We can’t wait for the Jubilee here at Fancy Dress Ball, so to make sure it’s the most British celebration since the Royal Wedding last year, we’re giving away some of the most iconic British fancy dress we have on the Fashion channel at Competwition!
We’re hearing stories of parties in the pipeline all over the country and we’ll certainly be joining the British revellers amongst you! It’s remarkable that Her Majesty the Queen has been on the throne for 60 years now, so we need to celebrate in style.
As always, we’d love to see pictures on our Facebook wall before, during or after your celebrations in your best Jubilee costumes!
In the midst of all the hype surrounding the release of the new Avengers movie in the past few weeks, the American extras from the movie will be taking part in a huge fancy dress party in Ohio to celebrate its release.
Parts of the movie were filmed in the state of Ohio, so they’re all planning to dress up as the superheroes and party the night away! The event will take place in Cleveland and is expected to attract a lot of attention. To further commemorate Ohio’s part in the making of the movie, there will be an exclusive premiere of the movie for all the extras held at Cinemark in Valley View.
The Avengers has had a very successful first few days in the cinema and looks set to be one of the biggest superhero movies of the year. The blockbuster has received a multitude of great reviews, too, so it seems to be going down a storm with everybody.
There hasn’t been so much hype about a movie in a lot of years, so now that the wait is over, the fancy dress parties can begin! People are kitting themselves out in costumes like the Thor movie costume and the Iron Man outfit to party in style.
There are plenty of superhero costumes available over at our dedicated category page, too, so even if you’re not a fan of the Avengers, you won’t be short of choice!
Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk saw a six hour fancy dress auction today. Rail upon rail of fancy dress items were sold off as the collection accumulated over a 30 year period diminished.
Maureen Hammond was the owner of the vast collection and now, as she plans out her retirement, the decision to get rid of the impressive collection was an emotional but necessary one. Maureen had run the business with her husband long enough to develop a sentimental attachment to the collection but she can now rest from years of washing and ironing with a considerable cash sum from selling them off.
The auction itself saw over 8000 costumes on sale. A room was open for all costume enthusiasts to peruse before the auction kicked off. Fortunately for the auctioneer, there were only 800 lots meaning about 10 costumes per lot. The sale started at 10.00AM this morning at Lacy Scott in Bury St Edmunds.
Among those being sold today were some real curiosity pieces including costumes worn by performers at the Royal Opera House. Even more interestingly perhaps, is the 1,000 costume buy from the BBC. This purchase made it so that Maureen’s company Hammond’s Costumes were the proud owners of getups worn by the BBC’s fictional Dr Who, the band Hot Chocolate, famous eighties sketch show The Russ Abbot Show and a variety of apparel worn by ‘Allo Allo’ star by Kim Hartman.
Many dresses worn by Shakespearean actress Barbara Jefford OBE were up for grabs, the majority of which may not be donned by their new owners, but simply worshipped.
If you, like most fancy dress shoppers out there, missed the auction, fear not! We have many sci-fi, seventies, war time and medieval costumes for all sizes and occasions!
It doesn’t seem like five minutes since the last one, but the 2012 Virgin London Marathon will take place this Sunday to the delight of fundraisers and fancy dress fans all over the world.
It’s one of the biggest and most outrageously popular marathons on the planet, attracting runners from practically every continent. There are thousands of serious runners, of course, and that has to be commended, but what we really watch it for is the fancy dress!
We’re treated to some excellent costumes every year, like Lloyd Scott’s famous diving suit costume (which was so heavy he had to walk the entire course over more than five days!). The race organisers have since rewritten the rules to state that participants must complete the course within a day, which sadly means that he won’t be able to bid farewell and retire on a high this year.
The costumes will come thick and fast through that finish line on Sunday – the charitable efforts of the fancy dress runners really are the highlight of the day.
All the preparation and training is done and the pasta parties are about to begin – it’s almost time for one of the biggest fancy dress extravaganzas of the year!
The ‘festival’ is very much alive amongst music fans the world over – tickets are still selling out year after year and people are putting ever more effort into standing out from the sweaty masses. Likewise, festival fancy dress is very much alive and since festival season is now upon us, it’s time to start planning the fancy dress costume that’ll get on the big screen!
