St Valentine’s day is the perfect excuse to get your fancy-dress-thinking-cap on. Whether you want to surprise your loved one or hold a party or games night for friends, there’s no  better excuse to dress up. And while traditionally it’s the day for lovers, singles need not feel left out.
Originally going back to Roman times, variations on St Valentine’s day are found in many parts of the world. An excuse to be romantic, or silly, fancy dress fits in perfectly with the celebration of love.
Traditionally men spend about twice as much as women on St Valentine’s day. But here’s the thing ladies. If you want to guarantee you have the St Valentine’s day you deserve, you need to take matters into your own hands!
Planning for a romantic evening at home with your partner? You need to set the scene by getting the decor right. There are simple ways you can decorate your home or just a room in your house. Think candles, hearts, petals, roses, scents. When it comes to dressing up, how sexy you dare to go is up to you. Are you more of a naughty nurse or catsuit diva?
A surprising number of single women send themselves flowers on St Valentine’s day. Ladies, there is another way. It’s not just couples who are covered for St Valentine’s day. Singles can mix things up with a St Valentine’s day themed fancy dress party. No need to take lurve too seriously.
Encourage your friends to let their hair down with guidance on costume ideas. There’s really no better ice breaker than guests dressed up to the nines. For good measure, throw in some party games. Twister can be relied on to bring the house down. Hey presto – you’ll have the best night you’ve had in ages.
St Valentine’s day fancy dress works for couples and singles alike. You just need to let your imagination go.
That’s another year over, some of you may be glad to see the back of 2011 whilst others could be feeling low at the prospect of returning to work after a long Christmas break with the family.
January is a funny month, it can feel like you’re on a slow moving train, and despite all the intentions in the world, you just can’t get the motivation to move at a fast pace. How can you get over January blues and face the New Year head on? …. By making plans!
We all need something to look forward to, goals to achieve and mountains to climb. Despite our over protesting for a quiet simple life, most people will agree that they need something to make them tick and focus their attention on.
Before the first month of the year passes you by and you let the mood over take you, take a few moments to grab a pen and paper and jot down some important dates in 2012. Your list of important dates should include a few birthdays, whether it’s your children’s, your partners or even your own, whatever happens during 2012, these birthday dates won’t change so make these events your focus.
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine all your loved ones dressed up in cartoon character fancy dress!!…..did you see them? Now with that smile on your face the New Year doesn’t look so blue.
Throwing a party is a fantastic way of bringing people together and taking a few hours out of hectic life to enjoy some fun times. You may feel all ‘partied out’ after the festive period but a party with a fancy dress theme is so rewarding. At themed parties everybody gets to let their hair down and ‘characters’ (excuse the pun), start to shine through. We all get wrapped up in everyday life, we dress for work, and dress for dinner and our own personalities can take a back seat. Any opportunity to take a break for reality will give us a real boost and some happy memories.
In the last month you have probably gone mad with the preparation of practically everything festive. Buying gifts for family and friends and the odd secret Santa gift. You have probably attended the dreaded Christmas work party with the awkward deadly silence then the horrid small talk to the person from accounts that you have been seated next to, who you usually blank at the water cooler or hide behind the photocopier from. Well enough of that, rest assured, give yourself a pat on the back, its done for another year!!.
 Whilst you are reflecting back on the last few days, laughing over the wacky socks your auntie Rose brought you AGAIN for the tenth year running, or all gathering around to watch the Queens speech, its time to get yourself planning for the best night in the social calendar. It is that time of year again people to get excited about. It is the New Years Eve party. Every year in some way or form, it beats your New Years Eve from the previous years.
I have been to a real variety of New Years Eve shindig celebrations over the years ranging from a house party with a school uniform themed Mexican buffet ( the buffet was cancelled due to our house mate buying frying steak instead of mince for chilli) to Ministry of Sound at the Millennium Dome London until 7 in the morning dressed as a gold cowboy, which resulted in me getting frost bite and being being treated by the red cross wrapping me up in a foil blanket……………. I am so glad I could not find photographic evidence.
Whether you are going to a house party, pub or night club, everyone loves to dress up in fancy dress. Whether the theme is super heroes, geeks and freaks or just a choose what you like.
After doing a bit of research, asking friends what they are up to and what they are dressing up as this New Years Eve, the theme still seems to be retro and vintage. This gives you such a great choice to choose from with no pressure to match a particular theme. Some of my friends are attending a vintage party at La Raza Cambridge for New Years Eve with a dress code from 1920s to 1990s which sounds fantastic. I cannot wait to see the photos. I can image the club ranging from girls dressed in 1920s flapper costumes to men dressed as gangster pimps!
Out of all the places I have been to celebrate new years eve, in my opinion, you cannot beat a good house gathering with friends and family. Choose the themes, stock up on food, drink, music and there you go its time to have fun and party. There is no stress with tickets, door fees or expensive travel!
