Need a fancy dress party theme?

Posted on September 8, 2012 by admin

B for Banana, F for Fruit, Y for Yellow – get the idea?

It’s the weekend and people seem to be back in party mode, even if the party is not for a few weeks. So, what are you planning to celebrate over the next few months? Do you have a special birthday or anniversary, where you want people to let their hair down and come in fancy dress? Two popular costume trends in recent years have been the ‘Alphabet’ and ‘Decade’ parties. The first is where you take the initial of your host and come in a costume to match the initial, A for Alice or Adam Ant, B for Bo Peep or Bananaman, C for Cinderella or Charming (Prince), you get the picture. The second is where the host throws a party and themes it according to a particular decade that they like. Sometimes this is because they have fond memories of a specific decade; perhaps they were born in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, etc.; or maybe they just happen to like the music and style of a certain period. Whatever the reason, if you need help with any aspect of planning a party, why not take a look at what we have on offer here at Props & Frocks.

Our new section of this website covers almost every possible costume theme idea you could think of, and we add to it weekly. If you can’t find what you are looking for drop us a line and we can add that particular costume theme to our list. We aim to make this part of our website as a ‘one stop shop’ for all your costume inspiration, party advice, and of course massive choice of costumes & accessories for your theme.

To Theme or Not To Theme?

Posted on August 27, 2012 by admin

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Theme or no Theme?

Tudor Costume Theme

The beauty of a website is that even when the fancy dress shop is closed, people can still spend time browsing through our vast wardrobe of costumes and accessories, to get ideas for parties or see what they would like to wear. The problem can sometimes be that there is too much choice. Assuming that you are not out there enjoying the British bank holiday weather, along with others who do not have to work today, let us give you a few hints and tips on browsing through our website.

We have a whole host of ideas for different fancy dress themes, for parties and other events. Some people may want to go for a general fancy dress party without any theme. This leaves the field wide open for an eclectic mix of costumes. In these circumstances, you may find it is just a case of browsing our website and getting ideas of some of the costumes that are on the market and available. The men, women and children’s sections reflect the costumes for sale, but you might decide you would like to hire a costume, rather than purchase one. That’s no problem, just click on our costume hire pages.

Having no particular costume theme does mean that unless you have a specific idea of who or what you would like to be, you might need to take time over finding the right fancy dress outfit for you. If you are undecided and think you have too much choice, why not start looking through our fancy dress theme ideas and categories to see which ones appeal to you. Picking a theme you like will automatically narrow the costume options available to you. Searches can be undertaken throughout our website, either through the blogs, recent additions or checking the various categories.

As we develop even more costume theme pages for every theme you can think of, it will become easier for you , and your guests, to chose, and follow, a really great theme. You could print off some of our costume ideas, or share the pages on Facebook, or Twitter. It has been proven that if you give your guests some costume ideas the chances are that they will dress up. The more of your guests that dress up, the better the your event will be.

We are gradually getting more of our hire pictures on the website and although our “Fun Day” did not go quite as planned last month (something to do with the great British weather – how much rain can you have in one day? And, why was it all aimed at us?) we did get some great photographs. Many thanks once again to all those who contributed their time and effort and helped add to the costume photo archive, despite not being able to walk down the fantastic catwalk we had in place. We were as mortified as you were that the rain did not allow for this. Still, looking on the bright side, we did raise over £1500 for two very worthwhile charities. We are just ignoring the amount it cost us to put on!

Need Help With a Costume Theme?

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin

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Are you thinking about holding a fancy dress party, but unsure of which theme to chose? why not take a look at our new Costumes Theme & Ideas section? It is full of costume themes and costumes that you could wear. You could even send out costume ideas when you send your invites.

