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33 Ludgate Hill, Birmingham, B3 1EH, UKA weekly podcast divided up into seasons, exploring the world of fashion, fantasy and fancy-dress, presented by author Lucy Clayton and cultural historian Dr Benjamin Wild.
Lucy Clayton
As the self-proclaimed experts, arbiters and arch-judges of dressing up, Lucy and Ben take to the airwaves for a special episode to provide the definitive guide to the dressing up equivalent of Christmas: Halloween. Ever topical, slightly tawdry, and full of scary costuming tips, the podcasting duo aim to rouse …
This week’s theme is a broad and beautiful one: Lucy and Ben explore the role of dressing up in art with special guest, artist Volker Hermes. The conversation is framed (pun intended) by considering the work of Suzanne Jongmans and Isabelle de Borchgrave, which pursues similar themes to that of …
Appropriately for a summer quite unlike any other, this week Lucy and Ben invite themselves to a series of surrealist balls. Tagging along with Salvador Dalí, they discuss the Rothschild Ball of 1972 and the pros and cons of installing a maze in your hallway and serving still-living food on …
This week, Lucy and Ben ponder the enduring appeal, and representation, of the duelling relationship between the fictional frenemies, the harlequin and pierrot. From plays and paintings, to fashion and of course fancy dress, the comic duo reveal much about shifting social values and confirm that many a true word …
This week, Lucy and Ben tweak their normal designer-focused episode to review Andre Leon Talley’s memoir, The Chiffon Trenches. Reflecting on Talley’s exuberant and complex life – in and out of fashion’s spotlight – the book provides a rare opportunity to peel back the industry’s polished veneer and to consider …
This week, Lucy and Ben are off to the court to enjoy the spectacle that was the masque. Propaganda par excellence, this short-lived entertainment during the seventeenth century glorified monarchy, and could give contemporary leaders a PR tip or two. Discussing the tense creative partnership between poet Ben Jonson and …
In this week’s episode, Ben and Lucy are taking their diamanté magnifying glass to the face itself, and thinking about a new fashion coinage: Ugly Make-up, or Brutalist Make-up. Reflecting on the origins and motivations of this creative, conspicuous beauty trend, the Dress: Fancy duo also offer some of their …
Peter Brathwaite is a man of many talents but most recently he’s been the shining star of the Getty Museum Challenge – the social media sensation that has captivated art lovers, creators and costume fanatics during global lockdown. Using the challenge as platform to explore the history of Black Portraiture …
As the global lockdown eases and we all begin to think about wearing clothes in public, possibly for the first time in three months, Lucy and Ben discuss how the pandemic could change the way we dress. Looking to the past, politicians, and always with an eye to the playful, …
The past months have been strange, difficult and trying. Fancy dress has been worn by people around the world to provide joy during the pandemic. In this week’s episode, Lucy and Ben consider how fancy dress costume performed a similar function in the past as they invite themselves to the …
It’s about time! Lucy and Ben wear their smudgiest eyeliner and descend into the subterranean world of the Cabaret. Focusing on two examples from early twentieth-century Europe, in England and Germany, they discover curious parallels between the past and present and reflect on people’s universal desire to live as themselves …
For many people, the essential part of any fancy dress costume is a face mask. Concealing one identity and making another possible, face coverings have been a source of excitement and anxiety throughout history. Today, in the midst of a global pandemic, this costume staple now means something very different. …
This week, in the second of our designer-focused mini episodes, Lucy and Ben discuss the bold and beautiful, strong and soft, powerful and playful creations of Molly Goddard. Since 2015, Goddard has won various industry accolades, designed for the Met Gala and for the small screen, combining technical skill with …
This week, Lucy and Ben walk towards the precipice and consider the role and meaning of clothes in six different cults. Reflecting on the relationship between fashion and fanaticism, the show considers how distinctive dress is used to control and champion the spread of controversial ideas and behaviours. The nature …
