilliance is in the detail. Perfectly represented here by this sailors jacket (of which we can't take credit).
Underneath the rigidly prescribed uniform cuffs:

this sailor had a few tricks up his sleeve:

Other clown bits

2009-10-19T02:51:00.000-07:00

Ok girls.. so that leaves us with the final touches..

I'm thinking we get an old bra and cover it with harlequin material to look something like this..

Depending how high the skirt sits we can have tassles under the bra too... maybe breaded ones would look cute...

Final touch then are top hats... mini ones to give us a cutesey clown look hey (to juxtaposition against our sickness)...let's get a different colour each? I'm thinking ivory...

And last but not least... the masks we put on the back of our head...these are from ChildReach... how we paint these well is going to be a challenge to say the least!?

Over and out.
Mel

Happy Weekend.

2009-10-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

Skirting around the subject

2009-10-16T05:12:00.000-07:00

So, after much inspiration and deliberation we have our schizo clown outfits pretty much sorted. Here's a little insight into the journey of the skirt...

Before I get there I just had to share this - got a bag of material scraps from freecycle the other week, and the second thing I pull out is this delightful ruffled pink rubber thong!

Interesting. I had to wash my hands. And the floor. At least it's on theme....

Luckily said freecycle trip also brought the most amazing free thing ever - a crinolin!!

Wanting to wear it immediately I thought of fitting this into the schizo clowns costume but it's a little like wearing a boat and there is only one.

However it reminded me of something much better to incorporate. Kerry and I once went to a terrible piece of theater called The Porcelain Project - essentially a porn fest on stage where 2 female dancers were subjected to systematic theatrical rape by men with phallic shaped pieces of porcelain. It was really bad.

I give it the time of day here because the costumes were amazing and have now inspired the base of our schizo clown outfits - hooped skirts - starting fitted under the boobs and flaring out to a small hoop mid-thigh length, held over the shoulders with braces.

Inspired by The Porcelain Project:

The material will be harlequin inspired - I found a dress in the family dressing up box that will be perfect - pictured here under a potential orange ruffle option and other cool mutil-coloured cheque material that could be overlaid to a plain colour in diamond shapes:

It's all coming together....

And finally - if you're passing by All Saints Spitalfields this weekend stop to look at the window display - full of beautiful old Singer machines - the picture below does not do them justice:

Happy weekend!!

Somewhere Over Nova's Rainbow

2009-10-16T03:31:00.000-07:00

Nova Dando and her new "Rainbow Collection" have got the creative juices flowing in multicolour! Not only is she great stylist but a brilliant person to work with.

Ruffles Ruffles Everywhere - how should I make mine?

2009-10-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

Friday Night Halloween...

2009-10-12T04:27:00.000-07:00

OK peops...
I definitely got the Friday night sorted for Halloween....Let's definitely do the Work It party
This party will be pumping. Fact.
As its a Friday we will have to work quickly after work...
Mel.

We heart Viktor & Rolf

2009-10-06T04:45:00.000-07:00

Paris Fashion Week - Viktor & Rolf's new collection "Cutting Edge Couture": UNREAL. Imagine getting to wear one of these pieces....serious dressing-up box envy!
Kerry

Here are some shots but check out full show here and here.

Happy Weekend.

2009-10-02T09:34:00.001-07:00

Halloween Outfit Decisions

2009-09-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

So the question remains what are we going to go as this Halloween? Loads of pressure as Halloween is one event when everyone (even non costume fanatics) get involved.

I think we have three options.

1. A Tomb Stone - think big tomb head piece with rosette/blood outfits...

2. Vodoo Witches - think skeletons meets feathers and blood...

3. Clown girls - when I was in Buenos Aires earlier this year I went to a cool club called 69. There were these amazing podium dancers who were dressed as wicked crazy clowns. Think harlequin pattern meets lace and afro.... mmmm

Thoughts girls?

Let's do the clown thing fow show!

Tomb stone=too clunky - always annoying when you have a big cardboard box stuck to you.

Voodoo = too similar to Bitch Fairies

But instead of being normal clowns maybe we be SCHIZOPHRENIC CLOWNS. Have a nice clown face painted on our faces and then a scary twisted clown face painted on masks that we wear on the back of our head?

Scary faces:

Nice faces:

All dressed up and nowhere to go....yet...

2009-09-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

Halloween party options so far are a little thin on the ground:

The Last Tuesday Society's Halloween Ball

Highlights include live snakes, singalongs and a booth of misfortune.

Creatures of the Night presents The Haunted House Hootenanny

The launch of the Creatures of the Night nights so a new kid on the block. A risk that could or could not be worth it.

Kitsune Maison Party

Guaranteed banging music but distinct lack of dress-up.

Mulletover Fancy Dress Halloween Special

Last year the dress up was special but the rest a little average. Especially the toilets. Should we give it another go?

House Party

Maybe we need to make our own.....

Suggestions welcome!

Bestival..the final show down.