Just click on the link above and it will take to this section. Take a look at the list down the left side of the page, click on what interests you and it will split down further

The summer is a great time to be getting out and about (assuming the weather plays its part). With the school holidays now virtually upon us here in Essex (and elsewhere), it is a great time to be finding events to take the kids. Over the past few weeks, our festival van has been out and about on the road attending both local and national events. Festivals are proving a popular form of entertainment these days, although it is hoped that floods and mud will not be a feature of the rest of the summer festival circuit. Particularly when it comes to our own festival here in Essex, Brownstock, which takes place the weekend following the August bank holiday weekend. Talking of festivals, we were mentioning yesterday about Bestival on the Isle of Wight, but a bit nearer in time is its sister act Camp Bestival, which is held at Lulworth castle, Dorset. This one is on from Thursday July 26^th until the 29^th, overlapping the start of the ‘games that should not be named’.

Organising a Fancy Dress Party?

Posted on June 23, 2012 by admin

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Are you organising a fancy dress party? If yes, then the general idea is for the function to be a success, you require most, if not all, of your guests to wear the required theme.

Some themes so require more work than others, and some require your guests to really ‘think outside of the box’. It is always worth considering the following points:

What age range will the guests be? A more general theme, or an era may be better, yo need a theme that has a broad range of costumes for all ages and sizes.
What time of the year is the party going to be? Unless you do not mind having the heating turned up full in December, an Hawaiian party may be better suited to our warmer (do we have any?) months.
Is it a work event? If people have to work in their outfits, the theme must be suitable so that they can!

We have a full section on this website that looks at many various costume themes, it even gives you costume ideas, and songs to play during the event. It would be well worth taking some time to look at these themes to help you decide on a suitable costume theme for your party. We would also suggest that you give your guests either the link to the site, share it on Facebook, or just print off the costume suggestions, so there really is no excuse for not trying to join in with the theme. We always try and give some ‘easier’ options as well!

Top Tip
whatever theme you choose, make sure you always have a few ‘spares’ in hand for the people who try and attend without joining in on the theme.

If you are organising a themed event such as a party, how strict should you be in expecting people to enter into the spirit? When you have made the effort to put things together with appropriate costumes, decorations, food etc. you probably expect those who have been invited to do the same but… unfortunately not everyone plays the game. A few weeks back we heard of a tearoom up North which had gone all patriotic for the Jubilee, with suitable décor and themed menus. The problem arose when, as part of the daily routine, they were playing the National Anthem at 3.00pm and expecting their patrons to break off what they were doing to stand up and join in. Apparently some customers refused to do so, even talking through the Anthem, so the owners asked them to leave. Excessively authoritarian or an example of putting thematic enthusiasm (or patriotism) before profit?

Need Fancy Dress Theme Ideas

Posted on May 22, 2012 by admin

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Are you thinking of having your own fancy dress party? Need ideas for the theme? Well, Props & Frocks are THE fancy dress experts & have started to compile all of our theme information on our website.

This is a huge project, but every week we will be adding more and more information so that in the end it builds an encyclopaedia of fancy dress theme ideas from themes to choose, songs to play, costume ideas & even things like props & hairstyles.

Share the information on social media so that your friends can also dress up to the theme you have chosen.

If there is a fancy dress we have not covered yet, please drop us a line and we’ll try and get it completed for you.

Whilst we were mentioning comedian and surrealist Noel Fielding yesterday, it did occur to us that some people might not have had too much idea who we were talking about, either because his comedy style is not to their taste, or because you are one of our international followers (which is both the benefit and curse of the global internet). Our point is that whilst a person might spend time and effort putting together what seems a brilliant costume concept based, for example, on a Fielding character, the impact might be rather lost if others have not seen the show in question. It is sometimes possible to be a little too clever for one’s own good – just before the Star Wars prequels came out, someone of our acquaintance did a costume based on a ‘mash-up’ of Dennis the Menace and the Phantom of the Opera – the Phantom Menace – geddit? Unfortunately most people didn’t, so he had to spend a good deal of time explaining who he was supposed to be (not helped by the fact that the actual Phantom Menace, surprisingly, looked nothing like that!)