Mind you if someone treated me to a flight to New York to celebrate at Times Square I don’t think I would decline!!
Happy New Year everyone.
Did you know scientists have discovered a new planet that is most likely habitable? It was announced on the news today that the new planet which they have called Kepler-22b is said to very likely have water! This got us to thinking, can you imagine at some point in time, people emigrating to planets rather than other counties! crazy though hey.
 NASAs first manned space program was launched on 12th April 1961, and a short while later in 1969 man first took a step onto the moon. Ever since these events scientists have been forever looking for evidence of life on the planets we knew about but never did we have the technology to discover even more increasing the chances of inhabitable planets. Its an exciting development and i’m sure the first of many more to come. However, the new planet Kepler-22b is a mere 600 lightyears away, so unlikley we’ll be applying for our Visas just yet!
So if your thinking about having a party for the new year or any time soon, consider making it space expedition themed party, maybe get some alien and spaceman costumes on the go to celebrate the exciting news!
Its now that time of year which all parents and family members look forward to. There is nothing better than being squashed up sitting on mini child plastic school chairs watching your little cherub perform in their school or group nativity Christmas play and not forgetting purchasing tickets to watch it!
The worse part is the sheer waiting of anticipation of finding out what part they have been granted. Once you have found out, it is then the dreaded hunt for the costume in a 2 week deadline. The great pressure and panic you are now feeling knowing everyone, especially the cherub is counting on you to find the best, most creative but not trying to hard or looking too expensive costume.
St Francis of Assisi is said to have created the first ever nativity play in Italy in 1223. However these days, a Christmas nativity play is not just the traditional scene of the birth of the baby Jesus in a in a manger and of how Mary and Joseph were visited by the shepherds and the three wise men in the stable. Now throughout the globe, children dress from a range of costumes varying from pirates, aliens from out of space wanting to educate themselves on the celebration of Christmas, to penguins that can fly and rescue Santa Clause and his elves!!
The Christmas nativity is now just a celebration of Christmas and is aimed to give all that is watching (paid to watch remember) a warm feeling inside, no matter if its a donkey in a spaceship or something more traditional.
One of my favourite feel good Christmas movies of all times is the film Love Actually (2003) which has a real tongue in cheek children’s nativity play with some very bizarre characters including an octopus, penguins, vomiting whale, a starfish and a spider-man king. If you are stressed out preparing for Christmas, this is the feel-good film to watch.
One of the best quotes from Love Actually is from the scene with a mother called Karen (played by Emma Thompson) and her daughter Daisy.
 Daisy: “We’ve been given our parts in the nativity play and I am the lobster”
Karen : “The lobster”
Daisy: “Yeah!”
Karen: “In the nativity play?”
Daisy: “Yeah the first lobster”
Karen: “There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?”
Daisy: “Duh!”Whatever costume the cherub and their friends need this year for the Christmas nativity play, you will find right here!!
From a traditional Joseph costume to a Christmas cracker. Just remember once you find out their part, there is no need to panic, stress or pull your hair out. Just invite all your family and friends, for a huge get together, purchase all the tickets, and take a box of tissues as no matter how cute or wacky they look fighting aliens, rescuing Santa or watching Mary and Joseph with frosty the snowman, be ready to shed lots of tears. Remember us adults were put on this planet to pay for everything, as our payment in return is to embarrass them lots.
 Every year, loads of car enthusiasts and party animals take part in what’s know as the Modball Rally. There are two a year, one in Europe and the other across the pond in the US of A. This year, accompanying the drivers were gorgeous models Lucy Pinder, Rhian Sugden & Frayer Jaye. We were approached by Modball and asked if we would Sponsor the USA leg by supplying the girls with fancy dress costumes to wear on the trip – how could we say no!! Along the way the girls visited San Francisco – Hollywood, LA – Palm Springs – Phoenix, AZ – Grand Canyon – Las Vegas and from their comments on twitter they had a fantastic time and the parties were awesome. Costumes supplied included Pink lady jackets, wallywoman, USA Cops, boo boo the clown, wheres wally wenda, fever miss hatter, queen of hearts and Alice. I think you’ll agree they all looked fantastic!
Great news guys and Gals! for a while we have been running a free delivery trial offer. This has turned out to be an extremely popular choice so we have made it a permanent service to our website! All orders or fancy dress products purchased over the value of £9.99 will give you a Royal Mail Second Class delivery option absolutely FREE. The 2nd Class service on average takes 3-5 working days to get your order to you, so although this great option is great value also be realistic about when you need your stuff by. In other words, if your organised and have stacks of time before your party, use it and save yourself a bundle, if you need it pretty quick we suggest you use the Standard 1st Class and Special next day services just to be sure.
We have plenty of customers that have been really pleased with the service so far – read some of their lovely comments.
