Adventures in Shapeshifting

While I haven't expressed the gothic, Snapelike side of myself in far too long, nor have I been idle when it comes to my nature.

Earlier this year I became interested in another tragic but very real, historical figure, Marie Antoinette, and her story. Drawn first by the extreme fashions of the era, triggered by a character of mine who is interested in fashion, I proceeded to learn what I could.
(The character, Aria Merry, is a psychically sensitive, insecure and somewhat indecisive young woman in a privileged school, whose eyes are opened by her relationship to a sarkazo -- one of Isaac's sharp-tongued kindred and indeed, Isaac's own apprentice: yet another legacy of the sarcastic Severan mouth!)

It turns out Marie Antoinette almost certainly didn't say "Let them eat cake"; it was likely another princess. Yet one more of history's seriously misunderstood, blamed and slandered women, Marie was far from evil; rather, she was largely clueless, closeted in the unbelievable privilege and stifling decorum of the Austrian and French courts, unaware at first of the brutal struggle of the working classes: In France at that time, an equal of today's blue-collar grunt worker might spend 50% of his income just on food; literally, bread. Thus, even a false accusation of the famous cake statement could have been the inflammatory "fake news" that exacerbated an already volatile situation and sent Marie, not to mention an entire class and regime, to its death. Marie did attempt to learn about her nation's politics, but her efforts were viewed as too little, too late by a starving, angry populace. Nor did her rather incompetent husband help her efforts a great deal.

Marie's tragic scapegoating and the fate of the Last Queen is only one of the most obviously grim elements in the tale of the French Baroque era. The fashion excesses alone, the work they required and the lengths to which people inconvenienced themselves, have their own macabre quality -- be it face whitening made from toxic lead oxide, cloth shoes that came apart after the first few steps ("But, Madame, you mist have walked in them!"), or two-foot-high hairstyles so elaborate they were dismantled but once a month for restyling to reveal swarms of bugs, mice and other vermin that had moved into the horsehair padding. Such details give the skin cause to crawl! The French Revolution was directly sparked by resistance to enforced fashions the majority classes could not afford to wear so as to represent themselves lawfully in official proceedings.

In deciding to recreate Marie Antoinette for this year's masquerade ball, I knew I had a big job ahead. It was to be a fun experiment, especially because I have a rather masculine spirit and had rarely, if ever, taken on such a frilly, feminine form. What a joyful mess my bedroom became!

I had a lacy pink princess dress I'd bought at a thrift store -- it would do. But it needed an underskirt, a support system of hoops called panniers to widen the hips into that baroque "cargo door" shape, and poofy hip-cover skirts to accentuate the panniers.

My hair was yet another matter: It was finally long enough to sweep up into a high hairdo, but needed a support of stuffing.

The trouble was, unlike Marie Antoinette, I had no handmaidens. No hairdresser. No seamstress. And above all, comparatively no money.
The story of Cinderella is ancient, possibly Southern European or Classical in origin, but has been readapted through the ages and lent itself well to the Baroque or Ancien Regime era: At the balls of the French royal court, anyone could attend -- if one was properly dressed. No matter who you were, if you could buy, beg, borrow, steal, or make the right sort of fashion, you could walk in that door, just as Cinderella had. Blue collar slave or not, she had arrived rocking royal style; her pretty face did the rest.
I had no fairy godmother. I did have a cheap fabric outlet, a sewing machine, pins and needles. I was on my own.

The result, if I do say, turned out pretty damn good and I was quickly a focus of admiration at our own modern masquerade. The best thing about putting in that much time and work on an outfit -- besides getting to say "I made it" AND wearing it to lots of things -- is the opportunity to inspire others to expand their creative limits, for their next masquerade or elsewhere in life . . . just as those amazing outfits I saw on my first masquerade night became an inspiration to me.

Dec. 9th marked my third experiment with Marie Antoinette style. For the gothic masquerade, I went for a more ghoulish facial look to highlight Marie's tragic history and the inevitable death faced by all eras, fashion and otherwise.

A week later, I accepted my friend Justine's invite to the Red Dress benefit ball for HIV/AIDS, whose theme this year was "red queen", a la the Queen of Hearts. Marie was a perfect fit here, but I chose to indulge her playful side instead.

 I found myself in good company, among both others dressed as historical or cartoon queens, and the other type of "queen" as well: Those guy-girls were simply faaabulous!

Off with their heads, I say!

Finally, I got hold of another French Baroque-style dress a few weeks ago when a 100+ year old Portland store, Helen's Costumers, went out of business. They had a big liquidation sale, so I selected a full Marie-style gown from among the best of condition and several other lovely period garments and props, for which I payed a staggering total low of $30.

A frigid 18th-century French witch . . .

The Marie Antoinette dress from Helen's was blue, and I knew it was destined for the Vespertine Winter masquerade from the start. Using this year's theme of "Night of the Witch Queen", I did my level best to create a witchy sort of Marie Antoinette.

It's not always easy to conjure up a decent ball look when you wake up at five o'clock that afternoon, exhausted after a week of graveyard factory shifts! I cursed, swearing it was the LAST time I'd duke it out with my damned hair, but pulled it together all the same. Still, I'll admit I'm glad that this year I got to cheat, and didn't have to make my dress!