Lucy and Ben sacrifice comfort to probe the dark, sometimes demonic, always disruptive world of the New York Club Kids, a diverse group who caroused and challenged in the City That Never Sleeps during the 1980s and 1990s. Offering a counterpoise to last week’s episode on the Bright Young Things, …
This week, Lucy and Ben explore the life and times of Dress: Fancy’s patron saint, Cecil Beaton. The social upheavals in Europe between the First and Second World Wars created an unsettling mix of expectation and fear. Weary and wealthy, a privileged group of twenty-somethings attempted to turn doubt and …
Series seven commences with a super-niche, and super-indulgent, episode as Lucy transforms herself into Mariella Frostrup and interviews Ben about his new fancy dress-related tome, Carnival to Catwalk. To further allay isolation boredom, the episode also introduces the Dress: Fancy Costume Conundrum competition that will run throughout the series. Follow …
In a suitably festive episode, and to conclude this season’s costume shenanigans, Lucy and Ben consider a form of cultural expression that always seems relevant: Victoriana. From the costumes of the Queen and Empress Victoria, via the bravura public readings of Charles Dickins, to a very contemporary interpretation of the …
Lucy talks with Egyptologists Dr Colleen Darnell and Professor John Darnell to reflect on the enduring cultural and sartorial appeal of the land and history of Tutankhamen. From rampant consumerism to studied attention to detail, the conversation considers the use, and misuse, of all things Egypt from the Twenties to …
Every year from the late-nineteenth century Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House opened its doors for a night of costumed revelry. Urbanites from all social levels dressed up in the most creative of costumes and vied for some very special prizes, from grand pianos to bicycles. Lucy and Ben become very …
In this week’s episode, Lucy and Ben begin a new mini-series that looks in-depth at the work of fashion designers whose clothing engages with themes we regularly explore through costume; chiefly identity and representation. We start by looking at the technically accomplished and creatively daring designs of award-winning British designer …
Dress: Fancy has yet to venture off-shore: until now. In this week’s aquatic-themed episode, Lucy introduces Ben to the complex and beautiful world of the merpeople, a diverse community who dress as mermaids and mermen to seek personal and communal fulfilment in the water. The episode is brought to you …
The City of London has many august traditions, but few are as beautiful, striking and good-natured as that of the Pearly Kings and Queens. Exploring the origins of the Pearlies, the meaning of their highly detailed, shimmering garments, Dress: Fancy were lucky enough to attend the Pearlies’ most important annual …
Little Podcast of Horror: Season Six commences on the year’s biggest day for fancy dress: Halloween! Always looking to raise the costume stakes, Lucy and Ben consider costume inspiration from some unlikely sources, including the Pre-Raphaelites, Audrey Beardsley and an eighties footwear commercial that Lucy has still not got over. …
In this indulgent, nostalgic birthday episode, Lucy & Ben review a year’s worth of super-niche, sequinned dressing up stories. Talking about the podcast’s origins, they revisit their favourite episodes and re-live their most exciting excursions. The start of Season Six also comes with a very special announcement: Dress:Fancy is partnering …
In an especially glittering episode, Lucy and Ben discuss the costumes (off stage and on) of the inimitable Rocket Man, Elton John. Reviewing the Star’s sartorial choices decade-by-decade, and comparing them to Julian Day’s interpretations in the recent blockbuster biopic starring Taron Egerton, this week’s show ponders the relationship between …
Getting into the summer spirit in central London, Lucy and Ben re-join the Royal Academy for another Lates costumed extravaganza. Talking with revellers, hosting the Georgian Moonlit Promenade and, most importantly, bestowing rosettes on the very best of the best-dressed, the Dress: Fancy duo were in their fancy dress heaven. …
In Pride and Prejuduce Jane Austen extolled the virtues of indulging the imagination ‘in every possible way’. With this in mind, Lucy and Ben joined members of the Jane Austen Pineapple Appreciation Society (JAPAS) for a costumed picnic at the National Trust’s Mottisfont Abbey on one sunny (and rainy) Sunday. …