So many people get invited to a fancy dress party, find out the theme and go straight online and buy the first costume that they come across. For example your friends ask you to a 1960s decade party, so the first thing you think is ‘hippy costume’ – STOP!, although there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, in fact everyone loves a good hippy outfit, however, think of the other possibilities for such a theme, here are some 1960s fancy dress ideas….
Musicians from the 1960′s – During the sixties there were loads of great artists such as Elvis, The Beatles, Cliff Richard, Chuck Berry the list goes on, why not don the attire of one of these famous musicians.
 Film & TV from the 1960′s – As well as a great selection of music artists, alike there were many fantastic Films & TV shows including The Lone Ranger, Captain Scarlett, Thunderbirds and many more. What show can you think of?
Standing out from the crowd – By choosing something a little different and less, lets say common, you are much more likely to arrive to your party/function in a unique costume ready to impress the other guests.
Check out our 1960s fancy dress costumes for quality costumes and to give you some great ideas!
Brand new to our online shop - from now on, with every purchase no matter how small, you will receive a £5 off coupon voucher code. This code will entitle you to £5 off orders over £25 during October 2011. Don’t miss out on this great offer and grab some free money to put towards your Halloween Fancy Dress in 2011.
More News:
Exciting costume news, we are now waiting for fantastic second skin suits to arrive, they are already in the store to view so check them out! Great for stag partys or even drama productions alike!
Happy new year to everyone, I hope you had a great Christmas and now are past the January blues! Well, I have been to view this years new ranges of costumes and my gosh I can hardly contain myself! I must however control the urge to release all of the exiting news all at once, so with this in mind, I am going to let you know about all the great new stuff heading to our store over the next few weeks little by little. So without any further ado.
Childrens Costumes – our childrens range is just about to get alot better! Proud to announce the Hello Kitty Costume range. This is a great opportunity to better encourage your kids into costumes other than JUST their favourite TV characters, with various themes in the range the costumes have the logo printed on the garment too.
New Halloween Range – we are so excited to have this range, costumes similar to this have been around for a while, but i’m sure you will agree when we release the pictures that these are a class above the rest. Featuring the Once Upon a Nightmare costume range! All of your favourite fairy tale characters ready to scare the pants off your friends and neighbours!
More still to come, but remember, good things come to those who wait!!
The 1920s also known as the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age and the Golden Twenties, depending on which part of the world you were from; throughout the decade, it was well known for its rise of radical political movements, especially in regions that were once part of empires but most of all, people like you and I recognize the 20’s for the dress and attire that our ancestors once wore.
Ladies wore ankle length skirts and dresses up until around 1925 and after this more of the leg became on show. Evening dresses were usually sleeveless and were low cut necklines. Accessories used with the outfits included items such as pearl necklaces, stockings, feather scarves and head pieces. Short hair was most popular for women at this time and where women had long hair, they tended to wear it up. Makeup was a big thing and very often bright red lips and dark eyes were the fashion.
Men (gentlemen) during the period were known for wearing tailcoats, tuxedos for evening wear (single breast). Of course the twenties were also very well known for the Gangsters of the time, wearing their pin stripe suits and carrying around tommy guns!
1920s fancy dress is one of the more popular all year round party themes and there is always plenty of choice to get the decade look you are after.
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!
Please read this blog post for important delivery information around the Christmas and New year period.
We will be closed for the Christmas holidays on 24th December and will reopen for the 29th and 30th December. We are closed again for New Year on 31st December and then open as normal on 4th January.
The last day orders will be collected from us before Christmas by courier/Royal Mail will be 23rd December for orders placed before 2pm and these will be delivered on Christmas Eve if a next day service has been selected. Any other services selected will be delivered from 29th December.
The last day orders will be collected from us before New Year by courier/Royal Mail will be 30th December for orders placed before 2pm and these will be delivered on New Years Eve if a next day delivery service has been selected. Any other services selected will be delivered from 4th January 2011.
We wish all of our customers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Having a medieval wedding began as a bit of a joke but it turned out to be the party of our lives, in October 2010.
Guests arrived in fantastic costumes and it gave everyone something to talk about – much better than just complimenting the bride on her dress.
We had medieval ladies and queens, monks, priests and nuns, knights and princesses, tavern wenches, a jester, a Viking, some Tudors, and even an executioner with an axe. And what was really great – no two costumes were the same. We can’t wait for the photos!
If you fancy doing something different and have your party go down in history – we really recommend fancy dress with a theme.
Its that time of year, where someone in your organisation gets given the job of organising the annual christmas party! Some people jump at the chance for the responsibility, some hide under their desks in the hope that they won’t be asked. Which ever type of person you are, why not consider having a christmas fancy dress party! afterall its about the only time of year where everyone you work with lets their hair down and you get to know who they really are. Get the boss to dress up in a santa costume and the bearer of the sack of secret santa presents to dish out!
