We just had to have a Pop Stars Fancy Dress Theme today as this’ll be the day in 1957 when Buddy Holly and the Crickets record ‘That’ll Be the Day’. Also in today’s pop calendar we have the Beatles releasing their first single ‘Please Please Me’ in the United States in 1963. Furthermore it was on this date six years later that the Fab Four began work on the Abbey Road album, so we are detecting a bit of a music theme coming on.
The music/pop idol-based party has evolved in recent years, largely aided and abetted by the vast range of TV talent shows. We have also noticed an increased enthusiasm for distinctive costuming amongst the newer pop talents: Lady Gaga undoubtedly still leads the field on innovative outfits, and we are sure she still has a good many tricks up her highly fashioned sleeve. When it comes to trying to recreate looks at ground zero here at planet PropsandFrocks we have to look at practicality and potential popularity. Early Gaga is still popular, of course, and there are several suitable outfits and accessories on the market, but recently others such as Katy Perry and Jessie J have been attracting the attention of wannabes. The problem is nailing the definitive distinctive look as these girls are developing a disturbing habit of going through multiple costume changes in their videos and some of the more interesting looks are getting lost in ‘blink and you miss it moments’!
Music Icons is today’s fancy dress theme as two pop legends celebrate their birthdays today. Today’s the anniversary of the birth of both The King of Rock n Roll himself, Elvis Presley (1935) and David Bowie (1947). Between them they have influenced the music and musicians of successive decades. This gives us a chance to mention in passing that should you choose to use their anniversaries as the basis of a Decades or Pop Icons event, we’re currently offering some really good deals on retro fashion costumes. Details can be found elsewhere on this site.
What is not in doubt was that to this day Presley retains records for the most hits at every cut-off point (Top 5, Top 10, Top 20, etc.). Needless to say, true Elvis fans need no excuse to celebrate his music and films but this is an opportunity for the rest of us to get involved.
Props n Frocks stocks a great range of Elvis accessories, including wigs, sideburns, chest hair, medallions, rings, and of course, Elvis Glasses. We also stock a range of Elvis fancy dress outfits, including a fun joke Fat Elvis costume.
Now Elvis also starred in many films, so broaden out your costume search to include possible a character from one of his films, or celebrate his army career.
We have written many blogs on Music/pop idols so we will not repeat them all here again, but if you need music idol costume ideas, just follow the link.
Meanwhile we thought we’d also focus on the fact that we’ve recently seen the 25th anniversary of the fantasy film ‘Labyrinth’, in which Bowie starred as Jareth the Goblin King. The film involved other major talents such as George Lucas, Terry Jones (of Monty Python) and, possibly most important in giving the movie its unique style, a massive array of characters from Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop. The film was a masterpiece of fantasy and although Jim Henson himself has passed on, his greatest creations, the Muppets continue to live on, returning to our movie screens at the end of this month (and there are actually some Muppet costumes becoming available!).
When it comes to costumes at Props & Frocks we’re Simply the Best for fancy dress. Good name for a song, that, and coincidentally (?) today is the birthday of Tina Turner born in 1939 as Anna Mae Bullock. First coming to the public attention as part of a couple – Ike and Tina Turner had many major hits -Tina Turner continues to flourish as a singer with her distinctive vocal style. If you wish to, you can ‘Tina Turner’ too with a range of raunchy outfits and wig-styles or, of course, we can offer a wide range of other outfits and accessories enabling you to emulate your favourite pop star.
Maybe you could give people certain decades to choose their pop star from, this would give a wider range of pop star costumes. Here are some examples…
The obvious fancy theme today would be Rock and Pop Idols as August 16th has been an auspicious date for two legendary performers. Firstly, back in 1958 one Madonna Louise Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan, whilst in 1977, the legendary King of Rock n Roll Elvis Presley died. Following his death, his final recording Way Down topped the British singles charts on September 3rd 1977. Our readers should hopefully realise by now that aside from offering costumes for the above idols, we also have rock and pop costumes from any of the decades:
1950s – Buddy Holly
1960s – The Beatles
1970s – David Bowie
1980s – Adam Ant
1990s – The Spice Girls
The Noughties – Christina Aguilara, plus present day idols such as Lady Gaga
At PNF we do however like to be different and not necessarily go for the obvious. Today we are instead going to celebrate the work of another person who was born today in 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, just four years before Madonna – the producer, director and writer, James Cameron. Unlike the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock who we mentioned a few days ago, whose black & white genre films all had a very distinctive look to them, Cameron’s work tends to be much more expansive with epics such as Titanic and the Abyss (based underwater) and Aliens and Avatar (on other worlds). As several of his films have been set in the future (Terminator 2 & Escape from New York) we thought a Futuristic or Out of this World costume theme might also be worth exploring.
