Every year the countries of Europe, unite for the wonderful spectacle of the Eurovision song contest. Every year my friends of London, unite for the wonderful spectacle of the Eurovision Song Contest party at Matt & Kim’s.
Eurovision honours many great things, such as bad techno music, laser shows, bağlamas and contemporary dance displays.
It also highlights some of the less noble attributes of the Europeoans, such as bad techno music, laser shows, bağlamas and contemporary dance displays.
I felt this year was a particularly political event and I shall touch only briefly on this, as the only political opinions I wish to show on this blog are my strong feelings against bunting.
Firstly, Russia, what the heck?!? What do the Eurovision voting committees know that the viewers don’t? I am more than aware that Russia hold a lot of politcal cards, due to them hogging all the oil and having a weaponry big enough to light up 10000 Eurovision finals, but their song was very dull indeed.
Secondly, I am happy to welcome Australia, because of the large distances between them and any neighbouring countries it would be very hard for them to rally fellow contestants for the Autralinea-vision song contest, so more the merrier. However I am not happy that their entrant was semi professional and also that the voters were blatantly using Eurovision scoring as way to get extra points of their Australian visa applications.
Back to the party, each year we are invited for a euro themed, fancy dress party and this year we were gifted with the theme ‘Famous Europeans’. Previous themes have just been ‘European countries’, as seen here and here or last years was ‘Previous Eurovision entries‘.
My immediate reaction for this theme was to go as a footballer, but thought a woman I respected would probably be a better shout.
Very quickly I knew I had to Bjork, in her famous Swan dress, by Marjan Pejoski.
I tried to work out how I could lay an egg like Bjork did on the red carpet, but thought I might not get a return invite if I did that.
…Although seeing this exceedingly saucy photo of Abba did make me want to go as them again….
For the base of my costume I ordered a cheap white tutu dress and attached feathers to the skirt piece. Part of me was tempted to make the tutu myself, but speed was of the essence as I left myself only one construction day, plus as I ordered from China, I needed an XXL and I enjoyed the thought of the supplier thinking of a chunky European woman prancing about in a tutu.
For the swan body I found some white spotted canvas from a past project. The spots showed through the otherside of the fabric, so first had to do a quick coat of paint to mask them out. I used mix of acrylic and fabric paint for opacity and then let down with a little water for fast drying.
Once I had a white piece I made a casing that I stuffed to mimic the 3D effect of the Bjork dress. I used a combination of fabric scraps and bin bags to stuff the swan body, using the fabric scraps where I needed more weight, round the swan neck to anchor round my own neck.
I then added more feathers to the bottom of the body piece- I had to hand sew all of these, if I had more time I probably would have tried to feather the whole piece, but I’m not sure even my love of Eurovision is that extensive.
Lastly I added some ribbon ties to keep my swan with the flock and drew on a swan face with a black and bronze sharpies (how did we live before sharpies eh?)
I loved that being Bjork allowed me to bring some turquoise eyeliner out of retirement.
My personal favourite track of the night was Lithuania, influenced heavily by the on stage snogging….what was your a favourite of the night?
Fuck Off Bunting. 
