Dressing-down

All right, so the 1980s theme party that Sid and I attended on New Year’s Eve wasn’t as scandalous as the “Prostitute & Pimp” party thrown last month by one of Sid’s friend. But dressing up in George Michael gear or Madonna’s Who’s That Girl-attire didn’t make anyone look better than prostitutes and pimps.

Of all the English cultural quirks – read, kidney pies and Katie Price – it is this predilection for mass ritualistic fancy dress parties that I find most peculiar.

Now, for us Indians, it is a simple equation. If we are going to a party, we try our best to look our best. We are too conscious of not being good looking enough – not tall enough, not fair enough, not thin enough, not blonde enough – to treat our looks with any sense of humour.

But by corollary, does it mean that the English are so confident and bored of their good looks that they are ready to spend so much time, energy, money and effort into making themselves look ridiculous? (Now if it were Italy or Spain, I wouldn’t find that confidence questionable. But England?)

Or is it that they are so convinced of being irreparably ugly that they see no point in dressing up? Their act of looking silly is rebellion against the French and Spanish pressures to look good, which they know they simply can’t achieve, so why try!

Or perhaps, as Sid says, they are just interested in have fun!