Wellington Sevens Dress-Ups

What to wear to the Wellington Sevens? Believe me, it’s a big issue. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing I like more than seeing a few people dressed up in ridiculous costumes at a sporting event. Scooby Doo often turns up to the cricket and it’s very amusing to see him talking to Marilyn Monroe or Gene Simmons in the pub later on. Shrek, stromtroopers, legomen and traffic cones all stand out for various reasons.

But for some reason, everyone (well, about 90%) in Wellington who goes to the Sevens feels the need to dress up. A friend reckons New Zealanders are so repressed that they can only be ‘whacky’ when dressed as someone else. Him Outdoors reckons it’s a personality substitute (which he says is why Kiwis hold more dress-up theme parties than anyone else) but let’s save that nugget for another day…

I was going with a group of girls, and trying to get them to formulate a plan on which they can all agree and then put it into action is like herding kittens. You see, in general, women also want to look good. And they will invariably have different body shapes and comfort zones, so what looks good on one will not suit another.

You could all go as variations on a theme, but a simple costume repeated on a large number of people has dramatic impact, as evinced by the monks and the Flash Gordons.

There are actually rules as to what you can and can’t wear. Let’s start with the revealing. Certain costumes – such as the Borat-thong – have been banned for showing too much flesh. This smacks of double standards as women are allowed to (and frequently do) wear the shortest skirts and lowest tops. This is deemed acceptable as most of the photographers and cameramen are male, and most of the females want to get in the papers or on television. Apparently the way to do this is to thrust your cleavage at a lens and you’ll get all the attention you can handle.

60+ years of feminism fighting for equal rights and to be taken seriously, so that teenage girls can flaunt their sluttishness in public – their parents must be so proud. Perhaps they are; their offspring are ‘famous’ for five seconds, until the next piece of meat comes along. There are skanky cheerleaders; sluttish schoolgirls; tarty nurses; lewd airhostesses; indecent policewomen; vulgar prison officers – do you see the pattern emerging? Incidentally, the most stylish group of women I saw were the Spitfire Girls dressed stunningly in 1940s glamour.

Another taboo is the too-large-for-the-seat category. Sumo suits and people dressed as sofas are out (although these are amusing). The wheelchair-bound bloke dressed as Thomas the Tank engine, however, was a star! Some people were dressed as Barbie dolls in boxes (their aspirations couldn’t be clearer) or cardboard i-pods. These people are actually very annoying to sit behind if you are – heaven forbid – actually trying to watch any rugby, or to stand behind if (as is more likely) you are in the beer queue.

For hours. Buying warm Speights with a 15% sur-charge. Come on Westpac Stadium, as if you weren’t creaming it anyway – I’m certain you could afford to pay your staff without ripping off your patrons. If, as reports showed, people stayed in town for longer drinking at bars with big screens, decent beer and no sur-charge (not a bar that I went into on Friday had one) it serves you right for your shameless exploitation of the people you claim to cater for.

And then there are the weapons. Anything that looks like it could cause bodily harm is unacceptable – and rightly so. It is somewhat disturbing to see the SWAT team casually swigging beer while holding semi-automatic guns, but they were denuded of these (the guns, not the beer) and then must have felt vulnerable – not to mention hot.

There were heaps of Spartans and gladiators – all with bendy swords. Friends of ours went as droogs from A Clockwork Orange, and had their canes examined. They were permitted, after they promised not to indulge in any ultraviolence.

There are no rules about bad taste – as one man’s offence is another one’s humour. Hence people blackened their skin to appear as belly dancers, snake charmers and Arabs. A line of black-hooded, orange-jumpsuited Guantanamo Bay inmates (not folk from Guatemala, as my dad referred to them) may be considered tasteless, but what about the black-and-white-striped chain gang?

Adam and Eve wearing not much more than their fig-leaves were allowed in, but a bloke wearing a full-length fully-flesh-concealing penis costume was not.

By the end of the weekend (or even half-way through the first day) several costumes – and bodies – were severely worse for wear. Some had neglected to slip, slop, slap and there were acres of flesh, usually hidden but for some reason exposed, that was now bright red. The Mexicans with their giant sombreros had the right idea – there was no excuse for them to get sunburned.

We saw a bee with crushed wings and antenna, separated from her swarm and bringing a new interpretation to bumbling at 1pm on the first day. We saw brides vomiting rather than blushing in the seats behind us – although the ‘soldier’ she had picked up didn’t even seem to care, or even to notice. A match made in heaven. I’m sure everyone had a good time. Later they will dress in their civvies and resume their normal bland personas, but for this weekend they came; they drank; they dressed up.


For the record, we went as 60s throw-backs. We could choose our own skirt length and neckline, although the high-heeled boots were not a good idea in hindsight. My dad said I looked like my mother from yesteryear.

The boys went as Morris Dancers. When England won they waved their hankies and jingled their bells – even though some of them were Irish. Seeing them dance with Oscar the Grouch in the street at 1am was one of those surreal moments that make up major sporting tournaments.