Can’t Repeat the Past? Why, Of Course You Can… With a Badass Theme Party
February 25, 2013 § 25 Comments
Is anyone else counting the days until The Great Gatsby movie comes out? Have you watched these trailers 40 billion times?
No? Just me, then? OK.
One of the reasons I’m so excited for this Baz Luhrmann flick is that it just LOOKS so good. Visually, I mean. Beautiful people in beautiful outfits walking around in beautiful settings, all vintage-fabulous. Plus, it’s got that nerd-cachet, what with being an adaptation of a great book. Very much my cup of tea. Or glass of prohibition-era moonshine, as it were.
Anyway, what I hope most of all is that someone will have an over-the-top Great Gatsby party to celebrate the premiere and invite me. Because if there’s one thing I love, it’s a bygone-era theme party. Also, I really want to turn around and go, “Gatsby? What Gatsby?” every time someone walks into the party.
A few years ago, to celebrate the start of the third season of Mad Men, we hosted a Mad Men party (yeah, us and every other household in America, whatever). It was, if I may say so, legendary — as were the hangovers that followed it. From the bar to the food to the music to the behavior (the hundreds of Parliaments masquerading as Lucky Strikes in my mother’s antique silver cigarette boxes were supposed to be props, but tell that to a bunch of drunk Don Drapers) … it was the party to shame all parties we’d ever had before. And the outfits – oh my word, the outfits.
^ I wanted to recreate that scene for the party, but I ultimately decided against it, because (a) guns at a party, and (b) filmy peignoir set in public.
We haven’t had a Downton Abbey party, but only because we just finished watching seasons one through three last week. Give us time.
Honestly, although Lady Mary always looks to-die, I’ll probably dress as one of the maids, because I really like those little caps and aprons. Plus the maids have better props, and I’m partial to a get-up with props, if you know what I mean… which is that I like to carry a tea tray.
Now, to be honest, not every attempt at theme-dressing has been such a smashing success. When my husband and I moved into our first house, we were a good bit younger than all the responsible, child-rearing adult neighbors around us and didn’t know a soul. So we were tickled to be invited to join the neighborhood supper club. As we understood it, the group met every other month at someone’s house for dinner, and there was always a theme. A THEME!
So, fast-forward a few weeks. Our first supper club invitation arrived in our mailbox: Please join your neighbors for dinner this Saturday evening. And dress accordingly… it’s a Disco Inferno.
![DISCO INFERNO! [Cue me, hyperventilating with excitement.]](http://imissyouwheniblink.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/discoball.jpg)
DISCO INFERNO! [Cue me, hyperventilating with excitement.]
Night of the party: We made our way up the driveway of the party house. (The neighbors are going to love us, aren’t they? Oh, they totally are.)
We rang the doorbell.
A man answered the door.
The man stared us up and down. “You must be the new neighbors,” he said.
We looked at him, in his khakis and polo shirt, then looked past him, to the living room where EVERYONE WAS IN SWEATER SETS AND BUTTON-DOWN SHIRTS LIKE IT WAS JUST A NORMAL FUCKING DAY.
So, yeah. Unspoken rule of supper club? Nobody ever dressed up.
Except us that one time. Because when we embarrass ourselves, we do it UP. Go big or go home.
Anyway. That’s one reason I’m super excited for the Gatsby movie. I am already planning the outfit. I just need the party.
(See? I have always loved a theme party. I don’t know what the occasion was here, other than my mom and my aunts thinking it would be funny to doll me up in someone’s slinky dancing dress and pose me in front of the piano like I’m a lounge act, but this is the first recorded evidence I have of me in theme-wear.)
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On a completely unrelated note, for those of you who are into the penguins: The Random Penguins Shop is now open on Etsy. Get your birds on paper! There are currently 10 varieties of notecards available — as well as multi-packs of stationery, which make a nice little gift for your weirder friends — with more possibly to be added in the future.
LOVE the supper club story! I would so do something like that as well. And, congrats on the penguins!
Thanks!
What fun neighbors you would be! All our neighbors are 90 years old. Plus I suppose I’d never get Mike to dress up. It takes him 4 hours to pick between two polo shirts. I can’t imagine a costume.
Shortly after that story took place, a whole slew of fun people moved into the neighborhood, and many great theme parties were had. But my husband never did agree to go anywhere wearing a medallion again…
Weird is good!
Preach it, sister.
