A mushroom costume at the Minnesota Ren Fest
I recently lived my dream moment that's been simmering for the last 3 years. After 2.5 years of learning about fungi, starting with a general admiration of cute toadstool mushrooms, I finally got to dress as one for an occasion!
The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a place where costumes are encouraged! Walking within the olde village, you’ll see witches, wenches, fairies, bards, and dragons (puppies wearing dragon wings). I remember growing up my mom would tell me about the ren fest, and how everyone loved the fairies who would wander the festival. I was always a fan of the fairies, and I wished I could dress up, but I’m not great at sculpting 3D objects, and I don’t have a huge budget for cool outfits.
In the past, I tried dressing up once, but I wore regular clothes, and just did thematic makeup as a doe deer, back when everyone went through that doe phase. I’m pretty into special effects makeup, so I will take any excuse to do themed makeup with my costume, and that year it seemed easy enough, and I got a ton of compliments on the doe look. That inspired me to try a new costume someday in the future, but I hadn’t considered a new concept until this year when I went dressed as a mushroom.
Me before leaving home… feeling a little silly, and worried that my costume would be a flop!
I originally wanted to make my own great big mushroom hat, but I didn’t have a big budget, and once again, I am bad at sculpting. I chose to do mushroom makeup, and then wear a dress I bought from Hot Topic’s mushroom collection. The dress is Wednesday Addams-esque with white lace trim, a white peter pan collar, and mushrooms embroidered on the lapels.
I chose to go with the most basic and recognizable mushroom, the Fly Agaric, scientifically known as Amanita muscaria. This is the most popular mushroom, and you know what it looks like. It is a red mushroom with white spots on top. It looks like the Mario mushroom, and fun mushroom fact: it's hallucinogenic and incredibly poisonous! If you eat one, it will kill you, but you’ll die tripping out, and vomiting profusely!)
So I had the dress, and I had the makeup. To pull it all together, I wore red tights, black pointy boots, and most importantly, a red felt beret I bought at H&M last fall season, because it had the look of a little mushroom cap. With all the cute elements of the outfit, I thought the pointy black chelsea boots would look a little witchy and on theme with the event! I was so proud of the look, and I got so many compliments that day(about ten if I count them).
I wandered into a wood-making shop, and I saw wooden toadstools, I went to purchase one and the shopkeeper stopped me and said, “I gotta ask! What is the big idea with all the mushrooms this year? Why are there so many mushroom costumes?”
I didn’t have a great answer for her, but I tried to explain that I got into mushrooms from watching the wonderful Netflix documentary “Fantastic Fungi.” Then I went on to describe the cottagecore aesthetic from 2020, the highly sought-after mushroom mugs from the World Market, and the cottagecore Christmas collection at Joann’s fabrics. There’s not a good explanation for the rise in mushrooms besides that they’re trendy with the kids right now.
She seemed satisfied with my reasoning and complimented me. She said, “Well, yours is the best mushroom I’ve seen today! It's not a great big hat with moss on top, and it's actually a themed outfit. The concept look is cooler than the great big mushroom hats!” which was nice to hear, since I was dressed as a real scientific species of mushroom, but also I made the costume with things I had at home like berets, my mushroom dress, my tights, boots, and some colorful makeup.
To cap this off (mushroom jokes), I always thought mushrooms were cute, but now they’ve become so accessible, and it’s amazing they’ve become trendy. My curiosity led me to a real fascination, and as I’ve learned about Mycology, I’ve realized everyone should learn about fungi! Maybe you’ll love them so much, that you’ll dress up like one, as I did!
Me mid-pose. I’m a big fan of 60’s mod fashion. When creating this look, I tried to emulate a vintage silhouette. The only way this would have been better is if the dress was an A-Line Shift dress! still, I love how it turned out.
