00:00Translator: David Goldovt-Ryzhenkov
Reviewer: Zsuzsa Viola
00:12I'm going to talk about
political protest and papier mache.
00:18But for any of this to make sense,
I first need to confess something to you,
00:22something that might not be obvious
just by looking at me.
00:26My name's Lucy,
and I'm a sensible grown-up.
00:33and a responsible member of my community.
00:36But I much prefer dressing up
as someone else.
00:40You see, I have always loved fancy dress.
00:46And since this picture -
00:49But since this picture was taken,
I've ramped things up a bit.
00:54I've commissioned made-to-measure armor
from a workshop in the Ukraine,
00:58imported professional Hollywood blood.
01:01I've nurtured a collection of 36 tiaras.
01:05I've had a fake wedding,
complete with fake bridesmaids,
01:08fake vicar, fake husband.
01:11I hospitalized myself once
01:13after an incident with a Roman toga
and some very hot glue.
01:18And I once sent my son to school
looking like this.
01:27Now, the kind of fancy dress
that I love is not the same as cosplay
01:30with its discipline
and immersiveness and accuracy.
01:34They're the real deal.
01:36But what I adore
is the peculiar eccentricity
01:39of cardboard cut-outs,
dodgy sewing, stapled seams.
01:45It's kitchen-table couture.
01:47The for-one-night-only aspect,
falling into bed drunk
01:51and danced out and still
wearing the face paint.
01:54And there's nothing
disciplined about that.
01:57So in order to have
more fancy dress in my life -
02:01because, honestly, it's awful -
02:03you can't do it in supermarkets
or on average Wednesdays.
02:07So I created a podcast about it.
02:09The only podcast about fashion,
fantasy, and fancy dress.
02:14Or costumes, as they prefer
to call it in the US.
02:18It's a place to explore
the elaborate themes,
02:21intricacies, and influence
of costume in real life.
02:26Because I'm interested
02:27in the distinction between
the performative and the personal.
02:32Ordinary people in extraordinary outfits.
02:36And what struck me
more than any other subject
02:39we've encountered on the show
02:40is the way people use costume
as a tool for protest.
02:45Now, you might be thinking,
02:47"What does dressing up have to do
with the important business of politics?"
02:53And it does seem counterintuitive.
02:55Why dress silly in order
to be taken seriously?
02:59But from caped crusaders
to modern suffragettes,
03:02people are getting creative with costume
to express their outrage
03:06and garner global attention.
03:10It's worth saying here that fashion
is often treated as a flimsy,
03:14generally female distraction
from the real issues of the day,
03:18and despite being
a three-trillion-dollar industry,
03:21it's often marginalized or dismissed
in commentary about current affairs.
03:26And yet, every day each one of us
03:30uses what we wear as a tool
for constructing our sense of self,
03:34for literally fashioning our identities.
03:37If fashion is considered frivolous,
then fancy dress is really frivolous.
03:43But actually, it allows us to express
the most extreme version of ourselves.
03:49It allows us to be something other.
03:52Something in-between,
something in development.
03:56And historically, it's always
had a relationship with hot topics.
04:01Here's a gown by Worth worn
by Mrs. Vanderbilt in 1883,
04:06representing the spirit of electricity.
04:09More recently, there's been
a decidedly less beautiful trend
04:13for dressing as the Millennial's
favorite, the avocado.
04:27Over the years, fancy dress has
playfully depicted controversial moments,
04:32from this matchgirl factory-strike dress
04:35to Urban Outfitter's
Halloween "Influencer" costume.
04:40It's satire and disruption
and provocation.
04:44So I'm going to take us
beyond slogan T-shirts
04:47to look at the ways
bonkers subversive garments
04:50are being used to take on
the establishment.
04:53Here, we can see an anarchic continuity
04:56from gunpowder plot
through to Occupy Wall Street.
05:00These masks taken from
the comic book "V for Vandetta,"
05:03are used as a public face
of the anonymous movement.
05:06They're a variation on a Guy Folks theme,
05:09and they hark back
to ancient carnivals and masquerades
05:12where the usual societal
rules don't apply,
05:14and everything is temporarily topsy-turvy.
