Makeup and Masks

I spent this Halloween evening at the wonderful Rivoli Ballroom in Brockly at the glorious Magic Theatre costume ball, a twice-yearly bash that happens roughly at Easter and Halloween. The venue itself is London's last remaining 50s ballroom and not surprisingly is much in demand for filming various music videos, television and films, making a wonderfully atmospheric place for such an event.

Halloween was made for shy, new or closet TVs as it's the one time in the year that you can try to get away with a bit of surreptitious cross-dressing on the sly. For those slightly more confident it then becomes a great time to try a ballgown or some other fantasy item you couldn't expect to carry off at any other time and for those of us who are thinking more about the actual Halloween side of things it means lots of white face paint and black eye shadow! 

It's this reliance on the transformative act of face painting is actually the nub of the issue that I've been turning over in my mind. Basically 'when does make-up start being serious?' or more to the point why did I start feeling that the ghoul was inferior to the glam?

Two faces met across a crowded room...

I'd done a goth sort of look for this event before but for the following two years I was pretty normal-ish in the make-up department. However as this Halloween Ball actually fell on 31st October itself I sort of assumed that horror would be the dish of the day. And this was fine.  Great in fact because (surprise, surprise...) I've always enjoyed a fancy dress do or any chance to dress up, drab or not. So on to youtube to find some inspiration for my horror look. Eventually I came up with what seemed to be a Marilyn Manson style which I thought might do the trick (or treat...). 

In the event of course I neither had the products, the skills or the ability to get anywhere near the standard on the youtube video  (curse their flawless skin, un-saggy eyelids and their 20/20 vision!) and as the product started going on I was slowly becoming more disheartened. The white is never white enough, the black not dark enough. Everything was blotchy and thick and messy and of course I didn't have the right colours either. I'd already spent ages customising Depressed Ted and had also put together a hybrid gothic schoolgirl/vampire ensemble which I thought was OK - not great, but OK - and if anything the make-up was detracting from it. It was becoming a slight make-down if anything...

Birds of a face paint feather stick together...

When contemplating the evening ahead I had thought that I was secure enough in my dressing to happily slap anything horrific onto my face and act the ghoul without feeling that I had to be all glitz and glam. I thought that, as when in drab fancy dress, the face paint added to the overall fun and jollity so was an essential element to be treasured. It wasn't quite shaping up like that though and strange enough one other thing I hadn't counted on was that no-one would actually recognise me!  When I stopped to chat to friends and acquaintances I was getting blanked and then trying to explain who I was by talking over the music with a set of dental-paste implanted Nosferatu fangs wasn't helping a great deal either. By now not only was I feeling slightly envious of all those who elected to wear ball-gowns and sequins with matching flawless look but it soon became apparent that, like a ghost or un-quiet spirit, I seemed to be drifting between two worlds, caught in a phantasmagorial state of invisible social limbo!

Eventually, as the evening wore on my patience wore down. I chickened out and removed the black lips and teeth which helped somewhat. However one interesting thing that struck me about the situation was the bond of kinship that sprang up with others in a similar horror-mask situation. Small groups of facepaint heros were forming loose bands for mutual support, photos and the sharing of black Kohl. We re-assured each other that we looked great and you know... maybe we did. But I wasn't convinced (about me that is. They looked great).

I was obviously suffering a mis-match between what I thought would look good on my face and what I wanted to be on my face. When in drab mode I'd be happy to wear pure horror make-up, but unlike the lovely ladies in the photos who were happy to forego their 'looks' for the evening, I realised that I was feeling a tad resentful because being in a dress had effectively changed my mindset. Mind you, not drinking probably didn't help but I realised I wasn't quite as secure as I thought. I offer this as an illustrative guide

                       Dress + Femme > Horror x Bad Makeup

                                                whereas

                       Horror x Bad Make-up > Drab + Alcohol

On the night it was lovely spending time with the Crayon Crew, however next year I'm afraid I think I'll be chickening out. I've decided to leave the slapdash frenzy of childish facepaints and edge my way over to the far more photogenic world of grown-up make-up. 

I think I owe it to my stronger than suspected sense of narcissism!