Costumes - or Dressing up to go someplace

These musings are prompted by the recent photograph of First Lady Michelle Obama, wearing an ugly gray baseball cap and sunglasses to go shopping at a Washington DC area Target. Critics of the First Lady allege that she did it as some kind of "image adjustment".  See Critics Slam 1st Lady's Target Trip

If Michelle Obama had known that the AP photographer would be taking her picture, I submit that she would have chosen a better looking hat. The problem with alleging that she dressed up like an ordinary middle class housewife for some kind of political purpose is that for most of her life, she was an ordinary middle-class housewife. And even if she did don a "disguise" what's the problem?

Ordinary people, especially sci-fi and fantasy, enjoy dressing up to go to conventions. Here are some of the folks wondering around Archon 35 on Saturday Oct 1 which is the big day for the Masquerade Contest:

Steampunk with cell phone

Love that handbag!

Pipe, program and water bottle!

Let's settle this disagreement like nerds.

This lady had Harry Dresden's long leather duster and sunglasses...

Shows the eclectic nature of the costumes...

Humans and Klingons can still be friends.

These "riot police" were on hand to arrest your friends for charity...

Steampunk ruled, with quasi-Victorian gentlemen and ladies outnumbering space and medieval fantasy themed costumes by a large number. It's an intriguing genre harking back to such Victorian era titans as H. G. Wells and Mark Twain but with a technological and cultural twist. I love history and I adore fantasy but I admit having a hard time dealing with speculative fiction that tries to combine the two. However, the steampunk costumes combine an elegance and flair that invites creativity. I was impressed with the number of contestants who made their own costumes, jewelry and accessories.

The folks who are griping about the First Lady dressing down to go to Target would probably not be friendly to the ordinary people dressing up to go the Archon 35. What we wear and where we go are basic liberties that hark back to that memorable phrase in the Declaration of Independence 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness'. So the First Lady was looking for a little liberty outside the White House walls; the Archon 35 Masqueraders were pursuing happiness; and the critics...they need to get a life...