Costumes to Confuse

All that reminiscing has stirred up more memories of Hallowe'ens past, and with them what I think is a perfectly brilliant idea for you last-minute outfit seekers.

The Art Historian and I, you see, were partners in costume-crime for a number of years, and for some of those we went with timely themes, as with the previously described Raisa-Nancy pairings. In 1988, I believe it was, we ripped our ideas right from the headlines, going as that season's leading Scandal Girls:

Beauty-queen-turned-consumer-advocate-turned-homewrecker Bess Myerson...

And the Queen of Mean herself, that living Disney caricature of a villainess, Leona Helmsley.

The AH, as Myerson, found a terrifying MaryTylerMooreische seventies pantsuit, which he accessorized with a Miss America sash (reading, of course, "Bess Mess") and his by now quite tired Flo-wig. I, as usual, hit a more glam note in a truly ridiculous hostess gown (ou sont les thrift shops d'antan, indeed) in flowing cocoa chiffon with died-to-match feather trim, as many rhinestones as I could tote, and long white gloves with which I could test flat surfaces for dust (considering what kind of dust was likely floating around Hallowe'en parties in New York in the late 80s, I probably could have gotten good money for those gloves afterward, now that I think about it...).

It was all quite a night, if not quite up to the standard of an earlier shared masquerade with the AH during our college days, at which we ended up very late at a frat party, of all places. There it turned out that a leading BMOC had had surprisingly slight previous experience with drag and only discovered after a little hands-on experience, as it were, that few very actual girls go on Hallowe'en as Joan Crawford circa 1938. He was surprised, yes, but still, if memory serves, rather game...

But in any case, all of this makes me think that for someone looking for a truly obscure costume experience, the Scandals of Yesteryear might make fertile ground. Back when Lindsay Lohan was just a gleam in her demented parents' eyes, before Lewinski had become a verb, and in the glory days when religious scandals like Ted Haggard's were accompanied by a motherlode of crazed glamour, these ladies were the headliner-makers in a world innocent of "reality" television and still entirely dependent on cretaceous concepts like newspapers and scandal mags. Their names may be anything from quaintly half-familiar to wholly forgotten now, but once up on a time (if that time was 1988 or so)...

You could go as Fawn Hall, for example - a reminder that Sarah Palin was hardly the first deeply underqualifed right wing media darling. At least Ollie North's patsy secretary knew how to work a shredder, and you could practically see Russia from the top of that 'do...

Or if you want something a little more flat-out bimbo oriented, there's always Donna Rice, Gary Hart's nemesis, more recently turned Internet scold and anti-porn crusader...

Or possibly church-secretary-sexpot Jessica Hahn, who helped bring down the Praise-the-Lord empire before going on to an entirely uninteresting career as centerfold and butt of jokes on comedy radio...

Inevitably, you could bring back one of 1987's top costumes and really go all out as Tammy Faye. Just be sure to stay true to period - she had the longest time in the headlines of any of these ladies, but it was never quite as perfectly, deleriously ridiculous as it was when she first burst into (secular) pop-culturedom.

Finally, if you really want to confuse partygoers and prove your props as a longtime New Yorker, who better to impersonate than the era's proto-celebrity-for-no-reason, the footnote in the scandal that brought down Bess Myerson - her judge's cracked daughter, the memorable (albeit now forgotten) Sukhreet Gabel, who parlayed her walk-on role in the Myerson scandal into a fleeting career as club kid, lounge act, and greeting-card starlet. Of all the whatever-happened-to-hers I can think of, she's just about the most obscure.

And therefore perfect for a certain kind of costume, really. However you decide to go out tonight, do have fun - and don't forget that even the biggest men on campus can sometimes make the best of a surprise...