Festival Fancy Dress - Pirate Inspiration for Hogsozzle 2016

Following my mermaid and cosmic-space-explorer inspiration posts, I've got some swash-buckling swag for all you childhood dreamers who wished for a future on the high seas!

If anyone can pull off pirate chic, it's my friend Kelly - she's literally the person I know that can drink the most rum, for sure. Here's a little collage of me and her having rum-soaked times, she's a beaut, right?

So, we are thinking, black, skull & crossbones accessories, some sort of sword and some pieces of eight to scatter in her wake :) The web is awash with fabulous pirate dress-up bounty - below I've shared just some of the absolutely incredible steampunk corsets and accessories for sale on Etsy, all sources are linked below the image.

Pirate Wench Corset - Luluna

Off-the-shoulder top - Zootzugarb

Pirate Wench Dress - TimJan Design

Pirate Cat Corset - EmeraldAngel

Tricorn Pirate Hat - Blackpin

Black Brocade Corset - SilverLeafCostumes

Lace Up Arm Warmers - ZenandCoffee

Waist Cincher- Dredmorsplunder

Renaissance Corset - PeriodCorsets

Woman make the best pirates, obviously. At the end of the 17th century, pirating was primarily a male occupation. Women weren't allowed on long boat journeys in case the men fought over them (or, I imagine, with them) so if they wanted a life on the high seas, they had to pretend to be male. That makes it pretty hard to track down authentic female pirates in history, but I did find this diva, rocking some serious piratey garbs, about to get shot in the head.

Anne Bonney, apparently on the left although I think they both look quite feminine. She obviously dreamed hard about becoming a pirate, because after stabbing a servant girl with a table knife and marrying a small-time pirate, James Bonny, Anne was disowned by her father. She moved to New Providence in the Bahamas, where she met Jack Rackham, captain of the pirate ship Revenge, and became his mistress - what a life eh?

*edit- I just had mail from Sara at PeriodCorsets, who inform me that the second lady, on the left, is another famous female pirate called Mary Read. She also told me a hilarious pirate fact - the reason their breasts are shown in this picture is because during battle, while dressed as men, they would rip open their shirts revealing their breasts to distract those they were fighting. Thanks Sara! 

Here's what Tickled Pink Fancy Dress, the official fancy dress partner of Hogsozzle, have on offer along the pirate theme - I think my favourite thing about these is the snarling on the men's faces, I can just imagine being told to go "Aarrrrggggg!"

Check out their whole selection of festival fancy dress on their website here.

Below are some pirate-themed pieces from around the web to spend your dubloons on, I love the idea of wearing a cute but practical themed outfit as well as going all out with fabulous fancy dress :)

Striped Wellies - Joules

Skull & Crossbone Denim Shorts - WTFEmbroidery

White off-shoulder Top - Topshop

Headscarf - LittleKTM on Etsy

Coin Bag - ASOS

Fishbone necklace - Tatty Devine

Finally, what pirate would be ready to give someone a good keelhaul (that's scraping a traitor back and forth against the barnacle-crusted bottom of the boat, in case your pirate-language knowledge in't up to speed) without a bottle of the very best rum? We met the guys that make Pirates Grog last year at a little festival called Rumbellion and it's stayed my very favourite. Grab ye' self a bottle and get three sheets to the wind...here we are soaking up the sunshine and enjoying the grog :)

Have a great rest of the week! I'll be back tomorrow with that Turner Brother summer gig guide I've been promising and some last-minute fancy dress ideas - 8 days til we go festival fancy dress crazy at Hogsozzle, I'll share all our groups outfits after the weekend!:)

Katy x

Rumbellion Festival with The Turner Brothers, Theydon Bois

I'm writing this sat in bed because my body hasn't quite recovered from the weekend yet, I think I might possibly have ingested way too much rum...


I've been hanging out with The Turner Brothers recently, an eleven-piece band from Watford whose style is difficult to catagorise (you get a different answer depending on which Turner Brother you speak to) but their website says "their sound is sprinkled with Ska, Indie, Folk, alternative and Rap..." so that probably covers it. Check them out below...

This weekend I headed over to Theydon Bois (much of the journey was spent working on our pronunciation of that...we have been pretty much convinced it's Theydon Boys now though...)

This was the first year of a little festival in the countryside just outside London, called Rumbellion. It was run Pirates Grog, who make rum and Green Yurts who provided tents and yurts at festivals. We didn't know what to expect, but we had an amazing time and I can't wait to go back next year!

We arrived on the Saturday, quite a few people had started the party on Friday night and were already completely covered in glitter...

The Turner Brothers were playing to close the festival on Sunday afternoon, so there was plenty of time for testing out the rum and dancing to the great selection of music. I was especially excited about seeing Craig Charles (Lister from Red Dwarf!) do a funk and soul set, which was incredible, he played Heard It Through The Grapevine and the whole yurt was absolutely loving it, climbing up shoulders into the rafters and crowd surfing...

After a night partying under the stars, followed by being squashed around a campfire (thanks to the photobooth guy for letting me eat his last Tracker bar - if anyone knows who the photobooth van thing was provided by, please let me know in the comments) Sunday dawned with the most perfect weather for sinking as much rum and eating as much great food as possible! We started the day off with crispy bacon and herby mayo rolls with brandy coffees...

Still going to #bringbackcosmic by wearing cosmic clothes and saying cosmic a lot!

And then played ping-pong, danced, ran about wearing a goat mask, watched an impromptu brass band procession and generally just rolled around in a field, drowning in rum and sunshine...

Beating Patrick Turner from The Turner Brothers at ping pong

Would love to give these guys a shout out if anyone managed to catch their name...

... then they realised, ten minutes before The Turner Brothers set, that the equipment the band needed to perform live wasn't there and the guys were not going to be able to perform. The festival organizers were extremely apologetic but said that the equipment had already left.

It would have been a fantastic way to close their brilliant little festival, but we all drank some more rum and ate some lime & chilli corn and it didn't seem so bad after all :)

Getting the organiser guys wearing band shirts!

What a brill weekend, I hope TTB get invited to play next year at Rumbellion (and that there is ever-so-slightly MORE glitter). Thanks for having us to Beth, Gaz, Phil, Alex, Jamie...and whoever else was involved in putting on such an amazing little oasis of music, glitter and love...

I'm off to detox now!

If you want to catch The Turner Brothers performing this summer, a list of their gigs is available on their webpage here. The next one is Rhythms Of The World festival in Hitchin, 20th June. See you there?

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