We attended the party of a wonderful friend yesterday evening to help celebrate her 50th birthday. The invitation requested 80s themed fancy dress.
Her costume resurrected her exact look from a student photo during the era - wearing a Wham t-shirt, denim jacket, huge plastic jewellery, and layers of various neon coloured gauze. Oh - and massive hair.
My costume was mostly accurately described by a friend shortly after assembling it for the first time as “Pound Shop Patrick Swayze”. They weren’t wrong. I had a fake Shell suit, mullet wig (nick-named “Roland Rat”), and real Nike high-top trainers. You really can find anything on the internet. The fake Shell suit was more water proof than track attire - meaning it caused my body to run about 110 degrees throughout the evening. It was… uncomfortable to say the least.
Memorable moments of the evening?
Leaving the hotel in full costume to wait for our taxi. I passed a mid-twenties guy in the corridor that looked genuinely terrified. I laughed, and explained our mission. He grinned - “you guys look great!” - I think he actually started walking faster after saying it.
Two of our friends dressed as Axl Rose and Slash, with the best costumes I’ve seen in quite some time. During the evening the DJ played Paradise City - and the entire place turned into a mosh pit - surrounding the unlikely heroes and belting out the words together.
It was nice just to step outside of our normal lives for the evening. Normal life has been a bit of a slog for so long now I can’t really remember when it wasn’t. It was just good to spend time with friends, and be horrified that the 1980s were forty years ago now. The music is still amazing though.
At the end of the night we called an Uber, returned to our hotel, and sat in the bed watching TV, drinking water (forty years teaches you at least a few things), and stuffing chocolate from the vending machine in the hallway. Mid conversation my other half fell asleep. Soon after, I did too - dropping the TV remote, which ricocheted off everything in the room so loudly that it woke us both back up.
I really don’t know how we didn’t have a hangover this morning. Perhaps it had something to do with measures at the bar being somewhat economical. Or the three hundred degree shell suit private sauna worn throughout the evening. During a break from the evening’s shenanigans I wandered out into the fresh air and found several other people wearing shell suits, all laughing at each other’s thermonuclear struggles.
We stood in the dark for some time - sharing stories of our favourite music of the era. I’ll probably never see them again, but I’ll remember that one of them had been a massive Gary Numan fan, and another a competitive figure skater than once danced on ice to Oxygene 4 by Jean Michel Jarre. The first Jean Michel Jarre fan - other than myself - that I have ever met.