Just when I was starting to despair that I wouldn’t find anything clever and unique to say about costumes, I stumbled upon Ennio Marchetto while doing some internet research. I was floored by this guy’s creative ingenuity when it comes to quick costume changes on stage.
Ennio Marchetto is world renowned and has performed in over 80 countries for more than a million people. His unique show has earned numerous awards and international critical acclaim.
He performs alone on stage, without any backstage help, changing character almost every minute, often in front of the audience. All his costumes, wigs and props are made out of paper and cardboard, flipping and folding to change from one character to another.
Marchetto and his costumes impersonate 350 characters including a wide variety of icons, from pop stars to opera singers, from works of art to mythological figures and each show is adapted to the particular country he’s performing in.
I could go on and on about this guy…but I’ve gotta go see some paper and scissors about a costume.
British photographer Stephen Schofield has published a gallery of ordinary Britons wearing American costumes. His goal is to explore the way American pop-culture affects citizens in the UK.
Schofield states:
My practice is concerned with exploring the fascination that the British public has with American popular culture and the sub-cultural world of fandom.
It seeks to offer a glimpse into seemingly ordinary lives of my subjects and allows the private to become public. The work hints at the depth of people’s fantasies and the methods they employ to adopt this culture as part of their own lifestyle as a means of escapism.
Very interesting! I can definitely see how costumes can be used as a form of “escapism” — but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with bringing a little imaginative excitement into our daily lives.
Originally, jousting tournaments were held as military exercises between the various nobles. Such tournaments started peacefully but often turned into bloody battles between jealous champions.
At the end of the thirteenth century, jousting tournaments started evolving into organized spectacles, subject to chivalry and fair play and often fought with blunted weapons. The knight’s object became one of knocking opponents off their horses.
Modern day Renaissance Fairs, The Society for Creative Anachronism and the National Jousting Association have kept the sport of jousting alive.
But a new style of jousting is emerging, quickly gaining widespread popularity.
Nowhere is there another sport that encourages more pageantry, chivalry, and excitement than what you’re about to witness…
Now here’s a look you don’t see everyday…probably because we don’t live in Tokyo.
These fascinating young ladies are followers of a fashion called Yamanba, a derivative of Ganguru fashion which rose to popularity in the 1990’s, mostly among teenage girls and women in their early 20’s, generally confined to Tokyo’s trendy shopping districts.
Ganguro fashion is characterized by tanned skin combined with hair dyed in shades of orange to blonde, or a silver gray known as high bleached. Black ink is used as eyeliner and white concealer is used as lipstick and eye shadow. Features are often further embellished by false eyelashes, plastic facial gems, and pearl powder.
This weekend I got the opportunity to go to the Scottish Festival at Thanksgiving Point in Utah. It was awesome! I got to see some rocking celtic bands, participate in celtic rituals like waulking, eat haggis for the first time (seriously, yum), and of course I was dazzled by the eye candy! Tartan was draped everywhere, there were hundreds upon hundreds of kilts, not to mention a variety of period costumes and other fun things to wear!
This family sang an a capella rendition of the national anthem for the opening of the Highland Games.
The 7th Annual Himalayan Performing Arts Festival will be held Saturday June 7th, 2008 at the Krishna Temple one mile south of Spanish Fork, Utah. The festival offers a mix of folk dance, classical Indian dance, drama, music and beautiful world costumes.
Judges in the British courtoom are discarding their traditional attire and boldly going to the future.
Britain’s top judges are to get a new outfit, doing away with their traditional wigs and introducing colour-coded robes which one critic likened to costumes from the hit sci-fi series Star Trek.
[via AFP]
According to The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman, the new robes make the judges look “like the man who sells you tickets for the Star Trek Experience at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.”
On the more sophisticated side of costuming, a new gallery is opening honoring traditional costumes throughout history.
