Tricks and Tips to Fancy Dress Costumes

For You - A Fancy Dress Costume

I love fancy dress parties. They give me a chance to express myself and everyone is very competitive and wants to have the best of the fancy dress costumes. The only thing I don't like is if someone turns up wearing their street clothes.

It's like saying it doesn't apply to them, they are above such things and are important people who are too busy to bother with such trifles. It really annoys me when everyone else has put in the effort.

"Other" World Costumes

The best party I ever went to was a science fiction set party. People really went to town, with mostly hand made fancy dress costumes that were completely bizarre. It was like a convention of aliens or that scene in Star Wars when they're all sitting in the alien's bar.

I have a friend who has one leg and he turned up in a costume that had four arms. No other fancy dress costumes could beat that! Best of all, he had gone to the party on the bus. We all trooped in to the pub before going to the party and got a stunned reaction. We were a bit of a fire hazard, having used so much hair spray trying to style our hair into wacky styles.

The Pirate Costume Party

The most popular set party at the moment seems to be pirates. This is because of the popular Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It's a great excuse to wave a cutlass around and have a stuffed parrot glued to your shoulder. Men doing their Johnny Depp impressions in their fancy dress costumes can say the most outrageous things because they're in character.

A Fancy Dress Costume Frees You of Inhibitions   That's the terrific thing about fancy dress costumes, you can say and do things you wouldn't dream of ordinarily.   It reminds me of those old movies with the setting of a masquerade ball where everyone is wearing a mask of some sort.

There is mystique in spades because we are led to believe no one is recognized behind their flimsy mask!

Host Your Own Fancy Dress Costume Event

I prefer more inventive fancy dress than the tired old subjects. It doesn't take much imagination to throw a doctors and nurses or a cowboys and Indians party. There's a good episode of Frasier in which Frasier hosts a party at which the guests are invited to come in the guise of their hero.

He of course comes dressed as Sigmund Freud and is disgusted at Roz's choice of Wonder Woman. I've thought about throwing a similar bash myself. It would certainly make for some bizarre fancy dress costumes.

My hero however is Mahatma Gandhi, and I don't really want to carry trays of nibbles round, wearing my loin cloth and wire rimmed glasses. My husband's hero is Gandalf, the Wizard from Lord of the Rings. Together we light up the night by wearing our fancy dress costumes ... And you can too!!

Bob Pardue