How to absolutely nail a fancy dress party.

There are two different types of women in this world.

Those who like dress up parties, and those who don’t.

(I leave men out of the equation, reader, because I’m yet to meet a man who hates dress up parties. The vast majority of male humans I have met find nothing more entertaining, more hysterical, or more genius than putting a morph suit and pulling shapes on the dancefloor. It’s like catnip for men.)

But for women? Well, it’s a bloody minefield, one that has shattered more egos than a thousand Bridget Jones. The dress up party separates the women from the girls, the brave from the timid, and the Playboy Bunnies from the bowls of spaghetti.

And before you starting reading too far into that, I will clarify: I have a costume party this Friday, and I am going as a bowl of spaghetti.

Resplendent in a meatball hat, yellow yarn hair, and red-and-white-checked tablecloth dress. Why? Because it’s a goddamn costume party. And I have learnt this is the best and brightest place to be flying your freak flag high, and proud.

AS A BOWL OF SPAGHETTI.

The psychology behind costume parties is fairly simple. The timeline looks a little something like this.

1. You receive the invite. You skim the details until you reach that dreaded two words. "Dress Up."
2. Your heart stops. You are going to look like a moron. You are going to look fat. You are going to look deranged. Everyone is better at dressing up than you, and how the HELL are you going to compete with Amanda who will invariably hire the most expensive Khaleesi costume and get her hair professionally braided and probably make a paper-f*cking-mache dragon?!
3. You're not going.
4. You're actually going to message right this very instant and say you can't go.
5. You decide to just really quickly Google the costume shop up the road. Oh. Well. It's actually rather good. This could be fun.
6. You message your girlfriend to see if she's going. She is. You suggest going as Romy and Michele from Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion.
7. She declines, but now you're in too deep. You groan inwardly when you realise you're definitely going.
8. You start brainstorming Sexy Dress Up Ideas. Sexy cat? Sexy nurse? Sexy teacher? Needs to be more original. Sexy...um, sexy naturopath?
9. Yeah, sexy naturopath. That's a good one.
10. You hit 'attending' and start planning your outfit.
11. You spent every lunch hour for a week trawling Spotlight and Hot Dolla stores for costume pieces.
12. $267 and four nights of sewing sparkly vitamin C tablets to your favourite pair of hotpants and you're good to go.
13. You sit in a cab out the front of the party and feel sick with regret.
14. You watch all the sexy cats, sexy nurses and sexy teachers walk in. Looking sexy.
15. You take a deep breath and walk in.
16. You get drunk enough to forget you are wearing a hand-sewn sexy naturopath costume.
17. You wake up the next day and throw the costume in the bin.

It's a giant circle, basically, that takes you from coming up with a terrible costume idea, to having second thoughts on your terrible costume idea, to wearing the terrible costume idea.

It is a learning curve, necessary to the personal development of a woman: for you have not truly learnt the depths of your ability to survive on personality alone, until you are the only bowl of spaghetti in a room full of Playboy Bunnies.

When I was 21, I went to a dress up party as Siegfried & Roy. Simultaneously. Being attacked by a tiger. Impossible! I hear you cry. Extraordinary skill! I hear you say. And yes, whilst it was an amazing feat of costumery to go as two men and tiger, it was also like living out that nightmare that you turn up to school on a Saturday.

I left the house feeling like I nailed the theme, and walked out of the party feeling like an actual insane person. What was I thinking? All of the other girls were wearing the sexiest costumes imaginable, and there I was: all fake blood, plastic limbs, top hats, and stuffed tigers.

To add insult to injury, I walked out to witness my crush getting into a taxi with a sexy cat. Or maybe she was a sexy nurse. I can't remember, but I can tell you this much - she wasn't anywhere near a Siegfried & Roy Being Attacked By A Tiger.

I was crushed.

But I also was faced with a slightly more prolific choice for the years that were ahead: did I want to be the sexy cat who snags the man...or did I want to be the slightly alarming 'Siegfried & Roy Being Attacked By A Tiger' who won the Best Dressed prize?

Choices, choices. Costume parties really do draw some pretty serious considerations into question. Am I confident enough to carry off an obscure costume? Or did I desire the admiration of men and women alike when I strut in looking like a suburban version of a Victoria's Secret Model? Can I laugh at myself, along with everyone else....or did I want to feel safe and blend in?

Some of us are just born to be bowls of spaghetti. Even as a young child, I would demand whole boxes of dress up clothing accompany me on family holidays. I would manage to con even the most hardened Queensland father to don a tutu and come and have a chat to the family dog with me.

Imagination is central to my very being, and I am sorry, ladies, but dressing as a sexy cat requires as much imagination as breathing.

Behold, the master:

For my 21st birthday, I chose the theme 'Garbage'. I instructed everyone to make their own costumes out of garbage bags and cardboard boxes (to which they all obliged) and as for me? Well, I turned up in this:

Wallflower, I am not.

I have been Lady Gaga:

And Boy George:

I've been Party Monster:

Betty Draper:

David Bowie:

Even a plate of pancakes:

And this Friday I'm going to be the best damn bowl of spaghetti you've ever seen.

Here's my opinion on the dress up party conundrum: go loud, and go proud. You have 364 days in the year to make yourself look beautiful and glamourous, so why not take that one, rare, special day to just get out out there and be a FREAK? Be clever! Be weird! Make people laugh! Show Amanda what you're made of and trump her paper-mache-Khaleesi dragon by going as an ACTUAL DRAGON! Slay, girl, slay!

Don't dread the entrance, and certainly don't do what I did and sit in a cab out the front watching the sexy cats stream in. If slightly tubby men get to don a lurid green morph suit and do the macarena on the dance floor until sweat stains begin to show around their arsecrack, then you know what honey? You should too.

Watch this space, because my meatballs are gon' be bringing all the boys to the yard.