05:18Here, "Handmaid's Tale" costumes
are appropriated for demonstrations
05:22against the Trump administration,
05:24and we saw a lot
at the Kavanaugh hearings -
05:26taking a moment in fiction
from Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopia,
05:31and applying it
to a very current conflict,
05:33lines of silent, highly visible women
outside courtrooms and the Capitol.
05:40Hilariously, later, in a complete
misjudgment of the cultural mood,
05:44the retailer Yandy prompted
wide-spread disgust
05:47when they launched
a sexy version of the Handmaid.
05:55I don't think they'd read the novel.
05:59Elsewhere, the visual language
of the suffragettes
06:02is borrowed from new battle,
06:04purple for dignity,
white for purity, green for hope.
06:08Powerful Pantones and a pre-hashtag way
of building momentum.
06:12Sentiments like
"Same shit, different century"
06:15are rendered ever so lady-like.
06:18The campaign group Fathers for Justice
uses a range of costumes in their stunts
06:22from Batman to Santa.
06:24Clear statements in a contentious debate.
06:26By using classic icons of good,
06:29by hijacking the visual grammar
of superheroism,
06:33they're trying to invoke
an almost an instinctive, nostalgic,
06:37sympathetic response in the viewer.
06:40The Pink Pussyhat Project
took a traditional domestic skill
06:44and rendered it the opposite
of calm or comforting.
06:47This open-source knitting pattern,
this moment of craftivism -
06:51originally conceived the people
who wanted to march but couldn't -
06:55was quickly embraced
by women's activists all over the world.
06:59Sarah Mower called it
07:00a global cheerful symbol
of feminist defiance in British Vogue,
07:04and it's considered so important
a moment in fashion history
07:07that the V&A's brilliantly titled
Rapid Response Collection
07:12have already acquired one.
07:15Now, imagine if you took
the costumes away in all these examples.
07:22If they were just standing there
in jeans and anoraks.
07:27What does that do the occasion,
07:29the atmosphere, the news cycle?
07:33Each of these examples
uses cultural referencing
07:36to make a statement without saying a word.
07:39It's free speech without speech,
07:41the messages writ large on the body.
07:44And how do you express
your feelings about issues
07:47that are so complex,
07:49so shifting, so delicate, so divisive
07:52that sometimes language eludes
07:54even the very best of us?
07:58I just love her face in that picture.
08:05At a time when the words of experts
are ridiculed and critics are trolled,
08:11when fake news rebrands truth as fiction,
08:14perhaps we need tools
that are beyond language
08:18to securely assert our values.
08:22I think there's a link
between fancy dress and ambition.
08:26It's why we love it growing up.
08:28You can be a ballet dancer
and a firefighter,
08:30all in the same afternoon.
08:31But for the game to work,
08:33you have to do more
than just put the clothes on.
08:35You need to aspire into those costumes.
08:39Fancy dress isn't just a tool
to passively join in,
08:42but an opportunity
to project our future selves,
08:48And I believe there's a relationship
08:50between the way we dress
and how brave we feel.
08:54I know that because it took me weeks
to decide what to wear today.
08:58Perhaps, dressing up gives us courage
to behave in ways we wouldn't otherwise.
09:04Here are some extreme
illustrations of that.
09:07During the American Civil War,
Frances Clayton dressed as a male soldier,
09:12becoming Jack Williams.
09:14She fought with the Missouri
Regiment in 17 battles
09:18before her identity was revealed.
09:21She used uniform
first to disguise her gender,
09:25second as armor, a layering
of costume that allowed her
09:30to elude the male gaze
09:31and instead train her eye
to fight alongside them.
09:35Which, I wonder, was the more dangerous?
09:38By wearing her warrior status,
09:41Frances was dressing up
in order to be allowed in.
09:45A whole life born out of those clothes.
09:49The women of the 18th century
often used the masquerades
09:52as an opportunity to elope or escape.
09:55Being masked and unchaperoned
gave them an unusual freedom,
09:59a socially sanctioned moment of disguise
10:02to pursue a life beyond
the one ascribed to them.
10:06The mask made them dangerous and daring.
10:10We know how extreme
the psychology of this can be
10:13because the worst imaginable atrocities
have been committed masked
10:17and in a kind of costume.
10:22Cloaked and criminal.
10:25A group united
as a chilling icon of hatred.
