Pirate Fancy Dress Costumes
Pirate fancy dress has always been popular, but since the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Black Pearl in 2003, demand for pirate costumes has sky-rocketed and the number of different outfits available has increased dramatically. This is good news if you are in the process of looking for the perfect pirate fancy dress costume.
Whether you are going to a pirate party, a Halloween party or a general fancy dress event, a pirate costume is an excellent choice. It is very easy to make someone look like a pirate, so with relatively little expense you can put together a pretty decent costume. However, if you want to spend a bit more, adding accessories or investing in a more high-quality outfit, you will be able to assemble an absolutely stunning fancy dress costume.
That’s the beauty of choosing a pirate costume. There are so many different costumes on the market you will almost certainly be able to find or create exactly the costume you have pictured in your mind.
You can purchase pirate fancy dress costumes from Jokers’ Masquerade, Angel’s Fancy Dress, Party Domain, Delights, and Fancy Dress Outfitters. All of these companies offer a good range of pirate costumes, both in terms of subject matter and price.
Let’s have a look at some of the main categories within this fancy dress theme:
Children’s Pirate Fancy Dress Costumes
Most fancy dress manufacturers produce pirate costumes specifically designed for kids. These include all of the features you would expect to find, such as: skull and crossbones hats, eye patches, hooks, bandanas, stripped tops. The prices of these outfits vary from under £10 to considerably more depending on the quality and the number of accessories included. Lots of companies also produce kids’ pirate accessories individually, so it’s easy to add cutlasses, muskets, pieces of eight, treasure maps and parrots to enhance a basic costume.
Adult Pirate Fancy Dress Costumes
Adult Pirate Costumes
There are dozens of different types of pirate costumes produced for adults. Whether you want to be a Pirate Captain, a crewmember, a buccaneer or a pirate inspired by a character from a book or film, you’ll be hard pressed not to find a suitable outfit. As with the children’s costumes, the prices vary (from £20 to £100+). Pirate costumes are one of the easiest types of costume to accessorise. Well-chosen props can often turn an ordinary costume into a truly memorable one, so it’s worth thinking about these as well.
Ladies Pirate Fancy Dress Costumes
Although there weren’t many female pirates plundering ships on the high seas in real life, there are loads of different ladies’ pirate outfits available. Whether you are looking for a sexy, revealing pirate costume or a more conservative one, you should be able to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Pirates of the Caribbean Fancy Dress Costumes
Disney, the company behind the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise, has licensed a range of official Pirates costumes. These include: Jack Sparrow, Barnacle Bill, Davy Jones and Elizabeth Swann (to name but a few). If you want to go to a party dressed as one of the more minor characters which isn’t included in the official range, you should easily be able to put together an outfit by combining and customising elements from other pirate fancy dress costumes.
At the time of writing the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, On Stranger Tides, is on its way. Upon its release, I’m sure there will be a new selection of official outfits to choose from (a Blackbeard fancy dress costume, for instance).
Pirate Halloween Fancy Dress Costumes
Although a standard pirate costume would work well for most Halloween parties and trick or treat events, there are some variations that are particularly well-suited. Inspired by the scenes from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film where the crew of the Black Pearl turn undead, several companies have started to make ghoulish, scary pirate costumes.
You can now purchase complete skeleton pirate costumes and zombie pirate costumes. The other option, or course, is to add a zombie or skeleton mask to an existing pirate fancy dress outfit.
This post just scratches the surface of what is available and achievable within this fancy dress costume theme. I haven’t even mentioned DIY options or costumes based on pirate characters from books (think Captain Hook and Long John Silver) and real life pirates / privateers (such as Captain Kidd, Blackbeard and Sir Francis Drake).
In future posts we will examine some of these other categories in more detail.