The Royal Ontario Museum will be opening the Patricia Harris gallery of Textiles and Costumes. The gallery will be opening on April 16thth, and will host a massive collection of textiles and costume pieces going back throughout time. Huliq.com reports:
The Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume presents highlights from the Royal Ontario Museum’s renowned collection of over 50,000 textile and costume artifacts, in a display of approximately 200 pieces dating from the 1st millennium BC to the 21st century AD. Outstanding examples include Chinese imperial costume, late Antique and early Islamic textiles from Egypt, western fashion from the Baroque period to the present day and early Canadian coverlets. These illustrate the extensive transformations in textile design and technology throughout the past three millennia. Due to conservation considerations, the artifacts are to be changed on a regular basis.
The ROM is a museum rich with tradition, and this new addition to the institution will further deepen its cultural influence by highlighting the history of dress. We’ve seen similar ambitions with the Costume Institute, and it will be a great opportunity to get a glimpse of this new collection.
We’ll be standing by for more information on some of the highlighted exhibits. Here’s an example of what is to be expected, according to the ROM main website:
The Lynda Hamilton Printing Exhibit displays highlights of the ROM’s printed textile and costume collection through an exploration of the use of paint, ink and dye. Examples include Chinese painted silk, Indian chintz, a Japanese stenciled kimono, Javanese batik wrapper and a Turkmen ikat robe, as well as examples of the important collection of 18th and 19th century French and English woodblock, copperplate and roller printed textiles and costumes. Recent silk screened acquisitions include the c. 1954 furnishing fabric of Danish-born Canadian designer Thor Hansen and an early Vivienne Westwood toga dress (c. 1982-1983).
2007 is leaving us, or rather we are leaving it behind in the dust of a brighter future. Luckily we have no need to get too worked up over the things to come. There will be much to cheer and surely plenty for jeers. However, that’s all speculation.
We can, however, look back at all things worthy of all exclamations…
“glorious!”
“ugh…”
“what the!?”
“scrumtrilecent”
“no comment”
“…”
Here are our picks for the 2007 Winners and Losers are:
Big Daddy - This year, Big Daddy wins. His battled inner self lends to so much love and yet so much distaste. Hey, all of us who experienced Bioshock know that the Big Daddy is easier to identify with than we thought at the beginning of the game, right? Status:WINNER
Political Correctness- The world collectively sighed this past year when Santa Claus briefly lost a bit of cheer and started to chuckle with his “Ha, Ha, Ha”. Status:LOSER
Cosplay - We probably covered more cosplay than anything else since the blog has begun. We have written cosplay articles over and over and over, again and again and again. Cosplay, being just another reason to get costumed, brought us some great homemade costumes, new entries to the excitement, and all around generally fresh entries to the fun. Look out for big cosplay events in ‘08. Status:WINNER
Autobots and Deceptecons - This year, Michael Bay brought childish nostalgia and fanboyism faster than Timberlake brought sexy back. The Transformers movie was a tribute to all things awesome in the 80’s. What’s more is that it inspired the most fanatical of do-it-yourselfers to make some classy costumes. Status:WINNER
Cosplay, again - Yeah, there were some not so good moments too. Status:LOSER
Homebrewed goods - Likely a winner every year, we found some classics this year and can’t help but applaud the ceaseless creativity out in the community. Status: WINNER
Elven Fantasies Come True - This has to be my favorite story of the year. I showed this to every person I know. The response from the community??? Some people actually would do it! Hey, I can’t make fun, it’s just not on my list of operations to get in my lifetime. Status:WINNER and LOSER, depending on how much humor matters over prudence and good sense.
OVERALL WINNER - This year it goes to Bioshock and the Big Daddy. Nothing captivated our attention and brought such a positive, yet eerie, light on the costuming scene. We expect to hear more from 2K games on this title and would be absolutely tickled to find more amazing Bioshock cosplay for the pages of MyDisguises.
