Bestival Festival & Fancy dress Costumes

30,000 FREAKS UNDER THE SEA

That is the official theme for this years fancy dress at the Bestival Festival 2008. Which is pretty cool because it provides you with plenty of scope to be creative with you fancy dress ideas.

A few initial costumes and perhaps the more obvious ones that spring to mind are:
Mermaid Costumes
Squid Costumes
Shark Costumes

But I have also done a bit of research and you can even find ghost ship costumes, shell costumes and you could even go as a treasure chest (sunken treasure - get it?!!)

It was also announced that my favourite website for fancy dress, Jokers' Masquerade will be the official fancy dress partner to this years Bestival festival and they are offering a 10% discount for all festival goers: Take a look at Bestival Fancy Dress on Jokers' Masquerade for loads of great fancy dress ideas the promo code is BEST08 for the 10% discount.

Anyway.. The official press statement from Bestival is below:

Forget the question of just who will finally grab the US Democrat nomination, the real question on the lips of people in the know in recent weeks has been ‘What the heck is Rob da Bank going to announce as the fancy dress theme for Bestival 2008’?

And now we can exclusively reveal the answer to be (drum roll)… 30,000 FREAKS UNDER THE SEA!!

Yep – taking a lead from legendary author Jules Verne’s classic tome ‘20,000 Leagues Under The Sea’, we can now announce that we are taking it even deeper… 30,000 party people will be deep sea skiving in their bestest underwater fancy-dress garb at Robin Hill Country Park, Isle of Wight for this September’s multi-award winning Bestival (which sold out in record time this year).

Expect scantily-clad mermaids by the dozen, sharks, stingrays, probably the odd shopping trolley and who knows, love might well prove a many tentacled thing for any lucky squid in the area… And surely somebody will resurrect the classic 70s underwater crooner Frankie Prawn joke (please)? The world of costume truly is your lobster at Bestival 2008!

Bestival head-honcho (and BBC Radio One DJ) Rob da Bank said today :

‘We wracked our collective brains ‘til they turned to custard and eventually came up with '30,000 FREAKS UNDER THE SEA' - essentially another open-ended theme open to abuse and many different angles which we hope you'll follow! This year we'll do a night parade as well as daytime one, so make sure you light up bright - calling all pesky squids, little urchins, deep sea divers and Yellow Submarines!

And if you need a wee bit of help in coming up with the perfect sub-aquatic costume this year, why not take a trip to the ever-helpful Jokers’ Masquerade website…

Following their successful sponsorship of last year’s Bestival FM radio-station, the lovely people at Jokers' Masquerade have announced that they will be partnering up with Bestival once again. Jokers' Masquerade are the perfect fancy dress solution for Bestivalgoers everywhere, offering over 10,000 costumes to choose from securely online, including many outfits especially available to inspire you for this year's '30,000 Freaks Under The Sea' theme.

Check out Bestival Fancy Dress on Jokers' Masquerade for loads of great fancy dress ideas and don't forget to enter promo code BEST08 to enjoy an exclusive 10% discount. NB. Promo code must be written in capitals. Offer valid until 31st August 2008.

And keep checking out www.bestival.net for all the latest info.

Greek Costume and Fancy Dress

Greek costumes are pretty similar to Roman costumes and are often mixed up on websites that sell fancy dress, still unless you want to be very technical bout it, I am sure that it does not really matter if you are wearing a Roman or ancient Greek costume.

Most websites that I have looked at have pretty large selections of Greek costumes, with every variation on the theme including a greek goddess costume, Zeus costume, Greek warrior costume, to what I thought was really excellent, a Greek statue costume!

The History of the Greek Costume:

The toga, is probably what most people think of when they picture a Greek costume or that of Ancient Rome, it was probably first introduced by the Etruscan civilization, people of ancient Italy and Corsica. The Toga is basically a sash, usually about six meters long and is wrapped around the body and worn over a tunic. In Greek and Roman times, the toga would have been worn by men and would have been made of wool. These days you can find toga fancy dress costumes for both men and women.

A spin off from a Greek costume party and an excellent idea for a fancy dress theme would be a Toga party.

Toga parties has become popular in recent times, especially at colleges and universities in the USA, much of which could have come about from the film Animal House. Other reasons for toga and Greek costume parties popularity could be because of the myth of Greek and Roman debauchery, and love of women and fine wine.

A toga Greek costume is also pretty simple to make, you could even use bed linen. Unfortunately, these "togas" bear little resemblance to the actual Ancient Greek costume, as they are both flimsier and scantier, but it is important to remember that a fancy dress party is all about fun and does not have to be historically correct!

If you want to know how to make your own Toga Costume, I found this pretty cool demonstration video on how to make a toga costume:



Apart from Togas, other ideas for Greek costumes include a Hercules Costume, Aphrodite Costume, the Goddess of Love, Greek Goddess Costume, King Of Atlantis Costume, Zeus costume, official Spartan Costume from 300 or how about an ancient Greek Warrior Costume?


Where to buy your Greek Costumes:
If you are looking for a Greek costume with a difference, I did mention the cool Greek statue costume earlier on, I found it on Jokers' Masquerade fancy dress. Check out their selection of Greek Costumes, there were 65 products when I searched including a bunch of Greek goddess costumes and all the fancy dress ideas for Greek costumes listed above.