Here, we take a look at some festivals that you might be heading off to this summer (and some that we wish we were going to!). If you plan on enjoying some musical muddiness this summer, tweet us @fancydressball and tell us what you’ll be dressing up as!
Download – 8th-10th June
Download is only a matter of a few weeks away now, so it’s time to don the long hair and tight leather trousers for an all-out session of hard moshing. The bill includes the likes of heavy metal icons Metallica and the incredible Prodigy, so you can pay tribute to Mr Flint with the Prodigy costume.
Isle of Wight – 22nd-24th June
A couple more icons of the rock world will be shaking the ground on the Isle of Wight later in June. Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band will be playing on the Saturday and Sunday respectively and will be joined by the likes of Tom Petty, Elbow and Noel Gallagher’s new band, High Flying Birds.
Reading and Leeds – 24th-26th August
The world famous festivals of Reading and, more recently, Leeds will take place in the August Bank Holiday weekend, with the Foo Fighters, The Cure and Kasabian topping the bill. An eccentric black wig wouldn’t go amiss if you’re going to watch The Cure.
Bestival – 6th-9th September
This has truly become one of the biggest festivals on the British calendar. Some highlights of this year’s festival include Stevie Wonder, New Order and Justice, so there is, as always, plenty of choice! It’s one of the most diverse festivals around, so you can be as adventurous as you like with the fancy dress…
Such is the diversity of these festivals that you won’t look out of place in any costume, but fitting into place is not the point of dressing up now is it?! Whatever you decide to dress up as this festival season, be sure to send us your pictures on Facebook and Twitter – we’d love to see them!
The slopes of Switzerland saw a lively fancy dress night out at the weekend, with Holly Branson, daughter of business tycoon Richard Branson, rocking an impressive costume to join Princess Beatrice in Verbier, the Daily Mail reports.
The recently married Holly revelled in a Buzz Lightyear costume in the top-notch resort and joined nearly 20 more of Princess Beatrice’s friends in the posh Farinet Bar in the town centre. Princess Beatrice herself didn’t hit the fancy dress, but she reportedly let her hair down and enjoyed a drink or two on the night.
One of her friends and fellow party-goers donned a Dalmatian costume, but it was Holly Branson who stole the show as the children’s Toy Story favourite, Buzz Lightyear. We’re not sure how much Jaegermeister Buzz himself could handle, but he certainly seemed to enjoy himself at the weekend! (There was no flying but we hear there was dancing on tables…).
The stars mixed with the locals and fellow holidaymakers and seemed to have a thoroughly good time in their costumes – well deserved after a tough session on the slopes, we say!
A Virgin spokesman told the Daily Mail that the night was “just a fun night out with friends” and that there was no particular reasoning behind the costumes, which just goes to show that fancy dress is perfect for everybody and every occasion, famous or not from Switzerland to Swinton!
Britain has just seen huge success with Sport Relief this weekend, raising millions of pounds for the charity’s good causes, but it’s not finished yet – we have another big event just around the corner!
The London Marathon is always an equally popular event with fundraising fancy dressers, so we can’t wait to see what treats we’re in for this year. The best costumes in Britain come out to play every April for one of the biggest marathons in the world.
22nd April 2012 is the date pencilled in for this year’s Virgin London Marathon, so we’ve all got plenty of time to plan what we’re going to be wearing. In true style of going one better than the last, there were some excellent costumes that stole the show last year, like the Superman that set a new world record for the fastest marathon (in a Superman costume, of course…) and a panda that went for the same triumph for the animal kingdom.
The race is a huge success every year and its legacy is set to continue in 2012. It doesn’t really take a lot of convincing to get people to dress up for big events like this!
In truth, sport-based charity fundraising is an on-going activity throughout most of the year all over the country. Sport Relief and the London Marathon are brilliant examples of grabbing the attention of millions to raise awareness, but all the smaller events that happen every year in every town deserve equal credit.
Every penny counts and every fancy dress costume boosts the chances of securing those pennies, so be sure to don your best outfit on your next sporty fundraising activity, whether that be the London Marathon or not!