Shapeshifting is an odd business. Just ask any actor; they do it professionally. I watched an interview with Alan Rickman on YouTube two nights ago, in which he described how his choices were crucial in the design of Professor Snape's outfit: By fitting such unusually long, tight sleeves and coat with lots of buttons, he was better able to channel Snape's austere personality as he strapped himself into the fabric form, thus more effectively "shapeshifting" in both body abd mind. Maggie Smith tells a similar tale regarding her role as Ruth DeWitt Bukater in the Titanic film: "I don't feel I have my character until I am in the corset."
What made my latest turn of Marie Antoinette so odd for me is that her iconic look is very feminine, while my soul is currently undergoing a masculine flip. Even as I donned panniers and poofy hair, my spirit was already about half Snape, hardass-warlock type person. It just didn't quite fit as it had earlier this spring -- even though I contain both polarities of gender expression, they each demand their time.
An unpleasant incident I faced while running for my "carriage", the No. 8 bus, drove this home further.
I don't mind running in a gown, carrying hoops. What I do mind is men, particularly scummy sorts of men, and most particularly scummy and rather large black men, acting as if I dressed up just for them (right!) and plastering their lecherous eyes on me. Then asking me three times if I need help, and yelling "F--- you, bitch, I'll chase you down and beat your ass" when I let them know that no, they cannot in fact help. (Sure, as if he really wants to "help". And they actually wonder why we despise them?)
While lecherous losers are drawn to lots of makeup and diamond bling like flies to rotten meat, they just aren't as likely to get stimulated in the nether regions by some skinny, greasy-haired, black-clad, plain-faced, scowling goth brandishing a wand made out of rebar. Snape, for most men, just isn't that sexy. (Some gay men would differ, but gay men often behave less as jerkwads, too, it seems.)
Right then, I longed to ditch the damsel-in-distress princess bullshit -- since I'm not one -- and do worse than Impedimenta the bastard. (Or better yet, Sectumsempra: keep him from breeding.) This blue-collar, beer bottling Cinderella arrived at the ball with a piece of broken, sharp-cornered aluminum plate, scooped from the gutter as a weapon, in her pocket. Just in case.
I'm surprised Cinderella didn't get mobbed and raped on her way home from the ball! Except, she'd barely run down the grand staircase when the clock struck, and her gown changed back to sooty, filthy rags. No prize to be had there.
For better or worse, clothes really are magic.

The rest of the night went well, and I shared it with several other giddy women in wonderful, similarly decadent French Baroque-style outfits. But I decided I've had enough of getting bumped about in panniers for awhile. Maybe, as I later told my friend Timothy, I just wasn't drunk enough.

The next night, I enjoyed shapeshifting of a much different sort. It was Portland's 8th annual Krampuslauf! (as mentioned in a previous post)

I was late. After a lunch with my friend Faith, I dug my furriest coat out of storage, grabbed some hairy, spiked cowhide gauntlets, let down all that copious hair in need of a trim, and hauled ass southeast to join the celebration of Winter's dark side.

I heard the bells first. Then the pan-flutes. Along the south sidewalk, a string of masked, horned figures approached like a scene from a nightmare, infesting Hawthorne Street. I slid quickly into the lineup, tying on a hairy face mask. Even as the chain of Krampusi and other foul sprites oozed down a modern sidewalk, wiggling claws at windows, poking blood-painted faces into doors, banging drums, jingling and sporting clanking cowbells, time shifted. I felt something incredibly ancient, primitive and pagan accompanying us, keeping pace with the group, warding off the modern era wherever we trod. This was Winter as our ancestors had once known it, ruthless and savage, reaching toward any "left out in the cold" with cruel claws. To be ostracized from a clan on account of naughtiness was certainly no picnic in olden days! Small wonder Krampus was an effective threat to children who misbehaved.

After a last bout of shrieks, growls and jingles, we ended all too soon at the park, and I learned the Krampus carol. With so much energy raised, I would have enjoyed doing a ritual of some kind, beyond just a last carol . . . but it seemed we were done. After seeing all I could, I bussed back home.

Here, a tree seems to preside over the gathering of hairy Yuletide demons. My photos don't do the Krampuslauf proper justice, so here's a video on YouTube of the proceedings:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=8eY8blRBt-k


Changes of dress and personality needn't be initiated by a big costumed event, of course. Some cases of my own personal "shapeshifting" are simply a case of 'When in Rome'. For instance, I threw myself into snowboarding a couple of years ago. Not only did I dive fearlessly into jumps and half-pipe alongside teeming swarms of young men in beanies and baggies, I quickly assimilated parts of the culture while on the slopes -- with entertaining results:

I laugh every time I see this picture. Clearly, when in this Rome, I'm not any given age, or even a particular gender: I'm a shredder, and nothing but. I blend in, yes, but it goes deeper: I'm channeling the pure soul, the life, of this form.
Looking at this picture, it's boggling even for me to think that this scuzzy, cigar-smoking snowboard bum can, and will, transform into Marie Antoinette at one polar extreme and Severus Snape the next (though an alpine Krampus demon seems within reach here!) -- even while it's me doing it!
But that's how it is for witches, shamans, actors, and all-round shapeshifters. Shifters are fluid. They adapt. They walk between forms, talk to different worlds. Maybe there's a purpose for this talent beyond just having fun. Maybe it's a tool of spiritual evolution. Or, better yet, a way to help those differing polarities communicate, so others can break out of their own rigid little forms and follow in a path of exploration.

Shapeshifting, in my experience, is always an interesting and enlightening pursuit. It certainly begets creativity, no matter which form is decided upon. But with my witchy power feeling keener than it has in years, it goes without saying there's one particular shape I'm just itching to take again.
As usual, I'm . . . up to something.