Why do we long to be Nazis and tarts?

As the fancy-dress party season begins again, Leah McLaren wonders why the British are never more themselves than when they’re pretending to be someone else

There is a popular urban legend about a British couple in New York who attended a black tie gala dressed as a pair of pumpkins. Turns out they had misinterpreted the host’s instruction to ‘dress fancy,’ as an invitation for fancy dress — something Americans only do once a year on Halloween. Did they burst into tears and run home? Not a chance. Being Brits, they put on brave faces, pulled their orange foam bellies up to the bar, and proceeded to get shamelessly drunk as the Manhattan glitterati swirled around them.

It might sound like a ludicrous story, but having experienced the cultural flip side, I believe it.

Shortly after arriving in London from Canada I was invited to a fancy dress party at the home of a glamorous and highly respectable west London party-planner whom I did not, at the time, know well.