Our fancy dress theme today is Kings & Queens as today we wish HRH Prince Charles a happy 63rd birthday as he was born in on November 14th 1948. As this is also the week that back in 1947, the then Princess Elizabeth was married (November 20th) to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, so in the royal household there should be double celebrations. We don’t think there will be any fancy dress parties going on (they tend to be left to the younger generations) but you never know. Whatever your take on the Royal family (we know some staunch royalists and also some staunch republicans) there is no doubt that they do get a fantastic amount of publicity. Whether it’s the Queen and Prince Philip’s recent Australian tour or the forthcoming Diamond jubilee in 2012, the cameras and media are likely to be there. On a sombre note, when we were going back through our records, we note that the Annus Horribilis that the Queen spoke of back in 1992, included the fire sweeping through Windsor Castle, on November 20, which would also have been their 45th wedding anniversary. Let’s hope that 2012, i.e. 20 years later, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee does prove to be a time of celebration and a chance to wear any of the costumes or accessories you decide on for this party theme.
Kings & Queens is today’s fancy dress suggestion. Below, we have given you some great King & Queen costume ideas that we hope will give you some great costume inspiration…
Disney Princess – Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty – take a look at all of our Disney costumes
Queen (Gay man)
Queenie – Elizabeth I character from Blackadder
King Arthur
Macbeth
Oberon, King of The Fairies
Prince Edmund – Blackadder
Rat King
King of The Underworld – Satan – an easy costume to put together, just take a look at our Devil accessories
The Wizard King
Aragorn – The Lord Of The Rings
The Burger King – eat a burger wearing a king’s crown
Old King Cole
King Kong
The Frog Prince
King Smurf
Jesus, King Of The Jews
Three Kings of Orient-a
Arwen – The Lord Of the Rings
Titania, Queen Of the Fairies
Edward I – wear a knight costume
Henry VIII
Mary, Queen of Scots
Charles II – Cavalier costume
Queen Anne – Georgian
William IV – Regency Darcy costume
Queen Victoria – Victorian costumes
George V – Edwardian style suit
Queen Cleopatra
Queen Nefertiti
Tutankhamen
For those of you who do not really want to dress up, why not just wear one of our fancy dress crowns & tiaras with a cloak to get a great simple outfit
Today, September 22nd is all about longevity.
On this date in 1869, Richard Wagner’s ‘Das Rheingold’ premiered, in Munich, being the first of his ‘Ring Cycle’ operas, based on the legends of Germanic folklore. These operas (there are four of them), if performed ‘end-to end’ would last for around 15 hours and so, quite reasonably, if they are performed ‘together’ it is usually over a series of consecutive days or evenings. Even then, their performance is a major undertaking. Wagner even had a special opera house built, solely for the performance of these and his others works.
Closer to home, and talking in years rather than mere hours, it was upon this date in 1896 that Queen Victoria equalled her father George III as the longest reigning monarch. As she went on to live until January 1901, her total reign was of 63 years and 7 months: Victoria came to the throne at 18 but our current queen Elizabeth, who has also passed George III’s total, has another four years to go before she is contending the top spot! In the meanwhile, she (and many others) are working on celebrations for her jubilee next year, even though there are a few other sporting events and centenaries also occurring.
Kings & Queens is today’s fancy dress theme even though for some people, the coming week will be all about tennis, as Wimbledon starts today, but aside from the royalty of the tennis racquet, coronations feature heavily in June. Although Elizabeth II became Queen of the United Kingdom, upon the death of her father King George VI on February 6th 1952, she was not officially crowned until June 2nd 1953. Likewise Queen Victoria became Queen on the death of William IV on 20 June 1837, but her actual coronation was not until the following year, June 28th 1838. So why are we mentioning these now?
Well, next year sees the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and you know how we love a party here at Props n Frocks. With the possibility of year-long celebrations, plus the Spring bank holiday being moved to June 4th to make June 5th the official Diamond Jubilee, we are starting to get prepared now. After all, it’s not every day you have events where the whole country can celebrate. Queen Victoria herself was the longest reigning British monarch, having done so for 64 years, from age 18 until her death on January 22nd 1901, age 81. Although Elizabeth II was 25 when she became queen, it is generally accepted that people are living longer and although she is currently 85 (four years older than Victoria, when she died) there is a relatively strong possibility of her surpassing Victoria’s record. But as we all know anything can happen in a short period of time.
