Fancy dress costume parties – you either love them or you hate them.

If you love them, you probably have your own personal stash of fancy dress costumes; everything from a retro 70’s disco outfit (complete with afro wig) to a devilish Halloween fancy dress costume and a few things in between.

If you hate fancy dress costume parties, you can probably trace that back to an occasion where you wore an outfit that did you no justice (skin tight jump suit anyone?) or – even worse – where you got the fancy dress costume theme wrong.

Fancy dress costumes have different relevance to men and women. Most men don’t mind looking silly and are game for a laugh. They’ll wear a dress, a wig, fake chest hair – and will feel like a winner so long as they get a laugh from the boys.

For women however, fancy dress costume is delicate. They want to make an effort and go along with the theme, but they don’t want to look unattractive. In fact, many fancy dress costumes seem to take this a step too far, resulting in women looking terrifyingly tacky and like the cast of an x-rated movie. Neither look is what most women want; hence the importance of getting the outfit right.

The best advice is to play safe. Have a think about the theme and how you might be able to accessorise your fancy dress costume in order to individualise it. When choosing the actual outfit, remember the kinds of clothes you wear in real life and what looks good on you. By all means indulge your outrageous side, but if you wouldn’t wear a mini-skirt in a thousand years and because your legs look like sausages, then they aren’t suddenly going to look any better in a fancy dress mini-skirt!

The best thing to do is contact the experts: PropsnFrocks have a great website with a massive range of fancy dress costumes. They will give you advice, measure costumes, and get your outfit to you on time.