Fashion Victim: Fan Expo 2010

So even though we are in the thick of things as far as regards fall fashion (I know, right? How can the summer be almost over!) and its requisite number of trends and looks—both amazing and otherwise—I’m not going to be covering that for you this week. Even though the Chanel F/W 2010 Wookie suits are one hundred percent deserving of the unique attention of a Fashion Victims post.

No. Instead of covering high-fashion Wookie suits, I  figured I’d bring you real Wookies. Yes, dear readers, I took one for the team and decided to get reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally in the thick of things for this edition of Fashion Victim—I took to the streets and entered into most self-respecting individual’s most horrifying nightmare: the world of comic conventions. I braved life and limb, body-odour and personal hygiene, sartorial sensibility and good sense, to do some live reporting and bring a world-exclusive in the form of half-tone highlights and lowlights of Fan Expo 2010, straight from the heart of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Nerd-bashing aside, comic cons offer a singular vantage point as far as social observation and criticism goes. No longer forced to lurk in the shadows of parent’s basements, lit up solely by the blue glow of a computer screen, comic cons are a veritable mating grounds for those of the geekier persuasion—it’s like their prom, fashion weeks, and birthdays all rolled up into one convenient weekend at a convention centre.

Bedecked in full dweeb plumage, thousands of kids you (or someone you know) picked on in high school roam wildly, browsing tables upon tables of action figures, graphic novels and foam swords. There are hundreds of them, lining up to play beta releases of their favourite video game’s sequel or sitting patiently in clusters on the ground waiting for Stan Lee to get back to the autograph table. Every now again you hear the mating ululation of one cos-player to another, eagerly spewing forth praise at the attention to detail and veracity and authenticity of someone’s cape and ears. Convention centres are absolutely teeming with visually and sartorial stimulating things—some of which are actually, truly outstanding, but many of which leave you clutching eagerly at your shroud of cynicism and secretly jumping for joy when you remember that you did, in fact, grow out of your animé phase in elementary school.

So I thought, being the generous, warm-hearted and civic-minded individual that I am, that I ought to compile a sort-of how-to guide to navigating the mires of comic con fashions. These kinds of things, after all, only come around once a year, so one has a very narrow window through which to attract a potential mate, so really, it’s in one’s best interest to ensure that one puts its best paw forward.

Rule number one: just don’t be a furry. Ever. At least three out of every five con-goers who aren’t in normal dress think that a costume is complete if it’s got ears and a tail. There were honestly a million booths selling hand-made furry acoutrements—tails, noses, whiskers, paw-shaped slippers, faux-fur vests, you name it.

I mean, what is personal style if not freedom of self-expression without reprimand. But seriously, like, come on. A headband with ears doesn’t get you closer to your inner animal, it just makes you look like a moron wearing a headband with ears.

Rule number two: if you’re going to dress up at all, spend some quality time making that shit look good. You don’t have a status bar with your nerd experience points hovering over your head, so it’s all about what you wear and how you wear it. Lazy costumes are lazy and look stupid. Sick costumes are the ones that you remember ten cons from now.

You owe it to yourself to make sure you look damn fine. Go big or go home. If you’re assembling a costume yourself, don’t skimp on nice fabric and well-tailoured flourishes. Glue-gunning a super-man logo onto a bed sheet and tying it around your neck may have been adequate when you were six and were running around your jungle-gym. At the not-so-tender age of twenty-five, you may want to look into investing in a legit red and blue leotard.

If you don’t want to shell out a ton of cash to buy that Sailor Jupiter costume, don’t fret. With adequate planning and anticipation, lots of really really awesome costumes can be cobbled together for not a whole lot of money. At the heart of it, comic cons are really all about celebrating creativity—whether artistic and visual, technical, or otherwise. A well put-together, at-home costume will totally stand out when contrasted against the handful of pre-fab polyester character imitation suits bought off Ebay.

This brings me to rule number three: be fucking original. At any given con there are undoubtedly going to be about twenty-seven Batmen, six Kiki’s from Kiki’s Delivery Service, and at least a harem of Harley Quinns.

So even if you have  a well-made costume and you’re not a furry, you’re one of many versions of a copy of a copy, really cutting into your ability to attract that perfect mate. Why not switch things up a bit—instead of reaching for that trusty red and blue Spidey suit, why not try to recreate, for example, Spiderman Noir. Why not, instead of just adding to the stupid number of Jokers walking around, you go for a villain who hasn’t recently enjoyed his fifteen minutes in the lime light—a Man-Bat, for instance? Or a Killer Croc? If you do a good job on the costume and you’ve spent a little more effort conceptualizing your look, you’ll probably get a lot more “Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude-I-can’t-believe-how-awesome-your-Ghostbusters-proton-pack-is-it must-have-taken-you-a-million-years”s and strangers stopping to ask for your picture. No matter how cool a fully-voice-modulated Stormtrooper suit is, there is always a full-on army of them. But if you take the effort to perfect the details on your Desert Clonetrooper, maybe that cute girl who stopped to take your picture on Friday night will bump into you again on Saturday and you can get her email address or whatever.

Rule number four: if you’re a girl, most of these rules don’t necessarily apply to you. All you realistically need to be worrying about is baring as much skin as you possibly can. It’s comic con, afterall. Most of these guys haven’t been out in years.

Stuff like the above is perfectly acceptable. No, actually. It’s encouraged, even. But having said that, if you’re a girl, especially an attractive girl, with a good costume, it’s like goddamn boner city.

Most of these characters are visual manifestations of what nerds have been wet-dreaming about for decades. Might as well give them what they’re hoping for.

Rule number five: nothing will make you Japanese if you’re not Japanese. The moral of the story here is that you won’t be a very good Spike Spiegel if you’re shaped like Danny Devito. Stick with what you know. The laziest costumes ever will be immortalized in con-goer’s memories if you are a dead-ringer for what you’re dressing up as.

Rule number six: you don’t have to dress up. For every one good costume there are about twenty thousand people who should have just stuck to their cargo-pants-and-stained-shirt uniform. Now is probably the best opportunity to whip out your cleverest black t shirt with its dirty, witty slogan and hope for the best.

If you’re not a complete dickwad, though, you’ll quickly realize how vast the market is for nerdy t shirts. Bust out that awesome Marvel Universe t shirt you bought online, or your horror movie shirt, or your own original artwork lovingly screened onto an American Apparel t shirt. These are all appropriate options for con attendees, with the added benefit of you not having to dress up like sad loser.

The most important mandate that I’ve taken away from Fan Expo is the following: if you’re underage or you have a kid who is underage, don’t let them walk around wearing next to nothing, and especially don’t let strangers take photos of them. Especially if those creepy guys have mustard stains down the front of their shirt, skullet ponytails, really expensive cameras with telephoto lenses and dirtbag moustaches. I can only imagine how gratifying it is to be a sixteen year old girl who’s never had a boyfriend be stopped by strangers and asked for photos, but we all know what those photos are being used for. This is where the term “fashion crimes” becomes a little more emphatically literal.

Just a friendly PSA from your friendly neighbourhood hero.