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Home Grown: Costume confusion — Fitting into Halloween, Tahoe style |
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Written by Julie Brown/Tahoe World - View Profile
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Tuesday, 30 October 2007 |
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Coming from a female’s perspective, comparing Tahoe’s styles to that of any urban city is like comparing apples to oranges.
The point being — and it’s fairly obvious for any estrogen-infused human being — Tahoe’s social scene operates on a vastly different set of standards than you would find in, say, Reno, San Francisco, New York or Southern California.
Looking back on my 23 years of existence, this schismatic divide was the most pronounced on the first Halloween that I celebrated on the other side of the hill, otherwise known as San Diego.
A side-effect of growing up in the mountains is the assumption that everyone dresses for the cold when its cold. So naturally, when it was snowing during the late-October season (as it used to commonly do) we would prepare ourselves.
Usually that meant trick-or-treating in bundles. My fairy-princess costume was always a little more pudgy than normal from the bulky one-piece snowsuit I wore underneath. And then there were the gloves, hat and scarf mixed in with the fairy wings, tiara and magic wand. Don’t forget the snow boots.
During high school, I ditched the one-piece snowsuit, but I still designed costumes that accounted for the weather — i.e. they weren’t slinky, skimpy and see-through mini dresses (or were they?).
 The shock that I associate with my first Hallows’ Eve outside of the basin is something similar to the scene in the movie “Mean Girls,” when Lindsay Lohan wore the hideous vampire-bride costume — a long, white wedding gown that brushed the floor and could have come from her grandmother’s closet — at a party full of girls who said they were bunny rabbits, or something along those lines, but really were only prancing around in their underwear.
Instead of bunny rabbits, my haunting experience involved nurses. A whole sorority full of white-lingerie clad nurses whose hem lines landed just above the upper-thigh.
Who knew Halloween was just another excuse for girls to wear next to nothing? I felt like I missed the memo.
As for me and my friend — who also came from the very foreign land of Tahoe — we were dressed as a crime scene and an army soldier. But don’t get any revealing thoughts, because on that particular Halloween, the air was crisp (for San Diego).
My friend wore baggy cargo pants, a camo T-shirt, some black makeup smudged on her cheek bones and messed up her hair. I was dressed in black with an obscene amount of caution-tape wrapped around myself.
The only thing even remotely sexy about my costume was a pair of handcuffs I attached to my pants’ belt-loop.
Now don’t get me wrong, we were cute. Even though I’m from Tahoe, I can do “cute.” But we definitely weren’t on the same par as those inspired by Halloween’s lack of inhibition.
The memory is a fond one — eye-opening and shocking. Picture an innocent little red-riding hood (minus the short skirt) next to the big, bad (and risqué) wolf.
My naiveté has since grown accustomed to Halloween’s more adult side.
A few years and Halloweens later, I’m back in Tahoe. But even in the mountains, it seems that Halloween’s free-for-all for sex-appeal has caught on. Big surprise.
This year I was a crayon. I named myself “boyz ‘n berry blue.” Yes, even crayons can be borderline inappropriate (granted my costume’s hem line landed below my upper thigh).
I suppose some could say that I too have succumbed to Halloween’s more revealing side. For nothing else than for the fun of it all — because who said prancing around in your underwear isn’t a good time?
Want to see more scandalous costumes? Click here to see our slideshow from the 2007 Creepers Ball at the Crystal Bay Club.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 30 October 2007 )
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