What is art?

Friday night, I was a heroin addict. Saturday night, I was Andy Warhol and on the great holiday itself, for Halloween, I was an ex-convict. Hipster zombies and Amy Winehouse; and from mangled Snow White to “the guy you can count on” comprised of numbers tagged on a shirt, this year’s festivities produced a wide array of creative costumes of which the IU student body should be proud. You may now pause to give yourself a round of applause.\nIt isn’t easy being so creative. The field of costume design is one that has been in the making since the Restoration, when the first actor-managers of London theaters began to consider the notion of staging plays in historically accurate apparel. During this time, the only way in which actors were dressed was in the style of the time – Roman guards wore breeches and boots, Greek scholars wore Restoration-era wigs and heroic Classical women, such as Antigone, appeared in those Elizabethan huge-neck things that automatically bring forth the question, “What were designers thinking?”\nIt wasn’t until the rise of the notion of antiquarianism arrived in the world of theater that costume design began to appear as an element of theatrical production. Designers, directors and historians now work together to create works of art that reflect a character’s personality, place in society and historical context.\nCostume designers take on the job of blending external character with internal emphasis. Colors define the true intentions of a character, styles of clothing define personal characteristics, and often times, what a person is wearing on stage or in film indicates where they stood in society during his or her historical moment. It is not just about finding zoot suits for a ’30s gangster or putting as many bangles on a 2006 teenage girl’s arm. It is about why each element of a character’s external appearance is important to every other aspect of the production.\nThis week, we have proved that we are capable of doing the exact same thing. Our costumes weren’t just fun. They were satirical, courageous and definitive. We used them to comment on current social issues and pop culture phenomena, to be defiantly and controversially hilarious and to be indicative of where we stand as a generation.\nUnfortunately, we have to wait another year before we ordinary civilians can bust out the Clifford the Big Red Dog costume. But in between, we have ’80s, pirate and other themed parties that reflect our desires to be expressive through costuming. Even our daily outfits occasionally represent a theme, and that in itself can be considered costume design.