World book day- do you do ‘proper’ costumes?

[rapunzelsreptile]

DD wants to be Matilda for world book day. Our school hasn’t properly done it before but is this year (it’s been not mentioned/less than half of the children have done it before). Dd has a few blue dresses she could wear but for people that have done world book day before, have you bought proper costumes? I hate waste and buying something for one/two uses but I don’t want her to be the only one who’s just in a normal dress if everyone else will be in proper costumes, but I don’t know if that’s the case?

Blue dress, red Alice band and a book bag. That's what I had planned when DD wanted to go as Matilda. Very glad I didn't buy anything specific because she changed her mind a few days before and went as something else in the end 🙃

She won't be the only one in her own clothes. In most of the schools I've worked in it's generally not much different to any other own clothes day.

Never bought a costume and never really made a huge effort either
Examples of costumes we did were
PJs - sophie from the BFG

Fancy dress , fur jacket, fancy shoes etc and a sign saying ‘I want a pony’ - Veruca Salt

Hair slicked back, red and white t shirt- chocolate smeared on face and cushion stuffed up t shirt and chocolate wrappers stuck to t shirt - Augustus Gloop

Tutu, lots of jewellery , hair stuff , handbags etc - Fancy Nancy

We kind of dialled it in!!

We mostly bought costumes as it was easier, but we did use the kids own clothes a couple of times.

At their school, I’d say the majority wore a bought costume but there were always a few in their own clothes/home made costumes in each class.

Matilda is one that I wouldn’t have bought an actual costume for.

I worked in a junior school for years, over the years the costumes changed from mostly home-invented ones to mostly bought costumes or football shirts. Partly because more parents work these days, partly because shops have seen the market, but it seems a pity. The judges at our school always preferred the home-made ones.
This was DS and a friend, 32 years ago, as Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig for a movie/TV themed fancy dress competition at the Summer Fair. DS’s costume was made from stuff we already had, borrowed from friends or bought in charity shops, and cost a lot less than a bought costume, but at the time I was time-rich and money poor, and I doubt I could have done it if I had been working full-time

A costume doesnt have to be bought to be proper - in fact i would think more of a home-curated costume.

I think the only costume I bought for WBD was a Harry Potter cloak. Most years they went as something that we could make from normal clothes (although I did sometimes buy some new bits, they still weren't 'costumes'). I also insisted that it had to be an actual book character, from a book they had read, rather than a film character that might appear in a book iyswim. Over the years we did the witch from Room on the Broom, a Roald Dahl witch, Sophie from the BFG, the main character from Ratburger (can't remember the name), a member of the Midnight Gang (David Walliams), plus Hermione Granger and Luna Lovegood a couple of times each!

Some kids will make a real effort others will not. Don’t buy anything specifically for the day.
Send them in pyjamas as Sophie from BFG or Wendy/John/Michael from Peter Pan.
Let her go as Matilda in a blue dress.

Some will be in shop-bought stuff, some in home-made and some in normal clothes.

Shop bought doesn't make it "proper". Quite the opposite in my opinion.

We've done a mixture. I spent ages sewing green sequins onto a green jumper one year for DS to be one of the creatures from Beast Quest. DD likes to go as real life people from her collection of Little People, Big Dreams and other history books so one year she had a Tudor princess costume from Amazon and another year just wore her own ballet kit.