There are several cities known for dressing up in costumes.
San Franciscans put on parties all year long with dress-up themes and costume. That includes the Symphony, Opera and Ballet. They all put on dress-up and costume parties regularly.
Hippies had regular costume parades and parties all over the city all the time for decades.
The biggest events in the past few decades have been the costume parties of the Exotic Erotic Balls and the Gay Halloween event. Because it grew so big, the Gay Halloween event has been suppressed to some extent. San Francisco has an event called the Bay to Breakers Race which is a costume event with 70-90,000 participants.
I asked myself why San Francisco is so in love with costumes and dressing up.
I have two answers.
Number one: San Francisco is where people come to find out who they are. The use of a costume to cover up the real person as he searches for his or her identity, makes sense. Once people have found who they are, they leave San Francisco and go where their character is most appreciated.
Children raised in San Francisco tend to know who they are and move away after high school. Almost no one I went to school with in San Francisco lives in the city today. That is true for the few other people I’ve met who grew up in San Francisco.
People are in the City to find out who they are and costumes are like a chrysalis to hide the developing product.
The number two reason: San Francisco is a city of façades. The most common architectural style is Victorian. Victorian homes and buildings permeate the city. Victoriana is rococo, pure façade.
Many of the Victorians and architecturally related houses have a fake roof line on the top. Like buildings in old Western movies.
This fake roofline is a sham. It is very visible and common in the city.
In my opinion this environment of façade and fake rooflines is consistent with the idea of costumes and dress-up.