Our fancy dress theme today was a bit problematic as it was difficult to tie in a suitable theme. We have quite a few celebrities celebrating a birthday today, so we decided to have a Famous People fancy Dress theme
Amongst those celebrating today are Grace Jones (the singer and model who famously attacked chat-show host Russell Harty for ignoring her), Pete Townshend of The Who, and Lily Cole, a red-headed model famous for her waif-like look and developing acting career (she was in the Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and featured as a Siren in the Dr Who episode ‘Curse of the Black Spot’ a week or so ago). Yet today, we also have the strange case of the birthday that wasn’t: On this day in 1962 Marilyn Monroe performed her famous rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ to President John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, the problem being that it wasn’t actually his birthday until ten days later. Nonetheless the president commented ‘He could now retire from politics having had Happy Birthday sung in such a sweet way’. Incidentally, the song ‘Happy Birthday’ will next year celebrate its centenary of first appearing in print – we will doubtless be mentioning the fact at the appropriate time.
Famous people is a huge theme with countless costuming possibilities, some areas that you may want to look at for your fancy dress outfits are:
Pop Stars, we stock a huge range of pop star costumes from Cheryl Cole, Boy George, Madonna, Freddy Mercury, Adam Ant, Abba, The Beatles to name just a few
Movie Stars, again a theme in it’s own right, take a look at this blog with loads of movie star costume ideas. It is always a good idea to wear a costume that the movie star wore in a film. For example you could wear a naval officer for Richard Gere from An Officer & a Gentleman’.
Politicians, we stock many of the British & American leaders
Today, we celebrate Gods & Goddesses of The Silver Screen’ as our fancy dress theme. Yesterday (9th) we celebrated the
Ladies Goddess Costume
birthday of Dame Judi Dench, and today we move on to celebrate the anniversary of another great British actor and, latterly, director, Kenneth Branagh. Some would say that he has followed in the footsteps of Olivier in popularising Shakespeare, creating a number of new ways to present the Bard’s work on film. Most recently, however he has been working to bring the Marvel comic character (and all-round great Norse legend) Thor to the Big Screen, in a film due to premiere next year. Our theme suggestion for today is Gods and Goddesses of the Silver Screen. You can take this either literally – there have been plenty of films portraying the gods and goddesses of Myth and Legend, or use it as an opportunity to portray one of the great movie star icons. The choice is yours, and naturally we have the costumes. You can even look towards Roman and Greek Gods, or Gods from various religions.
Roman costumes are always a good start for a traditional God like costume, why not check out our blog on Hollywood Greats which will give you some more costume ideas.
‘Hollywood Greats’ is today’s fancy dress theme suggestion… Today we do give a damn as we celebrate the life of Clark Gable, who died of heart failure on November 16th 1960 – fifty years ago. Gable is probably best known nowadays for his classic performance as Rhett Butler in ‘Gone With The Wind’, but in his day some called him ‘The King of Hollywood’ and he was one of the top ten greatest actors of all time. He named Joan Crawford as his favourite actress, but he worked with most of the Hollywood Greats during his screen career. His last film was ‘The Misfits’ in 1960, the same movie in which Marilyn Monroe also made her final screen appearance. In his honour today’s theme is ‘Hollywood Greats’.
This costume theme will no doubt bring a touch of glamour and glitz to your fancy dress party. The ladies will enjoy dressing up to the nines and the men have the option of dressing in costume (based on a film stars famous film roles) or a dinner jacket, as if attending a red carpet event.
Obviously, we do not need to give you any guidance when it comes to evening gowns and dinner jackets, but we can offer some costume suggestions that would be suitable for this great fancy dress theme…
We thought it was about time we promoted having a Famous People themed fancy dress party. November 14th 2010 will be Prince Charles’ 62nd birthday and there is an impressive list of people who were also born on this day. These include the artist Claude Monet (1840); the American composer and conductor Aaron Copeland (1900); the actress Veronica Lake (1922); King Hussein of Jordan (1935); the American Dancer Louise Brooks (1906) and former Prime Minister of the republic of India, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889). Not sure how you could portray many of the above, although perhaps looking at their ‘profession’ may be an idea. Artist, actor, dancer, Heir apparent, etc., might be a way forward. Alternatively, you could look at other famous people (both living and dead). These could include figures from history, such as the Kings and Queens of Britain. Alternatively, look at those in the public eye such as Pop Stars, Actors, Actresses and other celebrities.
We have a large range of famous people masks including the Queen, Prince Charles, David Jason (as Del Boy) and Elton John masks to name just a small selection from the list.
Some famous people costume suggestions:
Elvis Presley – costumes and accessories available to purchase
Marilyn Monroe – costumes available for both the white halterneck dress and the pink ‘Happy Birthday’ dress
Famous People fancy Dress theme
