Party costumes for non-costume people?
June 6, 2018 9:03 AM   Subscribe

Mr. Blah, KidBlah and I have to attend a family party with a "Disney inspired" theme. We're not Disney people. We're not costume people. What should we wear?

This is for a bat mitzvah reception, so we can't go too casual. Help. I have zero ideas, and zero interest in extensive searching. What's the easiest way to accomplish this without spending a lot of money on Disney-inspired shit we don't actually want?
posted by BlahLaLa to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (52 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
What aspects of costumes/Disney do you mainly want to avoid? Would costumes that are basically just hats or simple accessories, plus normal clothes, work?
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:07 AM on June 6, 2018


Wear a pale blue dress, with see-through shoes and a simple tiara. Mr. Blah wears a military/royalty sash on his suit, kid wears mouse ears with their clothes and you are Cinderella.

Wear a pink dress with a tiara, Mr Blah wears the military/royalty sash or toy sword on his belt, kid wears fairy wings & carries a wand and you are Sleeping Beauty.

Both parents wear hats adorned with crow's feathers and child wears a little clown hat and you are Dumbo.
posted by crush at 9:12 AM on June 6, 2018 [5 favorites]


If you go to the blog Epbot you can see her photo posts of events at Disney World such as Dapper Day. Guests at Disney are not allowed to dress in costume as characters, so they do something called Disney bounding

It means dressing up in regular or vintage style clothes inspired by Disney characters. So if you wanted to dress like Donald Duck, you'd be looking at a blue shirt, white pants, maybe yellow shoes and so on.

The photos on the blog are really fun and peppy and might give you some inspiration
posted by Squeak Attack at 9:12 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]


Would something like this work? If yes, and you're at all crafty, could you recreate it using a stamp + a shirt from a second hand store?
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:13 AM on June 6, 2018


I would recommend Epbot Dapper blogs too. Always some great ideas. They are clothes with Nods to Disney.
posted by Ftsqg at 9:14 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I want something very simple. Hats? Simple accessories? Something that can be slapped on top of things we already own would be best. My enthusiasm for this project is...minimal.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:15 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Wear a fancy yellow dress (or a simple blue dress) and carry a book. Mr. Blah has some stubble. Kid carries around a tea cup. You are Beauty and the Beast.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 9:15 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]


Best answer: Or the simplest thing of all is just to wear Mickey Mouse hats and be Mousketeers.
posted by crush at 9:24 AM on June 6, 2018 [8 favorites]


- Mickey Mouse ears, plus maybe white gloves
- Dalmatians - pin on construction paper spots
- Mary Poppins (plain/old-fashioned clothes, plus hat and umbrella and maybe valise)
- Rabbit ears and a clock necklace for the white rabbit
- I see someone else online suggesting Huey, Louie, and Dewey - just turtlenecks and ballcaps in green, red, blue.
- Fairy godmothers from Cinderella, again three colored accessories - pointy hats and magic wands would probably do
- Three of the seven dwarves, with colored shirt, thick black belt, beard and hat
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:27 AM on June 6, 2018


Dress totally normal but bring a clutch of like 20 brightly colored inflated helium balloons on strings as an homage to Up. Make a grand entrance with the balloons, give the balloons to the littler kids, and you're done! And a hero for bringing balloons.
posted by mochapickle at 9:29 AM on June 6, 2018 [11 favorites]


Unique Vintage (not that you need to buy from them) has some nice ideas for casual non-costumey Disney things.

I think I'd probably just go classic Mickey & Minnie (KidBlah can just be a small Mickey) -- red pants and black shirt for Mickey, red skirt (with polka dots if you want to get fancy) and black shirt for Minnie, plus Mouse ears (headband versions can be found cheaply on Amazon) and white gloves if you want to go all the way with it.
posted by darksong at 9:31 AM on June 6, 2018


Do you have clothing that you would prefer to wear? If so, tell us, and suggestions can be made on simple adjustments to those to make them fit a Disney character.
posted by Ftsqg at 9:35 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Etsy has a fair amount of disney bow ties, for around $10 each. That will involve spending some money on things you will never use again, but maybe you know people who will appreciate them?

Honestly the only way to do this spending no money is to spend time looking at the blogs up thread, and seeing what you could pull off with your existing wardrobe. But that will involve more time.
posted by tan_coul at 9:40 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Oh, man, I would want no part of this whatsoever. I have been known to show up to Halloween costume parties without a costume when I just didn't feel like it. If you skip the costuming aspect and just show up in nice clothing, I suspect you won't be the only ones.