10:29Costume isn't intrinsically innocent.
10:32And a disguise can free
an innermost evil, too.
10:37Costume for unity can be seen
in a completely different way here:
10:42"She is getting married, so we're having
organized compulsory fun."
10:48We've all been there.
10:50Or here, at the State of the Union,
10:52where it says we are part
of an empowered tradition
10:54honoring the suffragettes' legacy.
10:57Simply put, when an activist
puts their identity alongside a placard,
11:02they show that they,
as an individual, express a view.
11:06If they want to connect it with a wider
movement, they can use a signifier,
11:09like the suffragette colors
11:10or the "hi-viz" vests
of the French "Gilets jaunes."
11:15Whereas in fancy dress, the costume
subsumes the individual entirely
11:20into the view they're expressing.
11:23It's as if, bizarrely,
when someone is concealed,
11:27their true values
become completely visible.
11:31The arresting protest images
I've shown you today,
11:34and of course there are many more,
11:35all, unequivocally,
communicate collective hopes.
11:39By protesting in costume,
these people are giving voice
11:43to their democratic right
to imagine a potential future,
11:47to identify with each other,
11:48and to express their freedom.
11:51So costume has real potential
to challenge and confront,
11:55for disruption and dissent.
11:57By dressing outside ourselves,
we trick the eye,
12:00attract the focus, demand recognition.
12:03We creatively tell the people in power
that we're not comfortable conforming,
12:08that the collective issue is bigger
than our personal perspective.
12:14Fancy dress is not bound
by who you are or how you identify
12:20but by the message you want to embody.
12:23And those messages aren't constrained
by the limits of your experience
12:28or your environment.
12:30Only by your imagination.
12:33And we have to imagine our utopias
before we can build them.
12:38It is imagination that sells
12:40thousands of cheap and cheerful
Marilyn Monroe dresses every year.
12:43Imagination that sends kids to school
clutching Harry Potter wands,
12:48and sales figures for grotesque rubber
presidential candidate masks
12:52have correctly predicted
U.S. election outcomes since Nixon.
12:59Isn't he handsome there?
13:03Unlike any other kind of getting dressed,
13:06fancy dress is fundamentally
about infinite possibility.
13:10That's why we keep it alive,
13:12even when technology offers up
far more sophisticated vehicles
13:15for experimenting or escapism.
13:18We still throw another party,
13:20hand down our treasured dressing-up boxes,
those time capsules of ideas
13:25and interpretations.
13:28So if dressing together
as one brilliant rainbow crew
13:33gives you a sense
of strength and belonging,
13:36a palette just about big enough
to celebrate your pride,
13:40then use all the colors.
13:42Or if you wake up one morning thinking
Brexit is a job for Wonderwoman ...
13:52Or if you're moved to rise up
in solidarity in a crowd of pink hats
13:57that say in glorious, loving shorthand
how your body is equal,
14:03how it is not there for grabbing,
14:06how it belongs fiercely to yourself,
14:12Just as children dressing as astronauts
aren't trying out a future career,
14:16they're playing
with an alternative reality.
14:19So we can use the freedom of fancy dress
to communicate an imagined,
14:24better version of our lives.
14:26Because fancy dress says, "This tawdry
reality isn't good enough for me."
14:30Think of it as dressing up for the job
you want, not the job you have.
14:35Or for turning one night only
14:37into a blueprint
for a magical tomorrow, too.
14:43fancy dress has a grown-up role to play
beyond stag parties and Halloweens.
14:48Its principles even have a place
at the State Opening of Parliament
14:51and the State of the Union.
14:53From full get-up to subtle signifiers,
this is about being emboldened.
14:59Massive movements
are born of micro demonstrations.
15:03Things that seem trivial or frivolous
can be potent symbols
15:08of what you stand for,
or what you won't stand for.
15:12There's real power in putting
on those knitted ears,
15:15in choosing to wear a cape
for good versus evil.
15:18Fancy dress has a unifying quality
that we can use to fight for change,
15:23armed only with glue guns and gumption.
15:28And if costume makes up braver,
15:31it gives us the courage
to explore imaginative alternatives.
15:36The courage not just to turn up
but to be noticed.
15:42So I hope we never grow out of it.
15:47(Applause) (Cheers) (Whistles)
