TOP TIPS FOR A ‘BAD GAYS’ HALLOWEEN
Feeling especially villainous this spooky season but don’t know what to wear? No fear! Our friends at the super-smart ‘Bad Gays’ podcast, Ben Miller and Huw Lemmey, sent us these fab and fiendish costume concepts, from an airplane-hijacking Hungarian baron to ancient Rome’s original demon twink. Stay tuned for the new season of their podcast, which tells the sordid side of gay history, coming out this November.
BARON FRANZ NOPCSA VON FELSŐ-SZILVÁS
The first airplane hijacker was also a wannabe-Albanian cosplay queen and a paleontologist. To turn this look, you want some dinosaur bones and excavation equipment accompanied by Balkan touches. Actually, maybe reconsider. Ethnic cosplay is well past its sell-by date.
RONNIE KRAY
By his own account a homosexual but not a poof, Ronnie and his brother dressed to impress and intimidate––sharp suits, flash jewelry, cutlasses, and a bevy of pliant East End lads.
LIBERACE
If your mink and ermin budget stretches to it, Liberace is the unmistakable showboater’s choice. Rings, ruffs, sequins, trains and accessories for your accessories. To finish the look, pick out a nice twink chauffeur/boyfriend, and if anyone asks, you just haven’t met the right girl yet.
JULIE D’AUBIGNY
Ruffles and bustles and drama, darling: a baroque opera singer who juggled pants roles, women’s roles, and lovers of all genders, Julie D’Aubigny once burned down an entire convent to escape with her lover. Try pairing a snatched corset with a full skirt and some white slap.
J EDGAR HOOVER
To perfect J Edgar Hoover’s Halloween day look, choose a well-cut pinstripe, a trilby, a tommy-gun, and an authoritarian contempt for civil rights. Turn it into a nighttime look with an evening dress, heels, handbag, and an authoritarian contempt for civil rights.
ELAGABALUS
Haven’t you always wanted to make your entrance into a party with your bits hanging out and a giant avalanche of rose petals threatening to smother you and all of your guests? Wait a minute: isn’t that how you already make your entrances?
BENEDETTA CARLINI
Gays have a long and admirable history of dressing as nuns, so dig out your old habit, add stigmata, and you’re good to go. For a couple’s costume, have your boyfriend dress as Splenditello, her blond-tressed guardian angel, or Bartolomea, her novice lesbian lover.
JOE CARSTAIRS
This eccentric, dashing nonbinary oil heir dated Dietrich before retiring to rule over a private island with their lifelong companion, a foot-tall leather doll named Lord Tod Wadley. This is a great chance to break out the suiting and spats. By the end of Joe’s life, Tod was filthy: feel free to smear some mud on your favorite Barbie, or Ken.