Fancy Dress

Product Information

An incredibly rich-looking costume made from old curtains & cardboard. Much of the decoration is gold spray-painted pasta (bow-ties & wheels), fruit gummies, and paper doilies. And yes, I meant to post this for Halloween and here it is, almost Thanksgiving. Sigh. I decided to post in praise of the book, then, for balance. Because I still think it’s brilliant. Asher does amazing things with cheap materials and straightforward construction tips, and better an elegant palm tree than another slutty nurse. Some favorite costumes below the cut. Finally, I like that the book’s offerings vary in difficulty, and that the easier ones aren’t necessarily less effective. As a final example, this Judge costume requires no sewing, and consists of a draped red blanket & strung-together toilet paper rolls: urn:lcp:janeashersfancyd0000ashe:epub:58f8db69-a7c2-4993-a93c-f6dad976162c Foldoutcount 0 Identifier janeashersfancyd0000ashe Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t42s2v29s Invoice 1652 Isbn 0720717094 I hope we have a moment of flagrant unbridled joy and pleasure,” says Alina Pleskova, who stumbled across the book, of life after Covid. Charlotte Wales

I also love that the book emphasizes reusing old materials, like curtains and even in one case, tin cans (though I don’t get Asher’s enthusiasm for bubble wrap, it’s hiddy). For this fun interpretation of samurai armor, Asher used old postcards: Source | Report Just Donald Pleasance dressed as a judge wearing a toilet roll wig, nothing to see here! Asher also has a contagious weakness for silly visual puns (e.g., the Newspiper, a Pied Piper costume made of newspaper) and goofy/cool tromp l’oeil effects, like this Pixie on Toadstool costume. Trivia bit: the model for this one is Emilia Fox: Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Old_pallet IA18214 Openlibrary_edition

6.

An obvious favorite is this Spanish Dancer costume, worn by an amusingly intense little girl (expressive modeling is another chief attraction of the book). I mean, ruffles? Flamenco references? Be still, my beating heart. It’s another good example of a rich-looking costume built from humble materials: the skirt tiers are made of crepe paper (Asher claims you can sew it onto lining fabric with a machine; I’m skeptical). Jane Asher’s Fancy Dress was a childhood favorite. Every trip to the local library, I’d end up pulling it off the shelf, marvelling at the costumes and dreaming of the day I’d be tall and beautiful enough to dress like an elegant palm tree (below).