A Dragon Eating Pizza

Dress

1802-1805

Musée Galliera de la Mode de la Ville de Paris

Dress

mid 1890s

The John Bright Collection

Evening cape by Elsa Schiaparelli, 1937, France.

I mean, this was probably well-intended (I get very, VERY similar comments), it's just frustrating as a costumer to see entire eras get flattened because I'm dressing in a way that feels unusual to modern eyes.

It's also extremely frustrating to see this flattening when something from pop-culture becomes the iconic example of an article of clothing.

This hat, for example, will always be the Dr. Jones, Sr. hat. I will be in completely different clothing (cosplay in this case) and still get, "this reminds me of Indiana Jones" comments.

This bothers me more than folks not knowing fashion history. Knowing fashion history is specialist knowledge, it's fine not to know much about it. But telling me that I remind you of something unrelated to what I'm doing just feels rude -- I feel like what I enjoy isn't interesting enough to stand on its own merits for your consumption. (I hear a very similar complaint from artists about their OCs.)

It's always awkward as a cosplayer / vintage nerd on how to reply to this sort of thing. I don't want to extinguish a bonding moment, but on the other hand, the flattening of rich fashion history into pop culture nuggets is a bit soul-destroying when this is one of your special interests.

"So what, I shouldn't compliment people?"

Not what I am saying. But gentle caution that "you doing [x] reminds me of [y]" can be a minefield. It sometimes even comes off as, "you did such a bad job at [x] that I confused it for [y]."

I hope you don't mind me coming on this post with a related anecdote.

Just the other day, I was dressed in my typical manner, which is loosely based in Victorian menswear - and by loosely, I mean that I like wearing waistcoats and the occasional cravat. Structurally, it's more 1950s, but in that '1950s does 1880s' way. I was wearing a tweed patchwork waistcoat and red corduroy trousers, an ordinary collared shirt and a bow tie. Casual.

And the bartender at the concert asked me if I was dressed as Willy Wonka. I was not, of course, dressed as Willy Wonka. I wasn't dressed as anything, I just look like that.

The trouble is, that I've actually been working on a Willy Wonka costume for Halloween for months. That purple velvet frock coat especially has been eating my spare time since the start of September. And though I know that my desire to somehow thread the needle between screen- and historical accuracy is my own special obsession, and thus all this work is self-imposed and something I willingly chose...

It kind of sucks that to the person on the street, I apparently already look like I'm dressed like Willy Wonka when I'm not even in a costume.

My friend, I know exactly how you feel. Down to all the self-imposed goals with no one to answer to but yourself... and yet a casual assumption can still knock the wind out of your sails. 🫠