Costumes! Costumes! Costumes!

Mascot School

Well, we’ve all got to start somewhere.  You don’t just put on a suit, shoes, gloves and a funny head and WOW your audience.

It involves much more than that.  You’ve got to excude personality.  Yo’ve got to play a role.  You have to stay in character.  You have to be animated.  Where do you go to learn all of this?  Mascot school.

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Caveat Emptor on Mascot Costumes

Hmm…I wonder if the Disney folks relaxed their policies on the sales of Mickey Mouse costumes?  I came across this video which prompted this comment.

  In the past (20-50 or more years ago), it was a huge copyright No-No to duplicate, rent, buy, sell or manufacture Disney characters, and most other copyrighted characters as well.

Disney and any other companies who have copyrighted characters want to maintain a certin integrity for those characters; and it would be really bad publicity if the public saw a drunken Goofy, or Donald Duck robbing a bank, wouldn’t it? That’s why they maintain an iron-fist when it comes to their characters.

Back in the olden days, I understand there were 20+ typewritten pages (remember typewriters?) with details as to how the costumes would be worn, how often gloves would be changed, etc.;  and especially never, never remove the head, and always, always keep in character.

Does this apply to those famous character costumes sold at Walmart or Target or your favorite grocery store?  I assume that the manufacturers of these costumes were licesnsed to manufacture and sell them, so you are likely OK.  You might check the labels to be certain though.

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Mascot Costumes 1

Now the fun begins.  The next 2-3 weeks will be devoted to everthing that relates to mascot costumes.

So wear do all these mascot costumes come from that you see at many sports events?  BTW, the misspelling of ‘wear’ was on purpose.  My mindless sense of humor, I guess.

Originally, these mascot heads were made from paper mache, followed by a number of plastic impregnated fabrics.  Foam seemed to be a late bloomer (historically wise), but seems to be the choice of many mascot builders now.  I preferred a product called Celastic because it held it shape better and was impervious to rain, sleet and snow.  Foam heads have one serious drawback and that is the cleaning of them.  Dry cleaning causes dry rot and washing, well actually the drying process, takes days.

And being a bit snobbish because I manufactured these for 50 years, there is a design flaw in this costume.  Overall, it’s pretty good, though.

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How to Make Your Own Costume 2

Several of these home made costumes were done cleverly and at not too great an expense.  As per an earlier video, some of the basics could be used for other events.  Imagination can go a long ways in costuming, especailly if you want to keep costs down.  And imagine the spinoffs on the costumes presented here. 

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How to Make Your Own Costume 1

This video and this brief series are just to start giving you ideas on how you can make your own costume for a party or even Halloween.  The young lady in the video throws out a few good ideas on how easy it is to constuct a simple costume for very little money.  I thought she explained it well when she suggested buying an outfit for dual purposes…one to wear at a normal function and then how to convert it to be used as a costume.  For more on masquerade and Halloween costumes, CLICK HERE

Another Perspective From Another Theatrical Costumer

This costumer reminded me of the enormous amount of fabric it takes to make some costumes; and how many sources of fabric stores and mills that we used to create and build.  

Our strong suit was that our firm had many, many authentic costumes from several previous eras going back as far as the 1860’s.  The problem was that the clothing of those earlier generations would not necessarily fit the men and women of the 2000’s.

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Stage / Theatrical Costuming

Ah!  This is throwback to some of my costuming background. Although I wasn’t involved in the theatrical aspects of costumeing that much, I was reminded that it takes a lot of thought to prepare for a stage production.  One can’t just throw a ‘blue shirt’ on someone and hope that tells the story of a character.

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