Saturday afternoon links post: X-Men cosplayers, 19th century Russian ballgowns, Tim Gunn discussing Star Trek costumes, and more.

Halloween! The number of "sexy" costumes I saw last night was truly mindblowing. I love them. I have very little respect for shop-bought sexy-nurse or sexy-cop costumes, but when someone goes all out and makes a sexy NyanCat or sexy male Sailor Moon outfit, well, I can only respect that shit. Personally, I was Sexy King Charles II. (ie... my embroidered pantaloons and a feathered headpiece thing, because I was too lazy to actually buy or make a proper costume) If only I'd had a camera with me. (N.B. This year the sexy female Where's Waldos far outstripped the male ones. Is this evidence of the hipster takeover of youth culture?) Anyway, I suspect a lot of you are currently still lurking in bed hiding from the sleet and/or nursing a Halloween hangover. Here are some links of stuff!

Madonna and her daughter in a funny video about her new Material Girl clothing campaign. Why can't she point this sense of humour at her terrible new movie? I mean, first of all it's called "W.E." which I immediately translate as "What. Ever." rather than, well... "Wallis/Edward? It's not totally clear to me what "W.E." is really supposed to stand for. But apparently it's so abysmal that people were laughing out loud during screenings, which makes me wish that Madonna would just release it as-is instead of re-editing it to make it "better" (ie, presumably more boring). It could be the new "The Room"!

The dresses of Tsarina Alexandra Romanova at How To Be A Retronaut.

Spider-Man themed swing dancers! (And more links beyond the jump.)

I already admired Tumblr-person Rayitastic for creating this fantastic photo of herself and her boyfriend as Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr from X-Men: First Class, but now she's also made X-Men jumpsuits for her and her friends. How cool is that? I'm not a cosplayer myself, but seeing people home-make such excellent versions of recogniseable movie costumes makes my nerd-heart happy.

Photos of young, dapper Ian McKellan. (!!!)

Tim Gunn discusses classic Star Trek costumes. This is AMAZING. Tim Gunn, I love you. Star Trek, I love you. I've never seen the first movie Star Trek, but having seen those vile flesh-coloured jumpsuits my desire to watch it grows ever stronger.

The evolution of the spacesuit, at Wired.com

Mary Katrantzou is designing a dress for Topshop! Ordinarily I have little interest in this type of collaboration because queueing for an entire day outside Topshop or H&M in order to spend hundreds of pounds on a watered-down catwalk look isn't my idea of a good time. HOWEVER. Mary Katrantzou is a genius, and even though I won't even be able to afford the dress she's deigned to make for us plebs (a mere £350), I can still appreciate that it's beautiful.

Picture via StyleBubble.