THere are only two things I like about Mondays: your posts and . . . ok, only 1 thing. I love Gatsby so much.My senior quote was the last line of the book about the boats and the ceaselessly of the waves. I was very deep. Now I just want to party and tongue kiss leonardo.
I want to make my senior quote the last line of your comment: “Now I just want to party and tongue kiss leonardo.”
I am crazy excited for the movie too! My English teacher hubby and I are such dweebs for the story. Sprinkle in a little Leo D, and I am IN LOVE! A themed party sounds like SO much fun! I’d be there with pincurls on!
The crush of English majors waiting in line to see this movie the night it comes out is going to be such a contrast to the crowds of different nerds who line up to see Batman and Star Wars.
We were invited to a Trailer Chic party last summer and we did it up to an extent that Honey Boo Boo’s family would have been mortified. Walked into the party and we, and the hosts, were the only ones who got the memo to dress appropriately. I just sat with my can of PBR saying, “Y’all should be ASHAMED” to no one in particular. Thank god my hair was in curlers and my face was bronzed to Oompa Loompa orange, so none of the guests would recognize me on the street. I think.
That is EXACTLY the kind of effort I like to see. Good work.
Oh goodness I’m so excited! And like you, I’m excited because of the beauuuutiful visuals but also the amazing cast and the fact that it might make me re-read and actually like the book. Yes, that’s correct. I hated The Great Gatsby when I read it in school. Seeing it on screen though, I wonder why. I mean….Prohibition Sexy Short Hair Flapper Party Fun with DAPPERNESS ALL OVER THE PLACE?! THAT IS RIGHT UP MY ALLEY! Oh but I seem to be the only one I know who is so so so excited about this movie.
Anyhow. Yes. I am with you.
Ha! A lot of things I didn’t like in school are things I came to like later.
It’s always funny how that works isn’t it?
For some reason, growing up, I hated the Simpsons. Why? No idea. But my darling boyfriend made me watch it with him, and I LOVE it. Odd how our taste buds change, even in our brains. :O
Yes, yes, yes. I’d host a party AND dress up. And the rule would be – no costume, then no playing my game of pin-the-kiss on Leonardo. Holy gin and tonics, I was unaware that others have watched the trailers as obsessively as I. It promises to be stunning.
We will have to compare notes after we each see it!
Right! So what I want to know is… why did you never dress up again for these “themed” supper parties!!!!!!! I LOVE a theme party (except here in Oz we call them “fancy dress”) and have hosted many. P party (I dressed up as a pensioner, complete with white bowls dress, cane and bad wig), a hillbilly / black tie party (I started out black tie then movd to hillbilly as the evening progressed – the advantage of hosting a fancy dress party is that one can change fancy dress party way through)… have been to a fancy dress party dressed as SHREK… I’ve had MANY fancy dress parties. It helps to have a friend who has a fancy dress shop so I just put in my request and it arrives in the mail in a few days or so…
And, just for your amusement, here is a blog about where I was the only one dressed up for the occasion… unfortunately i did not actually get a photo of myself!
http://strawberryquicksand.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/the-work-christmas-party-comes-but-once-a-year-thank-goodness/
“Fancy dress” will be my new term going forward. That is excellent.
You’ve never heard it called “fancy dress”? That’s funny.
Are you from the USA? You guys have different terms than we do. We have a queue whereas you guys have a ‘lineup”. To me, a line up is where you are picking the correct criminal out of a selection. lol
Yes – I’m an American. I’ve heard “fancy dress” used in the term “fancy dress ball,” but that’s a formal affair, not a costume sort of thing.
Lineup means the same for you as it does for me – a row of criminals. We say “line” where you say “queue.” Or if it’s a verb, we do say, “everyone line up.”
But I’m delighted to know that getting into full costume is just as popular on that side of the globe!
Oh goodness. I shall have to do a blog post about all the fancy dress parties I”ve attended or hosted. That one will definitely be going on the list.
I can’t wait for that movie to come out!
(Theme parties are awesome.)
I would just like to say that I follow your blog and the penguins regularly. Somehow WordPress sent me this post as a recommendation, and I was like, wow, this is really good. I should totally follow this blog. And then I see that it was you. And I already follow you. It was like small world, big internet moment. Anyway, thank you for being awesome and a bright spot to my day.
Oh, that’s hilarious. Well, I’m glad you liked it even when it came to you another way. Thanks for reading!