Today’s fancy dress theme is all about MTV as it was thirty years ago today that the cable channel MTV launched in the USA, with ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles. The music video had found a home and now MTV and its online clones and social networks are a part of our lives. Somehow the theme ‘The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music’ suggests itself, but it is Monday and early in the week!
Having MTV as your costume theme allows your guests to choose from a huge range of Pop Stars both current and yesteryear, so there will be something for everyone. Although you cna get plenty of inspiration from our standard pop star costumes, MTV is all based around video, so think about some songs that you liked and the video that went with it, and you will come up with all sorts of great ideas. Here are just some of our own MTV Costume Ideas…
Lady Gaga
Cheryl Cole
Amy Whinehouse
Elvis
Spice Girls
Madonna – Vogue & Like A Prayer are great videos
Adam Ant – wear a New Romantic costume or a Dick Turpin style costume for Stand & Deliver
The Bangles – think video, Walk Like An Egyptian (Belly Dancer or Egyptian costumes)
If you want something a bit different, think about what novelty songs there have been over the years, featuring amongst many others Bob the Builder & The Wombles…
If you do not fancy a MTV costume theme, why not also look at a Red & White themed party as the first of August sees the National Day of Switzerland. Whilst we could suggest a Swiss cheese event such as a fondue party, the costume potential is as limited for this as it would be for cuckoo clocks and Alps. Donning the lederhosen could be an interesting idea (depends how the males rate their knees).
Today, we offer a Pop Stars Fancy Dress theme as it is the second anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, so some may think that a celebration of Michael’s work is the way forward. On the wider scale, given Jacko’s status as a global superstar we can celebrate the anniversary of the ground-breaking ‘Our World’ programme on this date in 1967. This event, conceived by the BBC, was an attempt to create a world-wide broadcast featuring contributions from countries around the globe using the new communications satellite of that time. Although we now take this sort of thing very much for granted, at the time it was a major technological achievement and, despite a last minute glitch, when the Eastern Bloc countries pulled out of the project in protest at the then recent Six Day War, the programme was a major success. In addition to being the first such programme, reaching an audience of around 400 million, there was another first: The UK segment showcased the premier of the Beatles’ especially written new song ‘All You Need Is Love’, broadcast live from a recording studio and featuring other pop stars of the time including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful and Keith Moon, drummer for ‘The Who’.
There are lots of pop star costumes that we can offer you, here are just some of them…
Our blog on the Beatles as a fancy dress theme (and Sir Paul McCartney’s 69th birthday yesterday) got us thinking about the sixties and fashion trends both in general and the music world in particular. When the 1960s started, the fashion amongst the musical stars of the times was basically men in suits. Whether this was the loud American influence of stars such as Bill Hailey, Buddy Holly Music and Elvis Presley or the more restrained British style. As the decade progressed British fashion suddenly dominated the scene. Films such as the Austin Powers series (see our range of Austin Powers costumes) , portray many of the British designed iconic images of the time. Towards the end of the sixties, the psychedelic era gave way to the glam rock, punk, and disco stars of the 1970s, followed by the New Romantics, Stadium Rock and Grunge images of the 1980s and early 1990s. Over the past twenty years it has been the female stars that have tended to dominate the fashion and music scene, with the Spice Girls, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Pink and Lady Gaga all having their own distinctive outfits (although with Lady Gaga sometimes it can be difficult to keep up!). However, in the case of the boy bands and male solo performers of today, there does not appear to be many distinctive outfits which can be portrayed through fancy dress.
and the Crickets record ‘That’ll Be the Day’. Also in today’s pop calendar we have the Beatles releasing their first single ‘Please Please Me’ in the United States in 1963. Furthermore it was on this date six years later that the Fab Four began work on the Abbey Road album, so we are detecting a bit of a music theme coming on.