I would just wear whatever black/red/white dressy clothes I already owned, buy a couple mouse ear headbands on Amazon (between $5-10), and call it a day.
posted by anderjen at 9:42 AM on June 6, 2018 [6 favorites]


Best answer: I would be so annoyed at this request.

$10 dalmatian necktie for Mr. Blah, worn with whatever suit he'd already wear.
$20 t-shirt for Kid Blah, worn with a blazer.
$7 dalmatian scarf for you.
posted by Siobhan at 9:44 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


This will cost a little bit more but if you get brown hooded cloaks for each of you, you can be Jedis (or Robin Hood's merry men), and they are versatile enough to use for any future costume things that come into your life. If your child wants to get more into it he or she could add a lightsaber (painted paper towel roll) or a quiver and arrows.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:47 AM on June 6, 2018


...plus you can wear whatever you want underneath and ditch the cloaks asap.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:47 AM on June 6, 2018


Sorry, this sucks. If I was going, I’d do the black feathers/clown hat Dumbo ensemble: super cheap, don’t have to give any money to the actual wretched mouse empire, doesn’t get in the way of whatever other clothes you’d normally wear.

You don’t even need hats if your willing to wear the feathers in your hair or maybe attached to cuffs or armbands.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:53 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


If you wear a tiara and a longer dress with some flow to it and he wears a red sash across his suit with a couple of medals on it, I think you can get away with it .
posted by Mchelly at 9:55 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


go as dev2.0, the disney/devo collaboration from 10 years ago.


nice black pants for everyone, one or two in a red top the rest in black shirts. and pick up some overpriced energy domes (or follow d.i.y. instructions)
posted by noloveforned at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


As noted above, Disney also owns Lucasfilm and Marvel, as well as ESPN, A&E, ABC broadcasting, and Pixar. So you could go as Jessica Jones, or Jedis, or baseball players, or wear scrubs and go as people from some darn hospital drama because there's a ton of media there to choose from.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:11 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: All of you wear tiaras from the dollar store. Bam! You're all princesses.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 10:13 AM on June 6, 2018 [7 favorites]


Go as the fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty. All you need to do is dress in single color outfits - someone is red, someone is green, and someone is blue, and have some glittery dowels for magic wands. Like, no need for pointy hats and capes, you could just wear a nice green dress, Mr. Blah could wear a navy suit with a sky blue shirt and dark blue tie, and the kid could wear a red outfit like a red top and skirt or red shirt and burgundy vest with maroon slacks or whatever they dig. To drive it home, have Red and Blue argue that the bat mitzvah girl's dress would look better if it were pink or blue. Maybe have lightweight scarves in the right colors since that would kind of refer to the character designs as well as be something reusable.
posted by Mizu at 10:14 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Please forgive me if I am off-base and it has been explicitly stated that you are expected to actively participate in the theme with a stated dress code, but are you sure that you actually have to wear something Disney-inspired? Many Bar/Bat Mitzvah's have themes, but that's typically expressed solely bythe hosting family in choosing decor, table "names", the cake appearance, song selection, party favors, etc. I've never been asked to wear a costume to a Bar/Bat Mitzvah before.
posted by alygator at 10:18 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Please keep them coming -- so many good ideas so far.

And yes, alygator -- not only was the theme announced on the invitation, but we received explicit instructions on how to dress, and actual sample photos of what a Disney-inspired ensemble might look like. They apparently seriously want everybody to dress up. I wish I could share the link but there's too much identifying info on it.
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:21 AM on June 6, 2018


Once, for Halloween, I carried around a 40 of Milwaukee's Best. I was Beauty and the Beast.

You could just wear normal suits and semi-formalwear, and if anyone asks, reply "oh, I thought you meant Disney Corporate. I'm Michael Eisner."
posted by kevinbelt at 10:31 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


You guys could always dress up as three versions of Walt Disney himself.
posted by SLC Mom at 10:31 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


This would annoy me no end. I would cut circles out of black construction paper and hot-glue them to headbands and stick them on everybody's heads and wear normal fancy party clothes. Voila: we mickeymoused some mickey mouse costumes. If you want to fancy the ears up, cover them in black sequins or black glitter. Add a construction paper red bow if you want a Minnie.

