A variation to a Toga fancy dress party, today we offer you Ancient Times as our costume theme.
Most people would tend to go for a Greek, Roman or Egyptian style of costume, especially as we are in the middle of the summer and the weather ‘should’ be hot! We do have a great range of Roman & Egyptian costumes for sale and also some great accessories so you may be able to put your own costume together at home, relatively cheaply.
But you could also look at other costumes including:
July 24, and today we turn our mind to birthday cake as for some reason in the US, certain factions (possibly the cake and candle manufacturers) celebrate ‘Candles on a Cake Day’ – we are not sure if the card makers also get in on the act! The origins of the birthday cake can be traced back to Ancient Greece and offerings made to Artemis, goddess of the Moon – one of the reasons why birthday cakes are traditionally round (although of course nowadays they can come in all shapes, sizes and characters). The addition of candles on the cake seems to derive from the Greeks attempting to emulate the moonlight on their offerings, although others claim a connection to the candles symbolising the light of Life. The blowing out of candles whilst making a wish is also of Ancient Greek origin, with the smoke of the extinguished candles apparently carrying your wish to the gods. Well obviously the theme for today is a birthday party (although many people may already have that idea in mind for their own personal reasons) and of course the party can be themed anyway you wish with our help here at Props and Frocks. Probably the only thing we can’t help with is the cake!
Today, we offer you 2 fancy dress options for your next costume party. On November 29th 1877, Thomas Edison
Amy Whinehouse Style Outfit
demonstrated the ‘phonograph’, a device which could record and play-back sound. Although his early model used a foil sheet as its recording medium, the principles involved in creating records remained basically the same up until the 1980s, when technology began to find other (and supposedly better) ways of creating ‘records’ for the music-buying public. So, one could build a theme around the ‘Golden Oldies’ music and fashions of a bygone era especially as much of it is still available – re-mastered for CD/MP3 etc). As this may be difficult, or possibly, not that interesting a theme choice, we thought ‘Music’ would offer you and your guests some interesting choices of costumes. You could then choose from West End Muscials, Composers and famous rock or pop stars. You could even look at the names of major recording labels to be a bit different.
Some of our costume suggestions would include:
Freddie Mercury – Rock and Muscial star
The Beatles – loads of various Beatles costumes and accessories
Monk Costume holding a road sign for Abbey Road, and a maids outfit wearing a veil for Maida Vale – okay we are sorry, but hopefully it will get your little grey cells working!
Egyptian Costume for Boys
On the flipside (not a term so commonly used these days), you could celebrate the truly bygone era of the Egyptians, as it was on this day in 1922, that Howard Carter opened the recently discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb to the public. Props n Frocks has a great range of Egyptian costumes for men, ladies and of course, your children – ideal for Egyptian dress up days at school.
How about going as ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ by The Bangles, combining both of today’s fancy dress themes?
Although toga fancy dress parties are still very popular as a costume theme, would you really liked to have lived during this time in history? Let’s take a little look at what happened
Ladies Roman Costume
this week in history.
October 13th 54AD was a day for dirty deeds in Ancient Rome as Agrippina the Younger, the wife of Claudius (who became Emperor after the tyrannical rule of Caligula) decides that her husband has ruled a little too long. As the marriage was one of political convenience anyway, she sees no harm in poisoning Claudius so that her son (actually Claudius’s grand-nephew but adopted by him when his relatives were killed) Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (Nero for short) can take over at the top, at the age of just 16 – Rome’s youngest Emperor ever. So we might say that it’s time for another toga party, especially as also on this day the GMT Meridian line in Greenwich was confirmed as the location from which the world took its Universal Standard Time. You might think the setting of time zones is easy – just divide the world up into 24 different zones to match the hours in the day – but no, such are the technical and political considerations currently in play that there are apparently forty different time zones in operation around the world. Getting a ‘Time’ based fancy dress party is always going to be hard, so you could have a time zone party and encourage your guests to dress up costume for a designated time zone. This will give them something to think about and makes a bit of a change. If, however, you decide to stick with the Romans, Props n Frocks can offer you a huge range of roman costumes, including ladies toga fancy dress, and Caesar costumes for the men
Why not have an Egyptian fancy dress themed party? On August 30th, 30 BC, Queen Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Egypt died. A little known fact is that the Emperor Augustus (who, as Octavian, defeated the Queen and Mark Anthony) used his name for what had been the Roman month Sextilis, in honour of the dead Queen’s birth and death month. We could show off further and say that this Cleopatra was one of several Cleo’s to rule Egypt, even though they were of Greek descent – something to do with Alexander the Great apparently. However suffice it to say that Cleopatra is a popular choice and can be used for the following fancy dress themes: Movie, Historical Characters and Couples fancy dress parties and she may become yet more popular in the near future: Firstly, Catherine Zeta-Jones is involved in a movie project called ‘Cleo’ “a 1920’s-set song-and-dance retelling of the Cleopatra story”, which is due out in 2011. Secondly, in a recent interview, Angelina Jolie has been quoted as saying that Cleopatra was her dream role and as such she’d been pencilled in for a Cleopatra film in 2013. Turns out she may get to do it twice as she has also been picked to play Elizabeth Taylor in a film about Liz and Richard Burton, and we all know which film was central to that relationship.
Most people will tend to group Egyptian, Greek and Roman costumes all together as they are all closely linked in time and style. Using a Cleopatra costume as a base for a couples fancy dress idea, you could pair her with either Marc Antony outfits or Caesar costumes. You may decide that all you need are some Egyptian accessories to help you to complete your outfit, well Props n frocks stocks a large ranges including Egyptian belts, collars, cuffs and headpieces.
Children also study Egyptians in their Primary School curriculum and Props n Frocks stocks fantastic childrens Egyptian costumes that are ideal.