Costume ideas for a Kings & Queens Theme? well, you can stick to the standard monarchs from around the world, or look a bit outside the box to the King of Rock n Roll (Elvis) or various Disney Prince & Princesses. Rather than repeat ourselves again, we have loads of Kings & Queen costume ideas on these 3 blogs – each one gives some variations on costume ideas that you may not have thought about.
Royalty is today’s fancy dress theme after our own royal event yesterday, there are celebrations across the North Sea today as our neighbours in the Netherlands celebrate Queen’s Day, a major National Holiday. The festival honours Queen Wilhelmina upon whose birthday (30th August) the festival was founded in 1885. When she was succeeded by Queen Juliana the date was moved to April. Because the current Queen Beatrix’s birthday is in January, the April date has been retained in memory of her mother (and because of the potentially better weather!). Hence orange (after the royal lineage of the House of Orange, who also ruled in this country for a time) is the colour of the day in Holland, An excellent day to go Dutch! However, we thought that this costume theme would be too limiting so have broadened it out to encompass everything Royal.
We have some great Royalty Costume ideas on previous blogs, or why not just wear orange? When you think about it, this costume theme gives so many choices. Here are a few more Royalty costume ideas…
On the 29th of next month it will the big day for Prince William and Catherine Middleton. How are you thinking of celebrating this event? You may get inspiration from our ‘Kings & Queens’ blog post.
If you are holding a street party have you thought about all the party goods you might need? From red, white and blue decorations, to tablecloths, serviettes, party hats, balloons, cutlery, etc., there are so many things you may need. Some people are choosing to celebrate the wedding by holding a street party in fancy dress. Although you might think that a Prince and Princess theme a good idea, in reality particularly with children the scope of this can be quite limited. So today, in honour of the fact that on this day in 1871 Queen Victoria opened the Albert Hall, in memory of her Prince, we thought we might suggest a royal theme. After all you have so many monarchs to choose from, not only from British history but also from Europe and the rest of the world.
Having a ‘Royalty’ theme opens up the costume theme, and the ‘Kings & queens ‘ blog post should have given you some ‘outside the box’ costume ideas. See below for a few of our costume ideas that may give you further inspiraiton…
Henry VIII
Henry VIII’s wives – you have a few to choose from!
Today’s fancy dress theme is Kings & Queens. Read on to get some great costume ideas but firstly,why did we choose this costume theme? Well, in all fairness February 12th is not a great day for British monarchs in history.
On this day in 1554 Lady Jane Grey, who had nominally occupied the throne of England for nine days the previous year, was beheaded. In actual fact she spent her ‘reign’ in the Tower of London when the basis of her claim was disputed. She was put to death thanks to a rebellion in her support by one Sir Thomas Wyatt against Jane’s half-sister Mary, who actually took over the throne. Meanwhile on this day in 1689 Parliament decided that the fact that James II had fled to France constituted an abdication and hence the way was clear for William of Orange and his wife Mary (who were in the London area anyway, touring with about 15,000 soldiers) to take over the throne of England. Nonetheless, we thought Kings and Queens was a good theme for today – never let a few setbacks reign on your parade.
So yes, of course, we stock a wide range of crowns and tiaras and cloaks that would be suitable for this Royal occasion, but let’s think about a wide range of Kings & Queen costumes & accessories that we can offer you…
Queen of Hearts Costumes
The King – Elvis Costumes
Princess of Pop – Kylie Monogue
Prince of Thieves – Robin Hood
The Snow Queen – Chronicles Of Narnia
Edmund, Lucy, Peter & Susan all become Kings & queens in Narnia – wear medieval / Knight costumes.
he was born in on November 14th 1948. As this is also the week that back in 1947, the then Princess Elizabeth was married (November 20th) to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, so in the royal household there should be double celebrations. We don’t think there will be any fancy dress parties going on (they tend to be left to the younger generations) but you never know. Whatever your take on the Royal family (we know some staunch royalists and also some staunch republicans) there is no doubt that they do get a fantastic amount of publicity. Whether it’s the Queen and Prince Philip’s recent Australian tour or the forthcoming Diamond jubilee in 2012, the cameras and media are likely to be there. On a sombre note, when we were going back through our records, we note that the Annus Horribilis that the Queen spoke of back in 1992, included the fire sweeping through Windsor Castle, on November 20, which would also have been their 45th wedding anniversary. Let’s hope that 2012, i.e. 20 years later, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee does prove to be a time of celebration and a chance to wear any of the costumes or accessories you decide on for this party theme.