Just bring a really good present; the gung ho Disneyfolk will make up for your lackluster effort.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:35 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


Some other relatively cheap accessories:

polka dot scarf ($6.99)

polka dot tie (~$10)

polka dot pocket square & bow tie set ($9.99)

red and white will read as the most obviously disney inspired, but black and white with a red shirt would also work.
posted by tan_coul at 10:36 AM on June 6, 2018


One of the recent Incredibles 2 posters has them dressed fairly normally: with eye mask tan lines.
posted by threetwentytwo at 10:43 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Wait okay last one I promise (this one is dependent on you having the right stuff already in your wardrobes): green dress and purple neckerchief for you, white button-down, brown slacks, and a tie for Mr. Blah, and a white turtleneck with blue pants for KidBlah and you are Disgust, Anger, and Sadness from Inide Out.

ymmv on if that feels too passive aggressive...
posted by tan_coul at 10:45 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I was hipster Ariel for halloween this year and it was really easy. I got $10 mermaid leggings from Amazon and wore them with a white button down shirt and a purple cardigan. A red wig and hipster glasses are optional.

Mary Poppins and Bert are pretty easy to do on short notice. Here's a picture of some internet people dressed up as them.

Alternatively you could all wear cat ears and bowties and be the Aristocats.
posted by donut_princess at 11:08 AM on June 6, 2018 [3 favorites]


Or go in pajamas and be Wendy, Michael and John from Peter Pan
posted by donut_princess at 11:12 AM on June 6, 2018 [4 favorites]


Best answer: Seriously, buy random tiaras or wands and be princesses / fairies. You can be the rejected princesses from Cinderella‘s ball.
posted by Omnomnom at 11:22 AM on June 6, 2018 [2 favorites]


Some other relatively cheap accessories:

polka dot scarf ($6.99)

polka dot tie (~$10)

polka dot pocket square & bow tie set ($9.99)

red and white will read as the most obviously disney inspired, but black and white with a red shirt would also work.

Or just wear white with black polka dots and you can all be dalmatians.
posted by Mchelly at 11:24 AM on June 6, 2018


Last ones I swear. You could also be an unnamed character from a crowd scene like in:
-Cinderella
-Beauty and the Beast
-The Princess and the Frog
-Hecules
-Hunchback of Notre Dame

Or wear 90s clothes and hold a sign with song lyrics to be a person from a Disney Sing a Long Songs video.
posted by donut_princess at 11:29 AM on June 6, 2018


I lied I’m not done. Here’s more poke around your wardrobe and mix and match as you please ideas:

Any combination of blue, yellow, and red is Snow White. Black and purple is the Evil Queen (or Maleficent).

Red top, yellow bottoms is Winnie the Pooh. Several shades of pink is piglet (bonus points for stripes). Orange and black is Tigger. Grey with a pink bow (neck tie, hair bow, pin, necklace, whatever) is Eeyore.

Primarily yellow with black accents/accessories is Pluto.

Blue top, white bottoms, red bow tie is Donald Duck.

Any combination of blue, yellow, and black is Dory. Orange, black, and white is Nemo (bonus points for something striped, but not necessary). Black and white for Becky? Or yellow, black, and white for Gill.

Primarily white with some black accents/accessories is a stormtrooper.

Light blue and purple is Sully.

Several shades of blue is Stitch.

Pink and purple is the Cheshire Cat (again, bonus points for stripes).

Black & white animal print top with black pants is Cruella. Maybe also with some red accents?

Primarily grey with yellow and red accents/accessories is Dumbo.
posted by tan_coul at 11:30 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: God bless you Disney nuts who keep posting! I love that you love helping me! Keep going!
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:34 AM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh my god I can't believe they're making you dress up.

Maybe Robin Hood? Pretty easy and cheap to make the hats out of construction paper or felt, whichever you prefer. Robin Hood paper. Robin Hood felt. Maid Marian paper. Maid Marian fabric.

You could all be Robin Hood, or you could divvy up the leads (Robin, Marian, Friar Tuck, King John) amongst you as you wish. Carry toy bow-and-arrows if you like. Friar Tuck is easy; just get a brown sheet or blanket and a bit of rope to make a 'robe'. King John just needs a cheap costume crown and a blanket to carry.
posted by halation at 12:05 PM on June 6, 2018


Light bottoms, purple top, red belt and/or hat is Aladdin. Primarily turquoise or light blue with gold accents is Jasmine. Red and black is Jafar. Light blue top, dark blue pants, red belt, gold accessories is the genie.

Black bottoms, white shirt, red jacket/blazer for Hook. Blue&white striped shirt, blue bottoms, red hat for Smee. Light green top, darker green bottoms, brown accents for Peter Pan. Primarily light green with sparkly accents for Tinkerbell. Light blue for Wendy, with a bow somewhere.

Yellow top, red bottoms, dark vest is Pinocchio (blue bow tie a bonus but not required). Orange top, brown bottoms, black jacket or sweater is Jiminy Cricket (blue hat a bonus). Dark bottoms, light top, brown vest is Gepetto. Two shades of blue is the Blue Fairy.

