Matieka 2007 report

Last weekend was the annual German carnival Matieka in Stellenbosch. I tried to attend the main event on Saturday evening, but never got to the door, since all 600 tickets were sold out by the time the event was supposed to start officially. I was even dressed for the event, just like most other people. The theme as every year was virtually unknown by most or simply ignored.

Just simply standing in the queue was an interesting experience and quite a bit of fun. Just for fun and the experience, I tried to dress as a female character, which most people in the queue did seem to recognise as a real female. One person who came with me also said that I looked the part. The outfit itself was a Supergirl costume which was open at the legs, stomach area and upper chest. The face I sorted out by using a realistic mask from Greylandfilm and a wig. To cover the rim of the mask around the eyes, I added a black eye mask. The idea was to look like a woman who wore a Supergirl costume with a bit of mystery added about what the face looks like. The end result was more or less as desired. Only one person seemed to have realised that I was not really female, the rest didn't seem to notice. Hands and legs and chest area would give that away a bit, as well as the eye rims possibly showing underneath the eye mask. The hair also looked too much like a wig.

The whole experiment served to see the response of people around me and to see what some people like or don't like about the costume, in order for me to better advise my clients who want to rent that kind of outfit or similar ones. Part of the experiment was to see just how different the response of other people is, simply by not wearing normal clothing.