Book thoughts: Book Fashion

Tomorrow night I'm heading out for the Books of Wonder midnight release of Mockingjay, and like a good little fangirl, I'm dressing up. Originally I had a notion to do a full out costume and go as Effie (I could totally rock the pink wig), but since it looks like I'm not going home between work and the party, I decided to just go the T-shirt route.

Now Hot Topic has some fun Hunger Games T-shirts, and I do have a minor lust for their "Girl on Fire" T-shirt, but I'm a) cheap and b) creative, so I decided to go the "make your own" T-shirt route. If you follow me on Twitter you've seen me discussing this shirt for a few weeks, and here's the big reveal!

Team Katniss all the way!

If you see me at Books of Wonder tomorrow night, please introduce yourself!

Putting all this work into a book T-shirt made me think of other opportunities for book-related fashion.

There's of course the old standby of going in costume, either for Halloween or a midnight launch:

Once upon a time I had long hair. And regularly dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange. Here I'm at the midnight release of Deathly Hallows, arguing that Snape is untrustworthy...if you're a Death Eater!

Fans of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies and Midnighters books should check out the Wearable Extras boutique for related shirts and hoodies. My favorite might be the Hoverboard Safety Monitor hoodie, but the Tridecashirt is darn impressive, too! Scott also regularly features fans on his blog who dress up for his signings - check out some more Uglies-related shirts and a post-Halloween 2007 post with tons of Specials-tattoos, some hoverboarders, and a few Midnighters!

Of course, you can be hard core about your love of books and have a favorite line permanently etched on your skin. Some day I'm getting UNLESS from The Lorax tattooed on my arm. 

Of course, once the book is turned into a movie, the merchandise explodes, but I always like the fan-created shirts best. Sure, Hot Topic carried tons of Lord of the Rings shirts while I was in high school, but how much funnier is it to picture Gimli as a heavy metal rocker? (If you're a geek of almost any stripe, you should definitely be reading Hijinks Ensue. It's my favorite webcomic of the moment. /offtopic)

Some fan-made items may be more appropriate than others, however. We all remember the Edward Cullen underwear, right? (I'm 99% sure these are fake, but the prank works because it isn't hard to imagine someone wanting them!)

That's about all I've been able to come up with from my own recollections and Googling - searching book t-shirts or book costumes brings you to books on sewing, which are useful in some contexts, but not this one. So leave your own contributions in the comments! Have you ever dressed up special for a book signing? How about gone as a favorite character on Halloween?