Capitol Fashion and What Fans Wore to the "Hunger Games" Midnight Premiere

Roll out the red carpet, the fans have arrived!  The Hunger Games feature film premiered on Friday, March 23rd, 2012, at midnight.  At the New York City AMC Lincoln Plaza theater, fans arrived in style from their stretch underground, commuter limousines.  They printed their pre-ordered invitations to one of twelve showings and entered early to take the best seats in the house and, to no surprise, many came in costume, including myself.  But of course, the dolled-up fans attended without seeing the movie prior.  They came up with their ideas from the trailers, clips, articles, promotional screen shots and photographs, and from their own visions developed when reading the Hunger Game novels.  It involved a lot of creativity... So I thought it would be fun to hang out in the lobby and see how others dressed for the reaping.  I mean, we did have time to kill.  The star players were Katniss, Effie Trinket, and residents of the Capitol.

Katniss Everdeen is the lead character and actor played by Jennifer Lawrence.  The break-out young adult novel is about a sixteen-year-old girl forced to fight to the death against 23 other tributes.  This is the annual Hunger Games.  One boy and one girl is chosen from each of the twelve districts.  They can be as young as twelve and as old as eighteen.  Children's names are placed in the lottery once when they're twelve, twice when they're thirteen, thrice when they're fourteen, and so on and so forth.  A child may desperately add his or her name in extra times to get a years worth of food for his or her starving family.  Each time a child's name is placed in the lottery, it accumulates over the years until they are nineteen.  Katniss's name is in there twenty times.  Most of the tributes are chosen by lottery but some, who have been (technically) illegally training themselves for this moment in richer districts, have volunteered.  People call them "Career Tributes."  Although Katniss has been fighting for her and her family's life in starvation instead of training, she does hunt in the woods with her bow and arrow.  She shoots the animal right in the eye.  Boys fall in love with Katniss, but surprised and confused, she focuses on the bigger problem at hand, their chances of survival.

I had to ask to this young lady if her subtle outfit was intentionally referencing Ms. Everdeen.  She replied, "Yes! You're the first person who got it!"

 The Boy and Girl on Fire!

 

Training tribute with the Mockingjay pin.

Katniss at the interview and Katniss at the games.

A couple fans asked if they could take both mine and Male Katniss's picture.
I was a Capitol girl.

The Capitol is the only district exempted from the Hunger Games.  There are twelve others.  Districts one and two are the richest, but their affluence is nothing compared to the Capitol.  This story takes place in the future North America.  The Capitol residents live in complete luxury.  Every meal is like a banquet.  The people, all ages, dye their hair assorted colors, not as a form of rebellion, but as mainstream fashion.  Same goes for the men wearing make up.  Sometimes their beards are shaven to create shapes.  Katniss's supervisor is Effie Trinket, a typical member of the Capitol.  She is portrayed as bubbly, clueless, and having great expectations for manners.  In the movie, the costume designer, Judianna Makovsky, the hair designer, Linda D. Flowers, and make up designer, Ve Neill, while maintaining an outlandish futuristic style and bright colors, they have taken inspiration from Marie Antoinette and the Victorian era.  The Capitol residents love wearing flowers in their hair.  Here's some of the fans interpretations of the Capitol fashion.

These Capitol dudes wanted my picture, actually.

Oh yes, and of course!  There was Seneca Crane, the head gamemaker of the Hunger Games!  Although he isn't actually seen in the first book, the filmmakers have used him as a tool to describe the thoughts and strategies in Katniss's head.  This Seneca Crane has already been featured on the facebook page, Seneca Crane's beard.  He's famous!

Capitol woman sitting between Team Peeta and a sleeping Effie Trinket.  We got home around 3 or 4am.

Thank you to all of the participants!  Special thanks to Leah Wibecan for letting me use her camera.  Hope everyone had fun!  May the odds be ever in your favor.