Greek Costumes on Amazon.co.uk

Penguin Costume

Penguins are cute cuddly creatures, but even so it is hard to see why a penguin costume would be so popular, that is until you do some research and realise that the official mascot for Linux is Tux the penguin and as this operating system becomes more and more popular, so do penguin costumes! Penguin fancy dress costumes are popular and I guess this possibly has something to do with Tux as well as they are just cute and cuddly critters :-)

According to some research that I have done on the web, there are also quite a few people who want to know how to make a penguin costume, but to be honest... I feel who has the time?!!... on top of that by the time that you have bought all the materials, it will probably work out just as costly a buying your fancy dress penguin costume.

So where can you buy a penguin costume?
As always the web is the best place to look and as always Jokers' Masquerade has a great selection of Penguin Costumes – 7 different penguin costumes to be precise! From a teen Penguin costume that is less than £20 right up to a Luxury Penguin Mascot Costume that costs almost £400!

Penguin Costume on Amazon.co.uk

Indiana Jones Costumes

Indiana Jones returns with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth film in the series due for release on the 22nd May. The leading role will once again be played by Harrison Ford who joins an excellent cast that includes Cate Blanchett. Directed by Stephen Spielberg and Produced by George Lucas, the film is set in the late 1950's and squares off an older and wiser Indiana Jones against an agent of the former Soviet Union, played by Cate Blanchett as they search for the crystal skull.

The Indiana Jones Costume
As always the Indiana Jones costume is instantly recognisable with the distinctive Indiana Jones hat and leather jacket and the famous Indiana Jones Whip. Many of the Indiana Jones fancy dress costumes available for sale come with a whip, the leather jacket and the distinctive Indiana Jones hat.

Check out a newer post on the the Indiana Jones Hat

Places to buy your Indiana Jones Costumes online include:


US Shoppers
Indiana Jones Costumes on Amazon.com

Buy Costumes.com:



UK Shoppers
Indiana Jones Costumes on Jokers' Masquerade Fancy Dress

Indiana Jones Hat on Amazon.co.uk

Smurf Costumes

The fancy dress company, Jokers' Masquerade have recently included a new costume to their portfolio, known as a “Blue Gnome” it is based on a Smurf costume and has been a real success according to Beatrice Butler, the marketing manager for Jokers' Masquerade fancy dress costumes.

Created by a Belgian cartoonist called Peyo, the Smurfs who started as series of cartoon strips that first appeared in a Belgian magazine in 1958 and tells the story a fictional group of small sky blue creatures who live “somewhere” in the woods.

“The success of the Blue Gnome has taken us a little by surprise especially when we started getting people sending us photographs of themselves wearing the costume from all over the world, it was then that we decided to create the Smurf Holiday Map” says Butler. The Smurf Holiday Map allows people who have dressed up in a Smurf costume to send in the photo of themselves wearing the costume, to be placed on the map with the idea of seeing all the interesting places that the Smurf's have gone on “holiday”

So far there are photos of the Smurfs holidaying in destinations as exotic as Las Vegas in America, the Gambia in West Africa, Dublin in Ireland, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Copenhagen in Denmark and skiing in the French Alps!

People who send in their entries not only get the chance to be added to the map, but also have a chance of winning a voucher to buy more costumes!

Jokers' Masquerade has the largest online collection of adult fancy dress costumes and Halloween costumes in the UK today.

Follow the link for more on the Jokers' Masquerade, Blue Gnome Smurf Costumes and The Smurf Holiday Map.

The Minnie Mouse Costume

Disney Fancy Dress Costumes have always been very popular and with classic characters like Mickey Mouse Costumes, Donald Duck, Woody and Buzz Lightyear costumes from Toy Story, Tinkerbell costumes, you can see why. But for me one of my all time favourites has always been Minnie Mouse Costumes.

So where did Minnie Mouse and her fancy dress come from?
Mickey Mouse was created in 1928 by Walt Disney and he knew from his prior hit with Oswald the Luck Rabbit that Mickey would need to have a love interest and that would be Minnie Mouse.

The Fancy Dress Minnie Mouse Costume
Originally when Mickey Mouse was released, Minnie did not have a name yet, but her costume was in the fashion of a flapper girl which was in the 1920's more than just fashion, but also almost a movement, where young women would wear short skirts, wear bobbed hair and mostly danced and listened to Jazz music. They were also initially thought to wear excessive makeup, were too casual with their views on sex, smoked and generally acted in a way that was frowned upon. So for Walt Disney to have the Minnie Mouse Costume in the form of a flapper girl must have been a risk at the time, but now because of that I think that is what makes the Minnie Mouse costume one of the most popular Disney costumes out there.

So most Minnie Mouse costumes that you can buy on-line and in fancy dress shops currently have a dress that resembles a flapper dress and is almost always red with white spots and comes with the black mouse ears.

Places to buy a Minnie Mouse Costume:
I have always purchased my fancy dress costumes on-line and my fav place has always been Jokers' Masquerade fancy dress who have a huge stock of costumes, you will often see me recommend them and I do this because I think they are great. Another great website to look is Amazon as they also pretty much always have a large selection of fancy dress costumes.

US Shoppers
Minnie Mouse Costumes on Amazon.com
Minnie Mouse Costumes on BuyCostumes.com



UK Shoppers
Minnie Mouse Costumes on Amazon.co.uk
Minnie Mouse Costumes on Jokers' Masquerade