The history of costume

Most people enjoy dressing up in costumes, especially children. Although of course children can get away with dressing up in costumes pretty much anytime, whereas adults have to wait for occasions such as Halloween or fancy dress parties. It didn't used to be like this though, as many years ago adults wore fancy dress other than Halloween costumes fairly regularly.

Costumes have been worn for thousands of years, from Jesters in the Middle Ages to the ancient Greeks, for a variety of different reasons. One of the most common reasons for dressing up in fancy dress costumes was for the theatre, which the ancient Greeks would do regularly. Much like Shakespeare in the Middle Ages, men would dress up as women for theatre performances because women weren't allowed to work as actors at the time.

When the ancient Greeks dressed up in costume they always wore masks with their costumes to portray the emotions of their characters. Depending on whether they were in a comedy or a tragedy, the masks would either have happy or unhappy faces, hence the popular image of two masks side by side to denote the theatre.

Using masks meant that the actors couldn't rely on their facial expressions to act, so had to use exaggerated gestures and spectacular costumes while on stage.

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