Since Sport Relief is only days away, we thought we’d share a few ideas on dressing up for charity if you’re planning on running a mile!
There are thousands of events scheduled all over the country in aid of Sport Relief this year, which means that thousands of you will be thinking about donning the fancy dress to raise some extra pennies. You can dress to impress with a number of costumes, so here’s some inspiration if you’re yearning for ideas for the fancy dress mile!
The run will be a breeze (in more ways than one) in the Supergirl costume. This is a great choice for two reasons: (1) it’s light and airy for keeping cool and (2) you get a cape, just in case you get too tired to run any longer…the perfect choice if you’re going for the 3 mile or 5 mile run at the weekend!
For an extra sporty Sport Relief, go for the Sporty Spice costume. Our Competwition for this iconic 90s costume ends on Wednesday 21st March, so good luck if you entered that! The outfit comes complete with jogger-style sporty trousers, so you’ll look the part even in fancy dress!
If you’re lucky and you win our other Competwition for the 118 118 costume, you’ll have just what you need to raise as much money as you can without having to buy a costume, which means that you can also work on building up your motivation for the big day.
You can make sure the afro is at its bounciest with an afro comb and even a bit of hair spray. This fancy dress costume is absolutely made for runners, especially if the unpredictable British weather comes good!
If you really feel like kicking some #!@ at the weekend, the Karate Kid Cobra Kai costume is definitely the way forward, but if you need a helping hand to get over that finish line, there’s a horse here that’s happy to help. The inflatable Jockey and Horse costume might not keep you cool, but at least you’ll get to sit down from start to finish!
Good luck and good work to all fun-runners out there – we’d love to see your pictures of the big day over on Facebook!
As we saw in the last blog post, Sport Relief is only a week away and to celebrate and show our support, we’ve launched two Competwitions to give away costumes to two dedicated fundraisers out there!
The Sport Relief mile grows in popularity every time it comes around and some runners just won’t do it without a costume – it’s a necessity of charity fundraising for some of us. So, to help a couple of runners spend less (or, for that matter, nothing!) on the costume and raise as much money as they can for Comic Relief this year, we’ve put a 118 118 costume for the guys and a Sporty Spice costume for the gals up for grabs at Competwition.com!
(Well, we say one for the guys and one for the gals, but you’ll find nothing in the terms and conditions to say that you can’t be either for the day…you’re free to enter both Competwitions!)
The winners will get to keep the costumes forever, too, so there’s no need to go out and hire one for the day. 118 118 costumes are great for any scenario, so it can be your attire for the next party you attend, fancy dress or no fancy dress. Moreover, with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee approaching fast, there are rumours that the Spice Girls are reforming for a celebratory gig, so you’ll be all kitted out for that if you win the Sporty Spice costume!
But for now, the focus is on the good causes behind Sport Relief. They – and every single fundraiser out there – have got our full support every step of the way.
Rubbing shoulders with some of Calderdale’s Elite Business Leaders, Fancy Dress Ball were extremely proud to be awarded “Business Innovator of the Year 2011″. The prize was presented to Paul Howcroft, Lian Abbey & Andrew Teague of Fancy Dres Ball by BBC1 – Look North’s Claire Frisby.
Since 2007, The Halifax Courier has held the annual prestigious event to recognise successful enterprise within the region. Almost 400 people attended the award ceremony from the local business community. This years awards took place on Wednesday 23rd November 2011.
The Judges were impressed by Fancy Dress Ball’s remarkable growth in such a short period and commended their truly unique & innovative website. “It’s amazing to have won this award. I’m very proud of all the staff at Fancy Dress Ball” said Paul Howcroft.
The Company was established in 2009 and has become one of the fastest growing costume websites in the UK today. “Our passion for offering a huge range of costumes backed by a high level of customer clearly stands out over the competition” – said Mr Howcroft.
The business is a forecasting continued growth for 2012.
Proud winners of “Innovator of the Year 2011″ - Paul Howcroft (Managing Director), Lian Abbey (Director) and Andrew Teague (Graphic Designer) of Fancy Dress Ball, with sponsor David Morrell from Marshalls and host Claire Frisby
