Fancy Dresscapades: Costume Review: Pirate costume cosplay

Last weekend one of my friends had a birthday party. It was no ordinary birthday party however, it was a pirate-themed-murder-mystery AND fancy dress was mandatory. Now that is my kind of party!

Anywho, the timing of said party was pretty poor unfortunately as it fell just after a a trip to my parents to pick up a bunch of housey stuff. So with that, a 9 hour car journey and unpacking I really didn't have the time to make a costume.

But fortunately for me Kent based Mega Fancy Dress came to my rescue when they agreed to send me a costume and wig of my choice to review**. Even better, they had a great selection of Pirate outfits! Pirate seems to be an increasingly common party theme so there is a huge range of pirate costumes out there from wenches to captains, form skirts to trousers and even the odd sexy pirate...

My character for the party was Jean Golddust, the town gold dealer, so I needed a look that was slightly less stripy t-shirt and cutlass and more like a land loving lady.

Here is the look I went for:

I managed a fair bit of success during the night. As the town gold dealer I knew a fair number of secrets and was able to sell quite a bit of information to the town governor and grave digger, meaning I finished the night having tripled my pirate dosh. Although, I suppose that's to be expected with the town gold dealer.

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Anywho, what did I think of the costume?!

Well one of the issues I know a lot of people have with bought costumes is that they never look like the advertised pictures.

So for reference here is the promo image from the Mega Fancy Dress website (and the item is here):

And here is my finished look:

I think it actually turned out quite well! Overall I would say I was very pleased with the costume, it was a sized costume (in a 12-14) which meant that it fit quite well! It was a fairly simple dress with a corset style bodice that fitted over the top and the dress section was great, I especially liked the fact that there was a black frilly lining under the skirt so that it could look like a petticoat.

The bodice part was not quite as good, it was a sort of foam at the front with a stretchy polyester back portion. I know this is used to give a better, more generic fit, bit it meant that the costume could look a little cheap from the back. I'm sure no one looks that closely though.

Having the stretchy bodice did mean that there were customisable options to the costume so that you could ensure the best fit. The bodice was okay, I suppose you could lace it up slightly more open on the top of bottom depending on your shape (something I would have done in hindsight).

But my favourite customisable option was the skirt length.The straps on the bodice attach to laces hidden underneath the skirt so that you can pull it as hitched or as long as you want. I really loved this detail as I am not a fan of the super short skirts you often get in bought costumes and it meant that I could wear the skirt slightly hitched but still preserve some dignity... although I did wear this outfit on a bus, in the daylight...

I really loved the skirt!

Sadly the headband that was meant to come with costume was missing in the packet. I managed to make do by stealing a bandanna from a local treasure hunter though to tame the wild and wavy locks provided for me by the showgirl wig.

The wig was a bit cheap looking up close, but I expected that based on the price of £8.99, but it did the job especially with the bandanna over the top. It was actually surprisingly comfortable as it was just elastic underneath meaning it was pinned with a few pins but it didn't did into my head the way some more fitted wigs can. Always a bonus.