Stylish Ways to Dress for a Theme Party With Next to No Effort

While chatting with a colleague about weekend plans the other day, she explained to me how much she was dreading a theme party in her calendar for Saturday night. I couldn’t have been more sympathetic: Theme parties are my idea of hell. As a person who has a track record of not observing dress codes (I once wore a backpack to a wedding reception, and have been known to wear basketball jerseys to white-tablecloth dinners), I’m every hostess’s nightmare. The very thought of having to shop for a Gatsby soiree, superhero bash, or toga party—clothes I will likely never wear again—makes me wish I had never been invited in the first place.

But all is not lost: There are stylish ways around this problem. “Many years ago my mother was invited to a party and the invitation said ‘must-wear head-to-toe costume.’ She skirted the dress code by coming up with a Cinderella costume that would allow her to still dress like an adult,” says Senior Fashion Editor Jorden Bickham. “She wore a white skirt and fluffy white angora sweater she already had in her closet and ordered a pair of Stuart Weitzman Lucite pumps. She ended up being the chicest person there.”

The moral of the fashion story here is, there are transformative costume-appropriate pieces out there in the world (in this case, a game-changing glass slipper), that you can wear everyday. “Just choose one item for your outfit that can relate to the theme instead of going in full costume. It should be something you already have in your closet,” says Bickham. “If you are going to buy anything, think of it as something that you could wear next week to work rather than a piece you’re never going to wear again.” In other words, the next time I’m invited to a luau party, I’ll gratefully swap a grass skirt for an Edie Parker palm tree clutch.

http://www.queeniedress.com/red-homecoming-dresses