I hate fancy dress.
Well, I like ‘fancy’ dress. I like black tie. I love cummberbunds, academic bands, braces, gowns, and all that. But I hate fancy dress. Stuff like this –
That is apparently a ‘Rasta Banana’. Yes, a banana that is also a Rastafarian… somehow. Obviously, this particular fancy dress costume is especially problematic. It features cultural appropriation of Rastafarianism for a start, tying it into an offensive stereotype with the dreadlocks, insinuating that the banana is ‘high’ (because Rastas are always high right), and there’s some weird link going on between Jamaica and the banana trade. It’s also horribly garish.
It looks like it’d be the most impractical outfit in the entire world too. There’s no pockets, I’m not sure how you see out of it, and you couldn’t really wear any other clothes with it. The fellow donning it here has gone barefoot, for instance.
Imagine going to a party wearing this. The hour or so you spend getting ready, before finally climbing into this thing. Then having to get to the party, which means wearing this thing OUTSIDE, exposed to the general public on a bus or train. And then at the party, having to mingle with everyone else, who have all just gone for some stick-on ears or a wacky t-shirt. You’re somehow both the centre of attention, and also the one person people least want to interact with. It taking forever to go to the toilet, unable to eat or drink anything for the entire time. Then a few hours later you leave, the excitement of the evening long behind you, repeating the whole thing in reverse – before finally ‘peeling’ yourself out of the costume, at which point the irony of that moment will be lost on you.
It costs £32 and has been described in one 3-star Amazon review as “Expensive for what it is… not very practical as a fancy dress costume“.
And this is just the start of a whole unbearable world of fancy dress. And it seems to mostly come from one specific supplier: Rasta Imposta. I don’t know much about the company or anything. But the name suggests that they started off making exclusively Rastafarian-themed items, such as this very sad looking Rasta dog –
On their website, they have all kinds of horrible costumes, like this one –
– but it’s their presence on Amazon that amazes me the most. They basically own fancy dress online. If you’ve ever looked for some fancy dress (why? who are you? what are you doing reading my blog?) you’ve probably come across them. They have over 1,000 products on Amazon UK right now.
SO LET’S LOOK AT SOME OF THEM.
We begin with the Rasta Imposta Lava Lamp costume. WOW-EE. From what I can tell, you’re basically just wearing a big, uncomfortable plastic facade of a lava lamp, but I’ll be if it doesn’t look realistic! You’re sure to be the life and soul of any lava lamp themed party! At least for the first 15 seconds before everyone immediately hates you.
Also, the feature list on this item is pretty funny:
Yeah, the seller has used bullet points instead of writing a normal sentence for some reason. One of the bullet points is just a random number that means nothing to anyone. And they’ve also misspelt lava lamp as “lave lamp.” WOW-EE. Next!
Unlike the lava lamp one, this Tetris Game Tunic claims to actually be interactive. Which is great, because it’s £13 cheaper. Reading the reviews, it seems it’s not actually an electronic wearable version of Tetris, but rather a set of Tetris pieces that stick to the tunic with velcro. Which is great for parties of course, as it means that anything you walk past will end up sticking to you as well. Oh, and we’ve just got to look at the feature list again for this one:
I am so reassured that “It is Brand new.” I wouldn’t want to be buying a used one of these things. Oh, and it’s 4666. THANK GOD.
In case it’s not obvious, I’m going through these sorted by the lowest customer review score.
If you ever needed a perfect example of cultural appropriation I think ‘white dude wearing the Mexican flag as a party costume’ would be it. Just what the hell.
Oh, I think this is an actual album and not a costume. Hard to tell though.
SO NO-ONE TOLD YOU LIFE WAS GONNA BE THIS WAY
YOUR JOB’S A JOKE YOU’RE BROKE YOUR LOVE LIFE’S DOA
The ones that are just a hat are very interesting to me. Look at how huge and annoying this would be. No way would that fit through any normal size door. You’d have to be constantly taking it off and on all night. Also, I guess the rest of your clothes would be normal. So what’s the outfit theme exactly? “Man with enormous chilli pepper on his head”? Yeah, that party classic.
I know saying ‘you were dressed provocatively so it’s your own fault’ is victim-blaming, BUT if you wear this thing, you deserve to be beaten up.
One from the ‘I voted Leave’ starter kit.
HAHA WHAT. How is this a costume. How would you even get the second glove on once you’ve got the first one on? How would you even be able to do anything that requires the use of digital manipulation (such as all things), with your damn bastard massive Mickey Mouse hands??? WHAT IS THIS.
I sorted by price to find this one. It’s the most expensive on Amazon atm. And I think it speaks for itself.
“Sorry kids, I know you wanted an Xbox for Christmas. Please, Sally, stop crying. I know all the other kids got the new Peppa Pig DVD, but your mommy and daddy had to cut back costs this year. We spent all our money on a Christmas Tree costume. Yes, we only wore it once and we’ve already thrown it away, but we got some really good selfies at the Christmas party. Actually, we think you’re being a bit selfish about this. It’s not all about you, you know.”
Ok, I think this is my limit. Dressing up as the BREAST CANCER PINK RIBBON is a little more than I can handle. I mean, if the proceeds were going to charity, that’d actually be pretty cool. But from what I can tell, Mr Imposta is just pocketing all the money for himself. So yeah, co-opting the imagery of a charitable cause tips this company from poor taste to outright immorality.
And yeah, I’m deliberately finding ridiculous examples to prove my point about how all fancy dress costumes are bad. And sure, my hatred of costumes stems mostly from my own social anxiety and inability to lose myself in the spirit of a party.
But what do we really get out of tacky dress-up? A few lols? I think we’re better than that.
Also, Rasta Imposta don’t even do a Shrek costume so how am I supposed to support them in any way?