Lucy and Ben record live from the front row at the British Museum, listening in on Grayson Perry as he talks with Kensai Yamamoto, and dissecting the fashion and cosplay catwalks inspired by the Museum’s current, must-see Manga exhibition. Interviews with participants recreate the special atmosphere and reveal the marvellous, …
On Saturday 20 July, Dress: Fancy will be hosting a costumed parade at this year’s Royal Academy Summer Show Lates event. The theme, excitingly, is ‘Georgian Pleasure Garden’... To prepare for the festivities, Lucy and Ben provide an essential guide to costuming and getting into your Georgian character. A special …
Pristine, pure, powerful, peaceful: the meanings of white are many and various. It should occasion no surprise, then, that dressing in white (and its opposite, black) have long been a popular theme in costumed entertainments. Tracing the history of this colour through clothing, Lucy and Ben discuss some of the …
If you were to think of your costumed alter-ego as a creature, it’s unlikely you’d immediately conjure an image of a bat, and yet as this super niche episode demonstrates, bats have long been – and continue to be – popular subjects for dressing up, and not simply as Batman …
This week, Dress: Fancy speaks with Professor Therèsa M. Winge from Michigan State University to explore the compelling, complicated and challenging world of cosplay. A distinct form of fancy dress, cosplay is unique for enabling people to explore themselves and their society by adopting the clothing and character traits of …
Children playing dress-up is age-old and innocent. Or is it? Lucy and Ben go behind the seams to consider if children really do enjoy fancy dress as much the coaxed smiles in family photos suggest. Are these kids really avatars, conduits for the adults in their lives to express their …
In 2011, Teen Vogue drew attention to harmful consequences of insensitively chosen fancy dress costumes that reduce beliefs, cultures and people to garish stereotypes. In previous episodes of Dress: Fancy, Lucy and Ben have considered the painful consequences of badly informed costume choices and in this episode they continue this …
The pink carpet has been walked and Lucy and Ben reflect on the costume highs and lows of this year’s Met Gala held on 6 May 2019. Were the outfits sufficiently camp? Why is Ben falling out of love with Julianne Moore? And why is Lucy falling in love with …
Described, in all seriousness, as the ‘Ball of the Century’, the Beistegui Ball of 1951 was a fancy dress event like no other: the guest list, the costumes, the late-running pre-party rehearsal – everything was taken to an extreme. But at what cost? As guests partied, they also pondered: ‘memorable’ …
Aside from Halloween, the only other date that gets Lucy and Ben excited is the first Monday in May, when the Metropolitan Museum, New York, hosts its gala ball to raise funds for its Costume Institute. Although not strictly a fancy dress event, the couture worn to this shimmering festivity …
In this special ‘on location’ episode, Lucy and Ben visit the archives of the Chelsea Arts Club to explore the creativity, chaos and controversy that was Chelsea Arts Club annual fancy dress ball. Illustrated invitations, letters of outrage and contemporary newspaper reports, with stories of smoke bombs, arresting costumes and …
The adage, ‘They don’t make them like they used to’, is especially apt for the object at the centre of this week’s episode: a fancy dress catalogue from London costume supplier Weldon’s. Join Lucy and Ben as they leaf through the illustrated pages of costume dramas from the 1920s and …
Love it or loath it, World Book Day has become an important date in family calendars as toddlers, teenagers and just about any other young person under an adult’s influence, is dressed up and decorated to resemble a character from literary fiction. The costume fun and frustration of World Book …
Gucci’s SS19 campaign is an unashamedly glitzy and joyous celebration of 1950s Americana, as relayed through Hollywood and Kodachrome photography. It also looks, and feels, a lot like fancy dress costume. In this mini episode, Lucy and Ben reflect on the inspiration – and impact – of a campaign that …
In the second of two special episodes recorded live at the Royal Academy’s Klimt-Schiele Cabaret Night in January, follow Lucy and Ben as they talk with costumed revellers, lead the Academy’s first costume parade, and award some incredibly coveted rosettes for the evening’s most inspiring fancy dress. Links Our venue: …