2009-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

The main Besitval affair for us was of course shooting stars, but I could not handle the thought of spending a night at a dressup festival, without ...well... being.... dressed up! Surely not. Criminal.

So I wizzed something up in the last few days in London. It is nothing specific exactly.. rather an alient fighter chick type thing I guess.

To be honest, I had this cool leather mask I had bought in Barcelona during the summer and had been waiting for an opportunity to wear it so based an outfit around that.

When I was shopping in Kleins for Madonna stuff I came across these hollow gold tubes that make cool shapes. So I attached them to shoulder pads and filled them with LED lights for night time fun.

Hannah kindly lent me her gold sequin cardigan thing I used to attach shoulder pads too... Thanks Hannah!

As a final touch I also bought these naff 80s gloves on ebay which were so wrong they were right.

That's it really. Nothing ground breaking.. but with the recycled Madonna gun used from 'Shooting Stars' the night before I was definitely ready to bust up some aliens ghost buster styles.

Mel

Costume Catwalk Bestival

2009-09-22T08:11:00.000-07:00

"Who are we?" "STARS!" "What do we do?" "SHOOT!" "So, We are...SHOOTING STARS!"

BESTIVAL 09 - Space Oddity

2009-09-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

The Big Brainstorm

When I tell you that we started brainstorming Bestival costume ideas way back in March this year, I am not exaggerating. Does this make us vein or super organised? I'm unsure.

Bestival festival sets the bar for costume creativity. Unlike many other parties, the majority of people spend a considerable amount of time preparing. If you are not dressed up, you're an idiot.

The extra challenge with Bestival is that a group of 10 loud mouthed big personality girls had to agree the theme. Our whole crew go to Bestival and while for most parties we all interpret themes as we individually wish, this year I was dead set on the whole group going as one costumed force.

Originally we were thinking 'Milky Way Couture'. I was well excited about this. Then Hannah decided it was naff to support a brand (she is more earthy than me, i'm in advertising!)

So it was back to the drawing board....

After much discussion it was finally decided.... Shooting Stars. We wanted to put a twist on this though and be super stars with fat guns. Let the fun begin......

It didn't take me long to decide I would be Madonna... cones!

The majority of my outfit came from Ebay/internet. If you think about it far enough head, you don't even need to leave your desk to get a rocking outfit together.

LED lights for cones - £2.99... they last for hours

http://www.lights4fun.co.uk/Battery-Lights.aspx

Cones outfit - £20.00.... needed some adjustments to make it fit! Sewed the led lights on the cones to give is a space feel.

Microphone piece- £8.00

ebay

Wig - £5.00 ebay. I looked like an ugly sheep when I got it but then gave it a good trim. The trick with wigs is to wear a headband so they fit nice and tight to the head. Got rid of the bow too.

And most important .. gunnnsssss ... 2 for £10 at Army Kids We sprayed them chrome to be spacey.

Bestival 09 - Winehead

2009-09-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

I was born with a very full head or hair - and so alas, I did not have much choice when it came to choosing my "star". Amy's beehive was simply begging to be back backcombed for Bestival.

Clothing wise - it's a simple story - I opted for the torn denim short with white vest top.
The attention to detail however, is what separates the amateurs from the professionals.

Double bra strap (2 tone)
Flower in the hair (sprayed silver for full space effect)
Signature OTT eyeliner
Amy's tattoos (you can buy transfers from ebay of her exact tatts - with a diagram included of where to position on the body!!! - If that's not fame I don't know what is!!)

The Result? Spot the difference...

Bestival 09 - Bjork's infamous swan dress

2009-09-22T02:03:00.000-07:00

What costume queen wouldn't relish the chance to re-create Bjork's beautiful swan. I snapped it up and got crafty.....

The task felt daunting for weeks before I begin but a couple of lucky finds and chances meant the dress only took about a day to make in total. Original plan was to start from scratch with layers and layers of tulle but a trip to a favourite charity shop (Whitecross Street, near Old Street roundabout) gave me a short white tutu to start with so layering the tulle on top of a base was much easier and quicker.

I toyed with making the swan from scratch also but bought a soft toy on-line (add link/photo here) and miraculously once it was all taken apart the neck was long enough and the body and wing pieces gave me a base for the torso of the dress.

All materials bought from Dalston Hill fabrics (need to check the name) - a gem of a shop on Ridley Road market. Floor to ceiling fabrics and a haberdashery hidden at the back, the domain of a German lady who rocks double denim daily and always has the answer to your costume needs. I needed white ostrich feathers to finish the dress and after showing me the £40 a metre version and seeing my face she promptly pulled out one big ostrich feather for the bargain price of £2.50 and described exactly how to slice it up to achieve the same effect. The woman is a costume angel, I will find out her name.

Finished the look off with a black wig (the plethora of wig shops are another Dalston treat) and of course, a silver gun.

Bestival 09 Space Oddity - DAY 2

2009-09-17T06:46:00.000-07:00

Inspiration for Day 2 of Bestival came from 2 things:

1. This harness.

Found inside Susie's Style Bubble.I got all my material from the brilliant people at Kleins.