“Uhh, I’d like to thank Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine for artificially creating me. I’d like to thank my fellow Big Daddies. I’d like to thank my mom and dad for teaching me to be nice to my friends and always look out for them… oh man I’m embarrassed… this is all so new to me…”
We can’t list them all, but there are surely more. Put your picks for 2007’s winners and losers in the comments section and let us know what we missed.
As there is inevitably a record for everything in the Guiness book of World Records, you probably really never saw this one coming. It’s the record for the most Santa’s gathered in one place at one time. *Gasp* “There’s more than one Santa?”, you’re probably asking yourself. Well, I don’t want to call them imposters. I’ve never felt good about questioning the mystery of tradition.
That’s right, over 13,ooo people dressed as Santa gathered along the walls of Londonderry to break a record and support various charities.
The story hit papers all over the U.K. and with good reason. According to the Belfast Telegraph, the weather wasn’t prime but “he atmosphere was jubilant as thousands of people arrived at the Guildhall Square to claim the world record for having the most Santas in one place at one time.” It’s just what the world needs as we prepare for this widely celebrated holiday.
It took over an hour for the procession of rosy-cheeked and bearded Santas to walk along the walls after gathering in the city’s Guildhall and passing through Magazine Gate this morning. SDLP leader and Foyle MLA Mark Durkan was among those who took part.Money was raised for Foyle Hospice, ICARE charity for children with autism, McMillan Cancer Support and Children in the Crossfire.
While I couldn’t find the details on the previous record exactly, I did find some videos of various other Santa record attempts. Old St. Nick should be proud of his legacy.
It’s been awhile since we’ve said anything about Cosplay. Meh, the lines are blurry, right? Either way, we want to get some cosplay goodness out to you. It’s time we start keeping an eye on the World Cosplay Summit for ‘08. That way we can get a head start on all the action.
For those of you who don’t know, World Cosplay Summit takes place in Japan and is the cosplay event. It’s more than a convention, it’s a landmark moment for any serious cosplayer. As the originators of cosplay, the Japanese know how to put these events on right.
Vital stats? Here you go.
Event Time: Summer next year.
Location: Nagoya Aichi Japan
This is actually only the 6th annual summit to ever be held, so there’s something to be said for the popularity.
As the event is far off, there’s not much more to say than that. There looks to be around 14 countries already participating, and that includes the U.S. Each country sends a team of 2 to represent them and compete in cosplay contests. The event is huge, with the summit of ‘07 already boasting around ten thousand spectators for only their fourth year. As the buzz around the World Cosplay Summit grows, so does the media attention.
Last year’s summit, the biggest ever in participation and attendance, brought some unbelievable competition with some of the best cosplay ever seen. France’s Damian Ratte and Isabelle Jeudy took home the prize portraying Tsugiri and Myōbi from Alichino.
In recent news, the New York Anime Festival has made a key partnership with the Summit in efforts to proliferate the importance of Anime culture even further across the globe. According to the Anime News Network:
Festival organizers note that the partnership will provide NYAF with the opportunity to stage the World Cosplay Summit’s Official USA Preliminary Round. The winners of the convention’s Masquerade will receive a free trip to Japan to represent the USA in the World Cosplay Summit Finals in Summer 2008. The New York Anime Festival is the only American anime convention approved to be part of the World Cosplay Summit.
The World Cosplay Summit joins existing Masquerade sponsor, Anime Insider Magazine, which will feature a photo spread of the Masquerade’s winners in an upcoming issue and also award the winners a complimentary year subscription to the publication.
If you’re not a resident of Japan and you plan on heading to the World Cosplay Summit this year, sit tight for more news as the year unfolds. We’ll be tracking this huge event as the info hits our inboxes so we can have you prepped and ready. Until then, hit up the World Cosplay Summit website for more details on the preliminary round qualifications and outcomes.
