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Halloween Costumes Halloween Costumes for Men Period Costume

The Roaring 20’s: Great Gatsby Costumes for Men

The Roaring 20’s and The Great Gatsby seems to be a popular costume theme for parties, dances, and other special events. I wrote a previous post here on 1920’s costumes for women, but I neglected to write for the 1920’s men’s costume.

To me, men’s fashion overall isn’t as fun or dynamic as women’s fashion, but the 1920’s do have some pretty snazzy looks for men. And boy are they good lookin’.

Think 3 piece suits, light colored suit pieces, club shirts with white collars on a blue or khaki dress shirt, bold striped vests and jackets (as in Barbershop quartet-look), pinstripes, pocket kerchiefs, and bow ties.

Cream Linen Suit for Gatsby

Head to the thrift store, raid Grandpa’s closet, or splurge on a dapper suit.  If you can track down a fitted pin stripe suit, add a blue shirt, and a bow tie.  Or go with brown tweed pants, a club shirt which is pretty easy to find, pattern vest, and a necktie with thick bold stripes.  Then there’s always a tuxedo, especially if your date is dressed to the nines. Wear it with a lay down collar shirt (not wing-tip), vest, and hand tied bow tie.  Do not wear a cummerbund and pre-tied tie because you will be mistaken for the waiter.  The two-toned loafer or oxford Spectator shoe is a standout accessory from 1920’s men’s fashion.  It’s all in the details.

Check out this link to Brooks Brothers’ Great Gatsby Collection.

This link is a helpful guide to men’s suits in the 1920’s,  this one for men’s shirts in the 1920’s, and this link for shoes from the era.

Here is a link with many pictures to inspire your costume based on incorporating more recent trends in fashion.

I just can’t get enough of spectator shoes.

Click on image to view on Amazon
Click on image to view on Amazon
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Categories
General Halloween Makeup Theater Tutorials

Old Age Stage Makeup Tutorials

It’s surprising how many shows end up having at least one character in aged makeup, so I thought I’d post a few tutorials showing old age stage makeup, including the last one which shows a simple technique for making the hair look gray.  They each show the techniques slightly different–some are better at showing the design, some emphasize product, and some are better at showing the technique.  When learning anything, it’s often helpful to get a few different opinions, so take a look and then go for it.  The key is using your actor’s own wrinkles as the design and then blending the shadows and highlights. The process is basically the same for males and females.

Please comment below or on my Facebook Page, The Costume Resource, if you need costume or hair and make-up help with a specific show you are doing.  I’d love to help out!

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Categories
Hats Movies

How to Make Fascinator Hats: Hunger Games Costumes

I am so totally in love with fascinator hats. I love their whimsical and funky designs.  I discovered them a few years back when I made hair accessories for the Lullaby League in a community theater production of “The Wizard of Oz.”  

Then of course many people learned about them from the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

I am thinking about them again as an essential part of a Capitol Citizen costume for “The Hunger Games.”

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Boy Costumes Ethnic costumes General Group costume Halloween Costumes Halloween Costumes for Men Refashioning

Three Amigos Kids Halloween Costume

Image by Brookie Photography
Image by Brookie Photography

Not only is this a great group costume, but isn’t this a great image? Just so stinkin’ cute.  This is from my friend who made these costumes for her son and his cousins.  These costumes are easy to make from black sweats.  The hardest part may be waiting for the silver glitter glue to dry so that you can flip the sweats to decorate another area. I dare my three girls to pull this off when they are all teenagers.  With a mustache, of course.

Three Amigos Costume Recipe

Ingredients:

Black sweat bottoms

Black zip up hoodie, or crew neck sweatshirt

LOTS of silver glitter glue

White shirt

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Couples costume Dresses General Hair Halloween Costumes Halloween Costumes for Women Makeup Movies Period Costume Refashioning Shoes Tutorials

The Roaring 20’s: Great Gatsby Costumes and Flapper Costumes for Women

This page is for all you who need a costume for a Great Gatsby, Flapper, or Roaring 20’s event.  You will see a brief overview of 1920’s costume ideas along with links to 1920’s fashion images and tutorials for hair, makeup, and 1920’s clothing.

When assembling a costume, I always consider 6 magic ingredients to make sure you look put together:

  • Hair
  • Clothing
  • Makeup
  • Shoes
  • Accessories
  • Props

Here’s the breakdown for each of these 6 magic ingredients in a women’s 1920’s costume:

Hair: Bobbed or cropped to fit under the close fitting cloche hats, waved

Link to 1920’s hair styles

20’s Inspired Fashion 

Clothing: Straight-line chemise style, sleeveless, dropped waist or no waist at all, hemlines near the knee to make dancing the new dances like the Charleston easier, straight bodices with flattened chests.  Sashes, bows, lace, beads, artificial flowers, feathers, and fringe adorned the dresses. If you would like a bit more coverage, wear a cap sleeve layering tee or wide-strap tank camisole and bike shorts, spankies, or leggings underneath the dress, although that will alter the look some.

blue flapper dress
Click image to view in Amazon
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Categories
General Movies

Hunger Games and Catching Fire Costume Ideas

In honor of the November 22 USA release of “Catching Fire”, the second in the Hunger Games movie series, I will be sharing links for Hunger Games costume ideas.  These will be helpful in case you are dressing up to attend the “Catching Fire” midnight premiere.  Even if you won’t be dressing up, these links will keep you in the loop for Hunger Games trends.