2...and Tiga's music video for "shoes ":

Again, pom poms from Kleins stuck down with toupe tape. Genius!

The result:
(waiting for friends to load photos up on facebook) - WATCH THIS SPACE!!

OPENING UP THE BOX

2009-02-25T05:26:00.000-08:00

So while we could do about a dozen more dedicated posts for other various costume parties we have been to , we figured that the rest could be lumped in here.

In no particular order..

It was acceptable in the 80's...

Rio Carnival Randomness

Harajuku

Spaghetti Western - Bec's 30th Birthday in the sticks

A nightmare before Christmassss

Come as a country - Jordan and Iceland

tart!

Fifties Fun

Come As A Game: Twister Girl & Lara Croft

Cleudo CHI Christmas Party

2008-12-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

One of my personal favourites was my old agency, CHI & Partners, 08 Christmas party. The theme: Cluedo.
The obvious thinking is to of course go as one of the many charachters - Mr Green, Mrs Peacock, Miss Scarlett.. you get the picture.
I wanted to do something really innovative...I had resigned and it was my last party (and there had been many over my 4 years there!) so wanted to leave with a bang.
After a little brainstorm I finally decided on the BILLIARD ROOM.
Green table cover = green dress
The balls = bought little pool ball key rings off ebay and turned them into a necklace (a fairly heavy one!)
The triangle = found a mini one the weekend before randomally and used as a head piece
The stick = a broom stick painted to look like a billiard stick.
Bosh.

a little wine on the dress there...nicceee

Spook time 2008... 2 parts.

2008-11-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

2008 - Part 1 - DIY KILLERS

In 2008 we had 2 halloween parties to attend. One was Mullet Over on the Saturday night in some warehouse in Elephant & Castle.The three of us agreed on psycho axe murderer types (any excuse to be evil I say!) We needed blood splattered all over us for full effect so decided we would play with those all in one paint cover outfits. We got them on ebay for like £5.

We sewed them tighter to our bodies in an attempt to look good. The blood was a simple red paint with water splattering technique (Hannah's lounge room loved it) To be extra gruesome we each had killing tools. We got tool belts on ebay and then heach had a toy. I had a toy saw, Hannah had ball weapons by using polystyrene balls with nails on chains... kerry had a gimp! The blood avoidance goggles were the final touch.... don't piss us off boys! ha

Part 2 - Dead Celebs

...introducing Charlie Chaplin, Edie Sedgwick & Tupac.

Where else would you find these 3 unlikely characters rubbing shoulders other than a cold dark halloween night at the Macbeth in Hoxton.

For this particular theme the choice was obviously wide but each of us seemed to be pulled towards a deceased who has something about them we wanted to play up to. This wasn't just dress up, it was true embodiment.

Hannah as Charlie Chaplin

Costume wise a fairy easy dress up wardrobes provided different parts of the disheveled suit, and the bowler hat was suitably tatty after an unfortunate accident in the mud at Bestival 08. Youtube provided the footage to get into role. As I whited my face and blacked out my eyes, Charlie ran around my laptop screen, waggling his cane, nodding his head and miming undying love for anything in a skirt. I duly copied all the moves and didn't utter a word from hitting the pub to approximately 3 hours later when the excitement of the dance floor finally got the better of me. So much fun to be had when you can truly be another person for the night.

Kerry as Edie Sedgwick .

The key here was teh hat, eye make-up, big pants and trickle of blood from one nostril, a nice Halloween addition to the mix. Kerry became Edie, drawling non-stop in a druggy fashion. A classic moment arrived when out Edie spotted an Andy Warhol across the room and, fully in character, ran up, draping her arms over this unsuspecting boy, declaring him her Andy, her Andy. The role play swiftly took a back seat when a second Edie impersonator (looking nowhere near as convincing) declared "I'll think you'll find he's my Andy. As in, my boyfriend." The girl was not in the mood to play.

Mel as Tupac.

Mel's gangster streak was allowed full rein as she jumped into Tupac's skin, tattoos and all. This was granted an ambitious choice - sex and skin colour being difficult to change for one night. The key was the Death Row records tee she cut up and put gun shot wounds in. Massive Thug Life tattoo on back of course. 2Pac's well known head tie was key and made the outfit super convincing and Mel's attitude tipped the balance.

Halloween 2007

2007-10-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Hannah was unfortunately absent - so Mel & I put our heads together and became Beastly Bitches.

The main focus of these outfits were out homemade black tulle skirts. Berwick Market is the mother of all markets when it comes to fabric buying.

Mel (aka Ebay Addict) found these little model skulls which we sewed into the tulle sporadically. I also wore one round my head.

Fake blood? check.

Black face paint? check.

Knives? check.

Team all this with a few staple dressing-up box items - the corsets, the tattoo gloves and...

Bobs your Dead Uncle: 2 Halloween Bitch Fairies. Don't mess.