Join hosts Lucy Clayton & Dr Benjamin Wild live at the Royal Academy, as part of the RALates series for a discussion about Klimt, Schiele & the Viennese Secession - in this special, mini episode we explore the crossover between fashion, costume and the art of the period. Links https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/page/ra-lates
In this Season’s finale, Lucy and Ben talk with Levi Higgs about the jewellery worn at three of the twentieth-century’s most lavish and exclusive costume balls. Following Dress: Fancy’s patron saint, Cecil Beaton, who attended each of these events, this episode examines the significance of haute joaillerie and costume jewellery …
Fancy dress may be inherently unfashionable but it has found a home in the seasonal wardrobe of many people the world over – the British in particular – in the form of the Christmas sweater. On 14 December, Save the Children encourage mass festive sweater wearing to raise awareness and …
This week’s episode raises a potentially divisive question: is re-enactment a form of fancy dress? From historical associations and living history, to Steam Punk and Nordic Larpers, Lucy and Ben continue their rummage through the dressing up box by looking at the role and meaning of people who create other …
Dressing the Part – the influence of literature on fancy dress. Episode 8 looked at how fancy dress shapes fictional stories, usually for the worse. This week’s show considers the fictional stories that shape fancy dress in real-life. From Alice lost her in Wonderland, to Hamlet lost in his mental …
It is not contentious to connect costume and the catwalk: Alexander McQueen did in 1997 with his ‘It’s A Jungle Out There’ collection. However, few designers and fashion houses are as willing – or as brave? – to compare their collections with the dressing up box. In today’s fashion industry …
Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, novelists seemed fascinated by fancy dress. From Defoe to de Maurier, Blyton to Poe, authors used costumed entertainments to drive narratives and to determine the fate of their lead characters. Always exhilarating, very often devastating, the place of fancy dress in literature reveals much …
Halloween Headlines – The fancy dress day of the year, Halloween provides an opportunity for people the world over to get creative with glue guns, sequins and, if you’re Heidi Klum, latex and fluorescent green make-up. From A-listers to Z-listers, Disney to divas, the very best to the shocking worst, …
On 11 and 13 February 1903, the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, was the venue for one of the most opulent costumed entertainments hosted by a Russian Tsar. It was also to be the last. In reviving the spectacle of the Romanov’s gilded past, Nicholas II, his family and court, demonstrated …
For Heidi Klum, and many more people besides, Halloween is ‘the’ fancy dress event of the year. Since the 1950s, the opportunity to wear bold and brash, creative and creepy costumes on 31 October has inspired fun, provoked fear and caused the young and young-at-heart to get creative with cloth, …
Like fancy dress, movies are adept at conveying the zeitgeist. And just like fancy dress, the Silver Screen can reassure us, motivate us, and inspire us. It is no wonder, then, that movie-themed dress up has become a staple of costumed parties the world over, from caped crusaders and femmes …
In today’s episode Lucy Clayton and Dr Benjamin Wild analyse how people’s social, political and gendered roles are disrupted by war. Fancy dress costume, which offers escapism and self-reflection by enabling its wearer to become somebody or something else, can mediate these tensions. From women who dressed as men to …
Join Lucy Clayton and Dr Benjamin Wild for another eye-opening episode, as they explore a British phenomenon in popular culture, stating that fancy dress costume is inherently unfashionable and frequently in questionable taste. Photographs of authority figures and supposed role models in dubious dress-up regularly appear in newspapers to be …
In the second episode of a new series that explores the prevalence, potency and politics of fancy dress costume, Lucy Clayton and cultural historian Dr Benjamin Wild discuss the Devonshire House Ball. Held on 2 July 1897 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, during an époque when dressing …
In the first of a new series that looks at the social significance and psychology of dressing up, Lucy Clayton and cultural historian Dr Benjamin Wild discuss the global prevalence of fancy dress protests. From slogan covered T-shirts to city-wide marches, pussy hats to power aprons, an increasing number of …