Primarily yellow for Belle, dark bottoms, white top, blue blazer/sweater for the Beast, dark bottoms, red top over yellow button down, and brown belt for Gaston. (Alternatively, sub a yellow scarf for the button down).

Brown bottoms, green top for Robin Hood. Pink and purple for Maid Marian. Brown bottoms, blue top, red jacket/sweater for Prince John. Green bottoms, blue top, red accents for Alan-a-Dale.
posted by tan_coul at 12:32 PM on June 6, 2018


Do a classic Sherlock Holmes and be Basil, the Great Mouse Detective!
posted by dust.wind.dude at 12:40 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I would get plastic tiaras/crowns/mouse ears and otherwise wear exactly what I'd normally wear (maybe a little more femme or fancy-formal than I normally would, befitting my royal status). I'd maybe get fairy/butterfly wings for KidBlah if they are the sort to find those fun.
posted by tchemgrrl at 12:42 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Members of the Parr family (Helen, Bob, Dash/Violet), in non-hero clothes, each with an eye mask dangling out of a pocket

The Rescuers could be done with hats (beret, cap) for the adults, and a stripped-down alligator costume for your child

Swiss Family Robinson is hats, again, or maybe a red waist sash for the youngest. Woody & Jessie from Toy Story = cowboy hats, with some accessory for Kidblah to signify another character (hat/magnifying glass/wax lips for a Potato Head)

Does Kidblah have a favorite Disney movie? Maybe there's a way to nod to that, to make this reception a fun night (and later a happy memory) for them?
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:23 PM on June 6, 2018


Remember that Star Wars and Marvel are Disney now too!
posted by TomFoolery at 1:35 PM on June 6, 2018


Gus, Jaq and Suzy are basically wearing a t-shirt with a cap. Suzy also has an apron.
posted by Mchelly at 1:49 PM on June 6, 2018


Tunic, tights, and boots in natural colors (greens, browns, berry-red, flower-yellow/orange) are Disney fairy basics for any gender; they expect wings, but cheap ones are available. If you don't want to wear wings, you can say that you're hiding them, or you've lost them (grounded fairies!) or just draw the outline of wings in silver marker on the back of the tunics.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:31 PM on June 6, 2018


Khakis, belt, tan button-down shirt, forged name badge, optional wide-brimmed hat: you're a Jungle Cruise Skipper, and therefore have permission to make terrible puns all night.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:54 PM on June 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thank you so much, guys. I'm going to go with tiaras or mouse ears or cat ears (Aristocats) or the Dalmatians accessories, along with our real clothes. That's as much enthusiasm as I can muster.
posted by BlahLaLa at 6:45 PM on June 6, 2018


Just dress nicely and go as extras in Mary Poppins, or The Parent Trap.

If it's the whole Copyright thing you object to, there are some Walt Disney creations that are in the public domain that might inspire:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Comedies
posted by at at 9:52 PM on June 6, 2018


The Mouseketeer costume is just navy trousers/skirt, white turtleneck, and ears.

Going as Walt and Lillian would only involve clothes with a pre-1966 style and a mustache. Don't know if kidblah would be able or willing to dress like either of the Disney daughters, though.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:04 AM on June 7, 2018


Can I offer a suggestion that‘s kindly meant?
If I were as grumpy as you, I‘d probably subconsciously be looking for a way to demonstrate to the host that I didn‘t actually want to dress like that. It would be hard to resist the temptation to be extra sloppy in choosing the outfit and pick the cheapest mouse ears, take them off as soon as you reach the venue etc.

By all means put as little time and effort in as you feel confortable with, in order to attend the party happily. Just try not to radiate „I AM ONLY WEARING THIS BECAUSE YOU MADE ME AND I PUT THE LEAST EFFORT POSSIBLE INTO IT, HOPE YOU ARE FUCKING HAPPY.“ Cause that would be kind of spoil it.

Just thought I‘d mention it because I could see myself heading in that direction, and I hope you‘ll have a good time regardless!
posted by Omnomnom at 3:20 AM on June 7, 2018 [3 favorites]


The first thing that came to my mind was dressing up in matching shirts, cargo shorts, and comfortable shoes with a camera around your neck and go as tourists to Disneyland. Formal or not, if they're making you come in costume then you get to wear what you want.



If you want to go the respectful way, Pinterest is full of DIY mouse ear ideas. Everything from beads and pipe cleaners to sewn fabric that looks like the princess dresses or Ariel's shell and tail.
posted by TooFewShoes at 3:28 AM on June 7, 2018


« Older When recipes call for chicken broth...   |   Seeking World's Heaviest Sleep Mask Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.