I ran across this uber-cool site called Capitol Couture that has fashion, beauty, culture, and design ideas from the Capitol– all written from the point of view of “Capitol Correspondents”.  Click here for THE site that takes you out of this world and into the Hunger Games world.  If you are a Hunger Games fan, you will love the inside scoop on Hunger Games fashion design, citizen activity, and Capitol updates.

 

 

Categories
Halloween Costumes

Pirates Say Happy Halloween!

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Hope you had a fun and safe Halloween for 2013! The Costume Resource will continue to be your year round family friendly costume site including Halloween costumes, costumes related to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve, costumes for community and school theater productions, Book Week, historical reenactments and  more.  Click here to LIKE The Costume Resource on Facebook so you can see what’s new!

Categories
General Halloween Costumes Props

Props With Kids Halloween Costumes Look Good But Don’t Last

It’s official.  Most props used with Halloween costumes end up getting passed on to Mom.  It wasn’t even five minutes before we arrived at the Fall Carnival at our church when my astronaut daughter promptly gave me her not-so-cheap-but-awesome astronaut helmet complaining that it was pressing down on her shoulders.  She also dumped off her cool homemade jet pack that I had just spent about 45 minutes making this afternoon, saying it wouldn’t stay up on her shoulders.  Sure the props and accessories looked great, but in the end, most kids are all about ease and comfort.  Don’t spend too much time, money or stress on props to go with a Halloween costume. They look great in pictures, but may end up getting left by the wayside…IMG_2578

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Couples costume Family Costumes General Girl costumes Halloween Costumes Makeup Tutorials

Last Minute Homemade Halloween Costume: Skeleton Shirt and Skeleton Makeup Tutorial

The countdown to Halloween is on!  Hopefully your costumes are ready to go, or maybe they’ve even been worn already to Halloween parties over the weekend.  It seems like there are some years my kids are wearing costumes for nearly a week leading up to Halloween.

We used to attend a big family Halloween party that my brother and his family hosted the weekend before Halloween, complete with a haunted house set up in the garage.  It was LEGIT. Sadly they moved to the East coast, so no more fun family Halloween party.

We often attend a big Halloween carnival hosted at a local community center, but this year it conflicts with the Fall Carnival at our church, so we’ll attend the church party where my teenager gets to handout candy and host carnival games for the kids as they trick-or-treat among the classrooms and do a cupcake walk. Meanwhile the adults chat over a chili dinner and everyone goes home happy.

So far this year, one of my kids wore a unicorn costume to Buddy Day at karate last Friday, went to an informal Halloween party at a friend’s house as a hippie, and another daughter went as the Cat-in-the-Hat to her acting class.  These are not even their “REAL” Halloween costumes.

I digress.

In case you don’t have a costume ready and need something quick, here are two tutorials that show different methods of cutting up a t-shirt to look like a skeleton.  This would be fun to do for an individual, a couple, or a family.

The first shows a more precise method with a template, and the second video shows a much easier way.  I would cut the shirt using the freehand method from the second video, but print out the template from the first to visualize the cuts so there’s not as many as the second shirt.  It looks cool, but not as realistic as the first.  Watch them both and see which one you like. Pair up these easy-peasy skeleton shirts with black jeans and skeleton makeup. Quick, stylish, done.  This is the kind of costume every teenager wants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MFrkYPaqj4

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Categories
General Halloween Costumes Refashioning Trick or Treat Bags

Personalized Homemade Halloween Trick-or-Treat Bags

When you put so much thought and effort into a Halloween costume, why stop when you get to the trick-or-treat bag?  I always try to customize a treat bag or container that coordinates with the costume.

My daughter is going to be Cruella de Vil this year, so this post is going to show you how easy it is to personalize a simple $2 purse from the thrift store with a few trims I already had on hand to make a fancy, fun, and flashy treat bag that will enhance her Cruella costume.  This is the purse I started with.

Cruellapurse

 

I cut a 2″ wide strip of dalmatian print fabric that was about 6″ longer than the length of the area where I was going to put it.  This extra length allows for gathers. This was leftover fabric from the dalmatian print ruffle I added to the bottom of her dress to extend it to her ankles.

 photo 1 copy 3

I used hot glue to first secure each end of the fabric where I wanted it to start and stop.  I put a drop of glue in the middle to glue the fabric down.  Then I ran a strip of glue

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