Call me a miserable old miser, but I’ve never taken the act of dressing up to my heart.

Fancy dress is a singularly British habit, now considered as British as fish ’n’ chips or phone hacking. It’s a practice found in house parties and nightclubs up and down the land, and it’s something our country seems to have an unhealthy obsession with. And it does strike me as unhealthy – dressing up to look silly seems like the kind of bizarre personality disorder found in dangerous criminals in a murder trial. “He liked to dress up as his favourite superheroes, m’lud – obvious signs of a wayward, disturbed mind. Send him down.”

We British bloody love dressing up, but we can’t just have our own fun: we have to get evangelical on yo’ ass. It’s a peculiar strain of fashion fascism to not only enjoy looking ridiculous, but to doggedly pursue those who choose not to, and breathlessly harangue the “normies” like a 16th-century witch-hunt. Everyone’s been invited to a fancy dress party where fancy dress is “COMPULSORY”. Why should anything, beyond spending an enjoyable time with friends, be COMPULSORY at a party?

Years ago, I once made the mistake of showing up at a fancy dress party without fancy dress. I was made to feel like a leper. The host could barely comprehend the situation; our conversation went something like this:

Host: [barely able to contain her incredulity] You’re... but... where’s your fancy dress?

Me: Oh, I didn’t bother, sorry.

Host: [getting into a bit of a flap now] But it’s a fancy dress party!

Me: Yeah, sorry, I ran out of time, and besides, I’m not very good at that sort of thing.

Host: [fighting back the tears] But... it’s... a... fancy... dress... party.

Me: [starting to feel a bit uncomfortable] Look, I’m really sorry... next time, eh?

Host: [anguish now transforming into rage] I can’t BELIEVE you don’t have any fancy dress.

Me: Is there any room in the fridge for my beers?

I spent the rest of the evening feeling and looking like a pariah. It’s not that I didn’t want to have a bit of a laugh – of course I did – but couldn’t I have done so without stuffing socks down a bra? 

These days, I’m a reluctant convert – you don’t go through three years of university without being made to look like a prize idiot. I’ve dressed as a glam rock star, as Red Riding Hood and as John Lennon. I’ve been dragged by the legs through a muddy garden to gain the requisite dirty aesthetic required as one of Peter Pan’s lost boys, I’ve tied a wicker basket on my back to look like a hedgehog, and I’ve DJed drum’n’bass at a party dressed as an elderly woman. And I’ve just returned from a weekend at Bestival, where a “fancy dress day” produces endless sights of stormtroopers, gorillas, pumpkins, lighthouses, dinosaurs, and multiple Gene Simmonses. 

I get it – it’s an ice-breaker, a conversation starter, a device to break down the barriers of social rigidity. It’s also a rather ostentatious form of showing off, really, and as someone who thinks the colour yellow is a form of exhibitionism, it’s never sat well with me.

I’ll continue to go to fancy dress parties and I’ll continue to be called boring if I kick up a fuss; but if I ever get accused of murder, there’s a whole body of evidence to suggest that I’m a disturbed individual who should never see the light of day again.

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