You could also choose a bunch of outfits, put them in a hat prior to the event and have everyone dress up as what they selected from the hat, the possiblities are endless, christmas puddings, tree’s, reindeer, elfs, santas helpers and christmas presents.
The perfect costume for the male boss: Deluxe Santa Costume
The perfect costume for the female boss: Santas Babe
This year we have a great selection of christmas products as ever with even more being added through the early part of Novemeber. Also, we had such a great success with out free standard shipping through October, we have decided to make it a permenant offer!
Happy christmas party planning!
Last orders have been taken! In fact, this year, as early as Wednesday 27th October, we had to stop processing orders in an attempt to allow the warehouse to catch up on the halloween backlog in one final attempt to get everyones costumes to them on time. This year has been a challenge for our customer service as well as the guys in the warehouse. Unfortunately on occasion we have issues with some stock levels over this busy period, and can only apologise to our few customers who were affected by this; we hope this does not discourage you from shopping again with us in the future.
To celebrate an end to the mad rush of Halloween, we will be running a Photo competition in Novemeber so make sure you take soon great pictures this weekend!!
Please be advised that due to the massive demand over this Halloween period, we are on occasion being unable to provide same day dispatch on some orders, however please note we are prioritising next day delivery orders so please ensure you choose the service that best suits your requirements.
2010 has been a great year for the blood sucking vampires of the screens. We have seen TV shows like True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and Being Human and not to mention films like 30 Days of Night, Day Breakers, Twilight (Eclipse) and Vampires Suck to name but a few!
This Halloween will bring many vampires to the streets and parties, so let me take this opportunity to give you a blood thirsty taste of some of a couple of products we have to offer this year!
Gothic Manor Vampiress Costume – The costume is so detailed and very glamorous. With a fitted red and black dress it comes inclusive of red gloves and collar. You can really finish off the look with some vampire fangs or if you really want to look the real deal choose some eyewear from our accessoreyes range.
Dark Vampire Costume – For him a great costume is this very sinister looking guy. The costume brought alive with taking a little time to do the makeup with snazzaroo beige and black body and face paint and wearing another set of great vampire teeth.
What ever type of blood sucker you want to be this year we have a great choice to choose from. Want to see more? browse all our vampire costumes.
How many people out there use the same costume more than once? My guess would be not many. Everyone loves turning up to an event in a unique fancy dress costume and certainly one nobody has seen them in before. So what do we do with our old fancy dress? If you are unsure what to do with yours, we have supplied three great of ideas for you:
Costume Box Party – Save them up and along with additions from all your friends, chuck them in a box like a lucky dip and what ever you pick out is what you have to wear for the duration. Ok so you might end up wearing the same costume again, but it will be lots of fun seeing your husband in that little sexy witch costume you had a few years back!
Charity Shop It – Although I imagine there possibly isn’t a huge call for fancy dress in charity shops, do you know how many people organise charity shop challenge events? Make life easy for these guys, they’ll pick the costume every time guaranteed!
Ebay Away – This is a great way to recycle your goods and at the same time reclaim some of your hard earned cash back. Ebay is great for selling used goods, just make sure you don’t try and pass it off as new especially if the party you went to was a bit of a messy one!
Anyway, i’d love to know what you do with your costumes, so feel free to post your comments below. Happy dressing up!
This year we are offering free standard shipping on all orders over £80 during October. We always look to give you more choice and options to get your fancy dress to you, so if you need to place a big order, or know someone that is also buying fancy dress, why not club together and get your goods delivered for FREE. Service offered is Royal Mail Standard delivery and average delivery time is 1-2 working days.
On the lead up to Halloween this year the demand has been extremely high for international customers so we are pleased to announce that we have now added International shipping options for various countries with prices starting from as little as £7.99. The shipping methods are divided into two categories:
International Western Europe
To include the following countries: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstien, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweeden and Switzerland. Prices fot this category will start from £7.99.
International Rest of World
To include the following counties: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Estonia, Gibraltar, Hungary, India, Israel, Latvia, Malta, Monaco, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Turkey and or course the USA. Prices for this category start from £15.99.
We hope to add more countries on to the list as time goes on and hope we now can offer even more customers great fancy dress products and a great service
They are here, and they are scarey! We’ve been waiting patiently sinch around March this year for these costumes and now they are finally arriving. Set to be the biggest hit this halloween, the high school horror fancy dress range is unique and bound to give you a first prizze in any fancy dress competiton!
Forget the Freddie’s and Jasons this year and don these uniforms to to go trick or treating!
Finally all the latest news and products in one place. Forget having to remember multiple websites for keeping up to date with our products and services, you can now find it all here on our very own blog pages. We will give you the latest gossip on fancy dress products as well as providing you will usefull ideas and tips to save money and look fab at your parties.
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