Costume Research - Party Scene

We examined party scenes in terms of the costumes worn so that our characters would have believable costumes while they partied.

Research of films, coupled with our questionnaires concerning appearances of characters, made it clear that female characters must be physically appealing in costume and body in order to attract males, and stylish to the point of being aspirational for females so that the target population is as broad as possible. It could also be considered that the characters have sexualised costumes in order to appeal to a sense of justice when the character dies in audiences who consider sexual character immoral. This is clear in films such as 'Sorority Row', in which the main protagonists are all thin attractive girls, and they dress in a promiscuous nature that shows a lot of flesh. In this photo, for example, they are dressed for a pyjama party, and are therefore showing a lot of their legs and stomachs. Although our party is not pyjama themed, it maintains the same standards of dress.

This is seen across all genres, such as in the comedy 'Mean Girls', in which it is noted that in "girl world" costume parties are cause to dress provocatively. This can be seen in a skin-tight leather styled cat suit and a negligee style dress, as well as accessories such as animal ears. Styled hair and make up is also evidently important.

In 'Night of the Demons', this is shown through the sexualised image of a cat shown in this image. Even though the party in our film is not a costume party, the provocative dress is obvious in the low cut and tight outfit that could be lingerie. The styling of hair and make up also acts to make the character look more attractive, and we use this kind of costuming for our party scene.

In this party scene in 'Superbad', the female characters are not in the same level of provocative clothing. However, they are still wearing form fitting clothing that reveals some flesh such as lower stomach, chest and arms. This shows the stylish nature of party clothes in that they usually reveal some form of flesh in order to be seen as attractive, although there are varied degrees of clothing. For our party scene we will include short skirts and some visible chests, although we will not go to the same extent as the image above. This is especially true of the main protagonist who will survive as she must appear more moral, so is in a less revealing costume.




-Emily