We just had to have an Oscars themed fancy dress party today. A momentous day in the history of the movies as, today in 1927, the head of the MGM film studio, Louis B. Meyer, announced the establishment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Originally set up to improve the industry’s image and mediate in disputes, the organisation went on to found the major film awards event which is ‘The Oscars’. The Academy does give other awards, and technically the gold figurines are ‘Statuette Awards of Merit’, but, as legend has it, a secretary at the Academy saw one of the prototype awards and said that it looked her Uncle Oscar. As the statue depicts a crusader knight resting on his sword and standing on a reel of film, her uncle must have lived a very interesting life. Anyway, if this gives you the incentive to have a Movies party, we have obviously got the costumes and we have also got the awards! Award statuettes in a similar style to the Oscars (the Oscar design is copyright) and available for you to give to those whose efforts deserve merit.
We have covered this costume theme many times in our blog under the guise of Movies, Movie or film Stars, or films, why not take a look at the various blog posts (to the right) for loads of Oscar fancy dress costume ideas?
Screen Idols is our fancy dress theme suggestion today.
This costume theme, also known as Movie Idols, Stars Of The Silver Screen, Hollywood Greats, Oscar Stars etc, has many potential characters that you can choose for your costume inspiration. Take a look at this blog that we have previously published, it is full of Screen Idol Costume ideas for men and women. It is also worth looking at our range of film costumes
Today we celebrate the passing of two actors, one possibly a little better known than the other. It was this day last year that Tony Curtis died, having had roles in around 130 films including Spartacus, The Great Race and, of course, Some Like It Hot. Oddly enough whilst checking our facts, we find that he still has a film ‘in production’ – ‘Morella’, based on an Edgar Allen Poe short story, in which Curtis is supposedly starring with Rudolph Valentino! Anyway, some will also remember his involvement in the ‘The Persuaders’ TV series with Roger Moore (if you don’t remember it, there’s a DVD set just out!). As Moore also played James Bond, that leads us to our second deceased star, Lois Maxwell who died today in 2007 and was probably best known for her role as Miss Moneypenny in all the official Bond films up to ‘A View to a Kill’ (1985). By a strange coincidence, Maxwell also featured in a number of programmes produced by the ATV production company, including ‘Stingray’, ‘Randall and Hopkirk Deceased’ and ‘The Persuaders’!
Movie Idols fancy dress theme is our costume choice for the day. It is easier dressing up as one of these movie stars in a recognisable character from one of their major films. We’ve tried to give you a varied list, to get your own inspiration going, for example roger Moore is down as The Saint, and yes, we know, he was also James Bond.
Some of our Movie Idol Costume ideas include:
Marilyn Monroe – Decide between the pink evening dress or the white halter neck costume
Reese Witherspoon – French Maid from Bridget Jones
To be honest, this list could go on and on, who would you dress up as?
Having mentioned a 100th birth anniversary yesterday we could not let today pass without mentioning another. That of film director Ray Nicholas. Who? Well, only those over a certain age might know the name, but chances are there are many more people who might know the most famous film he directed, which was the significant 1955 movie ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ featuring James Dean. This film, along with ‘East of Eden’ and ‘Giant’ seemed to set Dean up for a major acting career but, as we know, he died in an auto accident in 1955, before ‘Rebel’ was released, but became a movie legend nonetheless. Now when it comes to Movie Idols here at PNF we can offer a wide selection from the timeless characters portrayed by Marilyn Monroe or Clark Gable through to the newer creations such as Black Swan, Green Lantern and the Smurfs!
There was no other fancy dress theme for today as the 83rd Annual Academy Awards are on tonight. There has been a big build-up to this year’sOscars ceremony and in order to widen the field of interest, there are ten nominations for Best Film, although most seem to agree that the main films (and actors/actresses) in contention are Black Swan, The King’s Speech and The Social Network. Of these, only The Kings Speech features in an area close to our heart – nominations for Best Costume Design. Admittedly The Social Network’s ‘costumes’ are not much of a challenge but we had thought that ‘Black Swan’ might have been in there. The films that are up for the award, aside from ‘The Kings Speech’, are ‘I Am Love’, ‘True Grit’, ‘The Tempest’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Purely on costuming potential and popularity, Alice probably gets our vote, but it should be quite an evening one way or another. Take a look at our huge range film costumes so you can take centre stage.
Quite often when it comes to a movies themed fancy dress party, people will often require instantly recognisable character costumes such as Buzz Lightyear, Shrek, the various superheroes, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, etc., rather than individual stars. For those who do not appreciate dressing-up, two of the easiest characters to portray are the comedy duo of the early cinema, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. They do of course require one person to be of the larger persuasion, whilst the other needs to be fairly thin, but aside from this the only costume requirements are usually dark suits, ties and the obligatory bowler hats. The reason we have mentioned them today is Stan Laurel died on February 23rd 1965. With only a few days to go now until the Oscars we thought we would check on the comedy duos wins. In 1960 Stan Laurel received a special Oscar “for his creative pioneering in the field of cinema comedy”, whilst the only Oscar they ever won together was for the short comedy ‘The Music Box’ in 1932. (The one where they are seen dressed in dungarees, moving a piano, if that means anything to you!).
Other ‘easy’ fancy dress options for those of you who are not keen on dressing up are The Blues brothers. Just wear a black suit, wear a black fedora and dark glasses. Finish the entire look with a black tie. We stock all Blues Brothers accessories to help complete this very easy and simple fancy dress costume.
This fancy dress theme comes up so much, so why not check out some of our other blogs on this theme, or take a look at our range of film costumes, where you will find plenty of costume ideas
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…
head of the MGM film studio, Louis B. Meyer, announced the establishment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Originally set up to improve the industry’s image and mediate in disputes, the organisation went on to found the major film awards event which is ‘The Oscars’. The Academy does give other awards, and technically the gold figurines are ‘Statuette Awards of Merit’, but, as legend has it, a secretary at the Academy saw one of the prototype awards and said that it looked her Uncle Oscar. As the statue depicts a crusader knight resting on his sword and standing on a reel of film, her uncle must have lived a very interesting life. Anyway, if this gives you the incentive to have a Movies party, we have obviously got the costumes and we have also got the awards! Award statuettes in a similar style to the Oscars (the Oscar design is copyright) and available for you to give to those whose efforts deserve merit.