… the great 5th of November. Yep it’s Guy Fawkes day today.You’ll know exactly what I’m talking about if you also eat Aero chocolate bars and enjoy a nice glass of Ribena. If you don’t know what that means, hold your baked potatoes for a second.
Guy Fawkes day is a British holiday celebrated every year on the 5th of November. The name of the holiday is a bit less awesome than the actual celebration is, however. First, you need to know where it comes from.
Remember, Remember the sweetness of 15th century costumes. Regal, don’t you say?
Basically, Guy Fawkes was a man who tried to blow up the King of England by setting the Houses of Parliament ablaze in 1605. He was a member of an English Roman Catholic group who opposed the Protestant rule in England. Needless to say, the corresponding celebration that exists today consists of some like-minded burning. Traditionally, English folks make effigies represnting the famous conspirator and burn them. Think of it as a bit like the Fourth of July, but with the actual intent to catch something on fire.
So as Halloween escapes us for another year, we wonder how we’re going to keep costuming? This year, MyDisguises is dressing up a Guy Fawkes effigy and igniting it’s likeness with love.
So what are the rules to dressing up your own Guy Fawkes effigy and celebrating it right? Hmm.. may we make a few solid suggestions.
Make it big - Did we mention there will be fire? This is the celebration of bonfires. Don’t disgrace it with a small flame. (Note: we encourage ALL our readers who decide to participate in this glorious event to do so within the bounds of the law and after taking some intellegent safety precautions).
Traditional or Interpretational - Okay, so it’s not like you were actually there. There are no Guy Fawkes day police that will be mad if he doesn’t look like a pilgrim. Personally, I think I’m going to go with the ugly green shirt my roommate gave me from his computer club. It should have burned a long time ago.
Bring something to roast - I’m assuming you’ll be frying the ol’ effigy around a large flame. Although morbid, it may be nice to heat up some mallows over the guy’s body, no?According to the great authority that is Wikipedia here are some other things you can burn over your Guy…
In the United Kingdom, there are several foods that are traditionally consumed on Guy Fawkes Night: black treacle goods such as bonfire toffee and parkin, toffee apples, and baked potatoes, which are wrapped in foil and cooked in the bonfire or its embers. [via Wikipedia]
Put some culture into it - My first Guy Fawkes celebration was last year. I was eager to burn the poor fellow, but my British friend Heather made sure we did it right. It’s necessary therefore to recite the famous lines below before burning.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up King and Parliament.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
Well, we’ve given all we can without being there for you. Bring it home this year with style and keep on the lookout for other ideas we have for excuses to dress up.
Not the same as being there.
Again, we stress that anyone participating in this event be responsible, obey the law, and have fun.
Let it be known that TV in Japan is plain weird. Although sometimes I have to wonder how their culture differences play in. I mean, there must be things about our TV that are strage too, no? Perhaps Football is a absurd sport to them? And a show like Seinfeld where people just “hang out” is supposed to be funny?
But they couldn’t possibly think those things about us, could they!?
Well no more need to justify. Whatever the case, TV in Japan delivers pure, unadulterated TV clips from Japan that are easily worth a view or two. What does this have to do with Costumes? Well, culture is a costume in and of itself and we get a lot from the Japanese. This is pretty rich. After all, to borrow a phrase from the site… “This is what TV is like. In Japan.”
Anyway, enough of my blabbing. Let the site and the videos do the talking for themselves. Here’s a taste of some great Japanese TV with the accompaniment of our beloved California Governator, Arnold Schwartzenegger.
I’m such an Internet popculture sucker, and thanks to Mix, I found these videos that comfortably suit all the Star Wars cosplay fans out there. This is the essence of MyDisguises, as we couldn’t do much more to promote the pure genius of getting people on the streets and living it up in something unique. I’ll stop blabbering and let the videos do the talking.
Thank you to Tokyostormtrooper for validating our claims that Tokyo and the Harajuku district are the best cosplay cities around. It’s like being at Disneyland 24/7 but with George Lucas in charge.
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