How to survive an edgy, themed house party

When we were younger your favourite thing to dress up as for a party was a dinosaur. Nowadays, you have to be a bit more original.

House parties have recently been besieged by a wave of edgy themes, held by the coolest kids about town. Parties with unconventional themes are desperately trying to beat the others for being the most original one out there. Cowboys and Indians are no longer cool (and is culturally insensitive according to EUSA), so you need to find a theme that is both original and everyone can easily/cheaply do.

This is quite the challenge, and some of the themes are impressively eccentric. The normal person goes for the classic themes: Disney, Toga, Gatsby etc. These are oldies, but goodies. But these new wave hosts go for new, bold ideas: Nike and Nos, 00’s Double Denim, Out of This World, Shit Tees, and the new modern classic: M&S and S&M.

Clearly outdated

The array of parties where you look at the invite and say: “What the fuck am I meant to go as?” can leave you confused. Some parties have a theme but that may not necessarily indicate the need to dress up. For example: ‘Nike and Nos’. You can just wear your Nike trainers and your waviest garms and head on over for a slightly hazy adventure. But for an ‘Emoji’ theme, you might need to get your poo costume sorted out pronto.

This creates a whole world of anxiety though. If you go to a party and you’re the only one wearing your swankiest clubbing outfit, whilst everyone else there looks like something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, you feel like a bit of a moron.

Hence the cautious approach: for a Mean Girls party you can play it safe and wear jeans and pink top, army pants and flip flops. Or you can be bold and go as Katy Heron in her zombie bride costume. It all depends on how much time, energy and money you have/want to devote.

Then there’s the ultimate safe option – add some fun glitter and face gems and see what happens. While glitter is a nightmare to get off the next day, it fits everywhere, be it circus or alien.

As usual, the girls take themes more seriously. This is because girls have a distinct advantage. They have more options in the shops, and have spent most of their adolescence perfecting their makeup skills. Although, at every party you get a few boys who have pulled out all the stops – helped out by girls to create a unique look.

These boys tend to be the heroes of the party as they become talking points, elevated in for that one party, purely for their originality and commitment to the party.

Some themes sound pretentious and lame – but a party is what you make of it. So if you want to lie around in the dark with 20 other people breathing in and out of balloons then go for it. Or you can get your best princess costume out and run around overexcited because you can finally live out your dream.