This octopus was made by one Toula Sykopetritis for her grand-daughter Maria Pieri to wear as a costume in the 1990 carnival of Limassol, a city on the southern coast of Cyprus. It is currently in storage at the Horniman Museum, together with two other costumes she made for Maria, one a bunch of bananas, which she wore in 1989, and the other a bunch of pink radishes, her costume for 1991.

I did try to do some sleuthing about the original owner of these costumes, in an attempt to obtain more information about her age when she wore these, and whether she was part of a big group of people all dressed in similar costumes for the big carnival parade, but I didn’t get far. You can take a look at some old footage of parades from Limassol Carnival in 1960 (according to the owner of the video). It’s interesting to see how carnival in many places has now become somewhat standardised the world over, with lots of Latin American, Brazilian, and Caribbean rhythms taking over what must have once been traditional music.

Costumes and masks for dressing up have long been on my list of playthings to portray, and I was particularly drawn to this one because it is not a human character or an animal that lends itself particularly well to humanising. Crucially, though, an octopus has recognisable eyes, and I wonder whether this is the key to why many of us find them so intriguing and fascinating.

Dressing up as a clam, for instance, would be a different thing altogether, a little like dressing up as a chair or a stone – it might require a bit more from the designer to spark our interest. But a creature with eyes? Well, that starts to feel a little closer to us, like it just might have an opinion about something. Its curling, sucker-dotted tentacles are stand-ins for our limbs, of which we get no fewer than eight – when some of us think of what an alien might look like, an octopus lurks quietly in our Rolodex of possibilities.  

What I like about this octopus costume is that it is not cartoon-like; it has been created by someone who is as familiar with octopuses as they are with bananas – they have seen them frequently, most likely on a plate, grilled. The way the tentacles taper at the bottom and curl a little haphazardly is just right, and the colour chosen for its outer body is not the cute bright pink or purple that is often seen in depictions, but rather a murky, uneven brownish grey, as we might see on a fresh specimen glistening on a bed of crushed ice at the market.

The manifestation of Carnival, also in its incarnation as ‘Mardi Gras’ celebrations, as a tradition in (mostly Catholic) Christian cultures has mostly consisted in upending the rules of society for a limited time – eating and drinking in excess, forgetting social classes and barriers, reversing roles, and indulging in any and all pleasures of the flesh before entering Lent, a period of fasting and generally giving up on luxuries and comforts to commemorate Jesus’s sacrifices during his 40 days in the desert. [See here a short British Library article connecting Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with carnival, where everything goes topsy-turvy].

There are of course other festivals around the world that are known as carnivals and are celebrated at different times of the year (e.g., late summer). Notting Hill Carnival, for instance, is celebrated in August in London and draws inspiration from Crop Over in Barbados (also celebrated in August), as well as from Trinidad Carnival (which is celebrated according to the Christian dates), among other events.

Carnival has always felt pagan to me (whatever that is) and, though its origins are disputed, there are certainly similarities to be found with the Greek Dionysia and the Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalia festivals. In any case, it is certainly interesting to see how its timing fits with natural cycles, as is often the case with popular festivals the world over.

Looking into the traditions and the depictions surrounding Carnival, it was interesting and great fun to take a look at Bruegel’s painting ‘The Fight between Carnival and Lent’, which depicts the fight between virtues and vices, in a parody of a medieval joust in which Carnival and Lent are personified. Carnival is a gluttonous butcher wielding a rotisserie with a suckling pig on it as his weapon; his followers wear masks and carry musical instruments. Lent, in contrast, is a skinny, gaunt woman who wields a bread peel as her weapon, on which we see two herring. Everything is tied in here, agricultural and farming cycles are linked to morality, and the generalised lack of food is connected to a higher purpose.

This week I also really enjoyed looking into the wonders of the world of octopuses, as well as their representations through time. One of my loveliest ‘discoveries’ this week was Minoan and Mycenaean pottery with octopus decorations. Take a look at these beautiful vessels used in Cyprus, where Limassol is located, more than 3000 years before this costume was made:  here (amphoroid krater no. 1), and here (amphoroid krater no. 2). There is a type of Minoan pottery known as the Marine Style, with truly beautiful and incredibly modern-looking vessels – this is possibly my favourite example, found in Crete and now at the Archaeological Museum at Herakleion, made around 3500 years ago.  

Unpretentious as it is, this octopus costume conveys to me a celebration of being alive in a world in which wondrous creatures like octopuses exist, and a feeling of being part of something far bigger than us.

Carnival opens up possibilities, and it is interesting to think of dressing up or pretending to be something or someone different – and indeed, acting and performing in any way – being considered in the same light as getting drunk or generally engaging in debauchery. [Side note - here I disappeared for a while, looking into antitheatricality, and psychomachia]. What a curious thing, to consider dressing up as, essentially, a manifestation of immorality and vice. What is it that dressing up gives us, that it can be seen as being as intoxicating as alcohol or drugs?

Aren’t you curious to know what it might feel like to have eight tentacles? And might you change a little, as octopus you?