As any parent will know there is a chore we have to perform for our children many times every year, until they get into their teens, and that is the act of costume making. Many take the easy route of going to Toys-R-Us and buying a ready made fairy costume, some of us treat it as a chance to get creative, but do our children really appreciate it and is it more of a competition between the parents?

My own fancy dress costume making skills began before my children were born, when we were invited to Skegness for New Year’s Eve in the mid 1990s. At that time the whole town dressed up in fancy dress around the pubs and clubs, I’m not sure if they still do. My friend and I decided to go as Samurai Warriors. We made helmets from hard hats covered in papier maché, bits of card and garden canes, all sprayed black and gold to give an antique metallic feel. For the body armour we sprayed car seat bead mats with the same technique and tied panels of painted cardboard to our arms and legs. To finish things off we painted our faces with a scary traditional Japanese theatrical design, all white with menacing black eyes and an angry red mouths. We were quite proud of what we thought was a pretty authentic look and we had many appreciative looks and comments as we went around Skegness. Until we entered one pub when we were met by a phrase which has lived on in our family ever since, “By ‘eck, it’s Darth F * * * ing Vader”.

A few years later, around the time of the film ‘A Bug’s Life’, my son was invited to a kid’s birthday party which had a theme of ‘Bugs’. He informed me he wanted to be a grasshopper and I rubbed my hands together with glee, as I was getting the chance to use my costume making skills again. I managed to get hold of some brown card and set about making a grasshopper with a helmet made with segmented pieces of card with feelers, again segmented. A jacket with extra arms, which was shaped at the back with progressively smaller sections forming the tail part of the abdomen. It took ages and I was very pleased with the result. On the day of the party I dressed my son and off we went, but on getting to the house we discovered we were the last to arrive and the build up and attention my son was getting was just too much for him, he hid and refused to enter the house. So in the end nobody actually got to see him in his wonderful creation!

Fortunately the experience did not scar him for life and I had more opportunities to express my creativity. We sent him off to the primary school spring fair dressed in a papier maché monster mask and black cloak, he called himself the ‘Beast of Belper’ and won first prize. For the school Halloween disco I made him up as a zombie with blood soaked clothes, dark eyes, fake blood around the mouth and cheeks built up with wax. The fact that he couldn’t move the muscles in his face had a strange effect on him, he also held his whole body in a stiff manner which helped him stay in character all through the evening and gained him another first prize. He won another prize with a Georgian Aristocrat costume, he wore a white shirt and cape, a long blond wig tied back into a pony tail, and a black cane, his sister wore a gown held a fan and both had Venetian masks.

For my son’s final year at primary school I dusted of the Samurai costume from the loft, hopefully we wouldn’t get the same comment I got in Skegness. It would be tricky getting a prize this year, we had already won a few and my wife was the Chair of Governors. After a few repairs the costume looked great and on the day with all the hundreds of children lined up the Headmaster gave the prize to the Samurai, he had no idea whose son he was and was most disgruntled when he found out.

Costumes for my daughter were a different story, like most little girls she just wanted to dress up as a fairy, all her birthday party invitations were for Barbie parties and she wasn’t interested in any of my wacky ideas. As for my son, did he appreciate all the hours I put in? I dont know. Would he have been happy with a shop bought cowboy costume? Probably. I’m sure in years to come he will look back and appreciate my efforts, but what ever the case I had a great time and I’m grateful to him for displaying my wares.

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