Everyone loves to dress up, most of all children and at Halloween. However, costumes weren’t invented just for Halloween, even though it may seem that most fancy dress costumes these days are for Halloween costumes. Costumes have existed within our society and culture for many hundreds of years and can be dated back to medieval times. Some of the first costumes were worn by court jesters, who would dress in brightly coloured costumes, similar to clown costumes of today, in order to entertain royalty. Court jesters were considered very important in medieval times because there were the only people allowed to make fun of the kings and queens of the time. Should anyone else have done that, an execution would have been fast coming. Costumes have also been used by the aristocracy for events such as masked balls, where guests would hide behind masks to shield their identity, and often their inhibitions. Stretching back thousands of years, costumes were worn by actors on stage in Greek tragedies and comedies. The actors (all male, because women weren’t allowed to perform) would wear elaborate masks to portray the emotions of their characters. The use of masks meant that the actors had to over compensate with their voices and hand gestures because they couldn’t use facial expressions in their performances. These days of course we mostly commonly dress up in Halloween costumes for trick or treating, or Halloween parties.
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