Decked out in matching bright orange and blue suits and top hats, juniors Micah Goldrich and Dylan Kobrin stand out from across the hallway. They ordered their outfits off Amazon, and had been thinking about dressing up in them for prom, but decided that Gatsby day was the perfect chance.
“I love to see everybody dressed up, and there’s no doubt that our costume is the best,” Goldrich said. “It’s nice to see everyone in the spirit.”
In matching black sparkling flapper dresses and feathered headpieces, juniors Lilah Waldman, Vivi Ducker, Sadaf Zadeh, Ella Arking, and Liem Elgrably look straight from the 1920s. Arking’s dress is passed down from senior Nava Gris, who wore the dress on her junior class’s Gatsby day.
“I feel like I’m carrying on the legacy of Gatsby day,” Arking said.
After teaching the book for the past few months, English teacher Nancy Wassner and English teacher and department chair Thomas Worden deliberate on the participants’ costumes in a Gatsby day KabShab costume contest. Wassner’s own outfit was inspired by Catherine from the novel, who is a flapper, but since Wassner wanted to keep her costume realistic, she wore day clothes instead of flapper clothes. Wassner’s favorite part of the day is to see her students enjoying themselves after spending months studying the novel.
“I just think it’s fun to see people having a good time,” Wassner said.
As the only twins in the junior grade, it was natural that juniors Rachel and Leah Fagin dressed as East and West Egg, the fictional communities in the novel representing different social classes. Rachel and Leah bought their costumes off of Amazon, mainly because it was much cheaper than other costumes, and also because they thought it would be fun to match.
“We were thinking about it for a while because it just seemed obvious that the twins in the grade would go for the egg costumes,” Leah said.
Dressed in all red suspenders, top hat and bow tie, along with a fake mustache, it is no surprise that junior Julian Goldberg came out victorious in the Gatsby day KabShab costume contest. Goldberg’s costume was inspired by Tom from The Great Gatsby movie, capturing the character’s bold, confident style.
“I wanted to be unique, I wanted to stand out,” Goldberg said. “I think red is a very stand-out color.”
