Want a truly immersive holiday experience? Choose an outfit

With all the frenzy around the movie Wuthering Heights, recently, I’ve been thinking about Wuthering Heights Day, an annual event inspired by Kate Bush’s 1978 song that’s held all around the world each July 20.

In homage to Bush’s iconic, kooky performance, large groups gather around the world to twirl to the song in red dresses and long black wigs. Last year, the Melbourne gathering had 400 participants, with other events taking part in Canberra, Brisbane, Ipswich and Guildford, WA.

Mass Wutherings took place in Britain, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, Italy and locations around the US.

Gig tripping, or travelling specifically to attend festivals, concerts and cultural events, is a big driver of tourism.

Something that isn’t often commented upon, though, is the number of people who travel not just to watch a concert or a game, but to fully immerse themselves in the festivities through play-acting and costume.

Kate Bush fans channel their heroine for a few hours in their red dresses (including Margot Robbie herself). Comic book fans mob the Comic-Con festival, held in San Diego each July, in costumes depicting their favourite comic book and movie franchise heroes.

Historical anachronists (if that’s what you call them) flock to the annual Scarborough Renaissance Festival in Texas and find happiness in wenches’ outfits and suits of armour.

When I travelled on the Venice Simplon-Orient Express a few years ago, our vintage dinner carriage was populated by travellers who had gone to the trouble of packing Agatha Christie-inspired clothing to immerse themselves in the atmosphere that inspired the British crime writer’s famous 1934 novel.

Napier in New Zealand holds the Art Deco Festival every February. The whole town is transformed back to the flapper and prohibition eras. There are more than 200 events, including a Downton Garden Party, the Great Gatsby Picnic and an art deco fashion competition.

There are huge numbers of people obsessed with the 1920s and ’30s (me among them) and Napier draws big crowds, especially collectors of vintage fashion who relish the opportunity to show off their clothes. Some spend a whole year planning for it.

I understand the attraction. I once put on medieval clothing and had a stab at archery in an Irish castle. Somehow, it was much more fun than doing it in a puffer jacket.

Clothes are powerful expressions of the self. Experimenting with different personalities through dress is normal. Kids play dress-ups with old clothes, but it’s a joy we tend to abandon as adults.

Some people have an inherent theatricality, which means any reason to dress up is a bonus. Apart from Halloween, February and March are their big moments. Rio has its shiny, brilliant carnival. It’s gay mardi-gras time in Sydney.

The costume party of them all is Venice’s Carnevale, which finished a week or so ago. As usual, I’ve been flabbergasted by the extravagant costumes, which can cost anything from €300 to more than €3000 ($500 to $5000) for a day’s hire.

The waterlogged city (there was a high water this year) is overtaken by masked and elaborately costumed revellers, who turn its canals and passages into a surrealistic tableau of 17th and 18th century fashion and customs.

Venetians of all social classes hide their true identities behind the masks, moving freely around the city without the weight of social conventions. Anyone in costume is afforded tremendous respect.

My visits to Venice have never coincided with Carnevale, sadly. Last year, though, I visited the atelier of Stefano Nicolao, the maestro who creates the historical costumes for major film, TV, opera and theatre productions such as Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Marco Polo.

This is also one of the places Venetians go to get their costumes and be fitted at his Cannaregio showroom and workshop.

The atelier houses more than 15,000 costumes, including thousands of pieces of undergarments, shoes, hats, corsets, belts, wigs, masks and codpieces. If you’re going to go the full Casanova, it’s important to do it properly, with all the historical underwear.

I admit that seeing all those corsets, pantaloons and panniers made me think twice about any fantasy I held about attending an 18th century masked ball in full regalia, including itchy wigs and thick powdery makeup.

But I suppose that’s an intriguing aspect of wearing costume – answering part of the question of what it might have felt like to live another life in another world. Or escaping into another character for a few hours, like the ghost of Cathy wandering the Yorkshire moors?