You might have noticed recent press coverage about world record attempts involving fancy dress costumes – 5th August saw the ‘Greatest number of pirates in one place’ at Hastings. Props n Frocks stocks a huge range of pirate costumes and accessories if you think about trying to break this particular record. Earlier in the year we had ‘The greatest number of Star Trek characters in costume’ at the Millennium Bridge, London. There was also ‘The greatest number of people doing the Time Warp (from the Rock Horror Show)’ at Brighton. Of course, we also stock all the Rocky Horror Costumes. Check out our Rocky Horror page that will give you all the information you will need if you are brave enough to attend! All this effort at massed costuming is, of course, aimed at getting into the Guinness Book of Records.

On September 2nd, we celebrate two individuals of relevance to this topic. On this day in 1994, Roy Castle died. In his foreshortened career he helped many to great deeds – he was a popular all-round entertainer, an inspiration to many and host of the TV show ‘Record Breakers’, in which he attempted and broke several records himself – notably for tap-dancing. Rather longer ago, in 530BC the Athenian herald and Greek hero Pheidippides was born. It was he who ‘invented’ the marathon run, Firstly he ran 150 miles over two days to get help from the Spartans, when the Persians invaded at Marathon. Then, after the battle was won, he ran to Athens (about 25 miles) to announce the victory, then collapsed and died. These days the marathon is a less arduous affair, even when people insist on doing the event in costume to benefit a worthy cause. Perhaps we’ll see a renewed interest in this novel sport-form because of the new Weetabix advert which involves Mascot fun-runners beating the athletes to the finish line, but in the meantime you could browse the relevant Guinness World Records site http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Records-set-at-Flora-London-Marathon/blog/257326/7691.html which has a section on fancy dress records for the 2009 Flora marathon – ‘Fastest dressed as a vegetable’, Fastest dressed as a cartoon character’ and so on.