 We caught up with Jamie Double, strongman extraordinaire ahead of his performance in this weekend's show!
What is your main performance inspiration? My main inspiration has always been to discover what I can do with my body. I now like to play on audience expectations and stereotypes too. What do you love most about burlesque and cabaret? The freedom one has to create whatever they feel they want to What has been your most memorable performance so far? Performing a cigar box act while wearing a dog collar being held by an evil queen (for a children’s show) Can you give us a retro or burlesque style tip? Grow a moustache. Catch Jamie at our show this weekend!
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 If you're a sci-fi fan, we're sure you've tried alien and robot looks before. It's an ideal theme for bright colours, can be cute or scary, and can be as simple or as complex as you like! Here's a few of our favourite futuristic facepaints to inspire you - with alien and cyborg looks from straightforward facepaint to full on prosthetics!
 Everyone loves an animal costume - animal style costumes have been a staple of our Wonderland parties for a long time! But we wanted to show you some different ideas to the traditional white rabbit costumes - so peacock, zebra, dog or lion, these face paint ideas are here to get you inspired to try something new!
If you're ready to release your ultimate animal costume, then come to our next event and show us what you've got!
 Candy is one of the most colourful themes you can have. It's all about shiny and sweet costume ideas that make you think of lollipops, bubblegum cupcakes and more. From pastel goth headresses, to raver candy wear, to Katy Perry's infamous cupcake bra - candy and cakes have been a major inspiration for many costumes. Here's some of our favourite looks, and how to get them! Key concepts for the looks are:
We hope this inspired you to take the candy dress up challenge and nail the candy look!
See you at our upcoming shows! The history around stripes in clothing has a long and winding past. When we think about stripes with our modern mind we tend to romanticise them with images of whimsical circus performers, or mysterious French mimes. However, stripes started out with a much darker past and were originally regarded as shameful, degrading and diabolical.  The first known documentations of stripes in clothing dates back to medieval times where anyone who wore stripes were considered outcasts and associated with disorder and difference. These people tended to be circus performers, prostitutes, non-Christians and disloyal knights. People in the medieval ages found any surface in which they could not distinguish the foreground from the background disturbing. Stripes were associated with the devil and wearing them could actually get you killed as documented in 1310 when a French clergyman was condemned to DEATH for wearing them. No one really knows where the condemnation of wearing stripes originates but there are several theories regarding the origins. The first being a free interpretation of a quote from the Bible: “You will not wear upon yourself a garment made of two different kinds of textiles.” -Leviticus 19:19  The second theory is that wearing stripes conceals the silhouette acting like a type of camouflage. In the middle ages, zoologists even thought that Zebras were evil because of their black and white stripes, despite never actually seeing them. One could also argue that the contrast between the light and dark colours could reflect good and evil, but that is open to interpretation. During the 18th century stripes started to develop a good name for themselves. During the American revolution wearing stripes became a political at that showed you adhered to enlightened thinking. This also carried across to the France and the rest of Europe during the French revolution.  Fast forward to 19th century America, and stripes started to become a sign of outcasts again with the famous prisoners black and white striped uniform symbolising jail bars and making them easy to distinguish. Most jails ended up abolishing the stripe uniforms as stripes were seen as a “Badge of Disgrace”. The last known state to abolish the striped prisons uniform was North Carolina in 1958. In 1917 Coco Chanel introduced stripes into her fashion line making the striped top a staple for people of all social standing, ages, and gender.  Today as normal as it is to wear stripes, we still associate them with the mysterious, strange, and curious and often these are re-affirmed in our minds by television and films where the odd characters ae usually dressed in stripes.  Whether it’s the light or the dark side of stripes, they have either enlightening or horrible history around them.
 With our upcoming Shadow Circus event, you can pretty much guarantee that scary clowns are going to be a thing. So here are some ideas, from quick and simple, through to layers of latex, to get you inspired! Beginner level - simple clown facepaints
Intermediate level - more tricky facepainting and latex use!
Advanced level - incredibly terrifying clown looks!
Hope this has inspired you!
Want to join us for our next event? Go to our homepage now! Imagine someone handed you the keys to a massive mansion for a day - what would be the first thing you would do? I immediately got on the phone to Black Cravat Photography and told them "Get down here - we've got a f**king mansion to shoot in!" Oozing elegance and sexuality - Stephen Harpa - Mr. Pole Fitness UK Nominee Before long I'd assembled a dream team of some of our facourite acts. Some of whom will feature in our forthcoming Halloween Shadow Circus spectaculars!  Dixie Dread in the master bedroom... enter if you dare  Ethereal Lexacution in the drawing room  Beautiful Burlesque Ruby Truelove in the Grand Ballroom  Drinking shots at the bar with Laurie Black It was an amazing day of shooting at the incredible and opulent Stanmer House (Proud Cabaret Country House) and I am thrilled to share the results with you! It was an incredible day - and this is just a tiny glimpse of how amazing this venue is going to look once we give it the full Neon Moon treatment! Come and see it for yourself - book tickets now at www.theneonmoonclub.com Photography and Film: Black Cravat Photography, Dominikas Photography - Edited by Catherine Watling www.catherinewatling.com - A Neon Moon Production 2018. Shot on Location at the Proud Cabaret Country House - Stanmer House Brighton.
Please welcome the newest member of the Filles de la Lune, Miss Black Reign! The gorgeous pin-up kick-line, put together by Neon Moon's Ruby Truelove, are so excited to be welcoming the wonderful face of 'Dollhouse Photography' to debut at The Neon Moon Wild West Spring Ball on April 21st... DO NOT MISS IT!   Filles de La Lune - Luna at the Cambridge Union Society (Venue of the Wild West Spring Ball) by Black Cravat Photography  Filles de La Lune - After Dark by Black Cravat Photography
We've had a few people asking about our Wild West theme - the reason why we love it is it offers a great chance to do the classic burlesque or vintage costumes that we all love - OR you can go down the whole the "cowboy" look and be still be on theme. Here we're going to give a few ideas for outfits for all you lovers of costume! The Saloon girl costumeA quick historical point - the "Wild West" era was 1865 - 1895 - so the better off saloon girls would in some of the more areas would have been dressed in some pretty fancy wear. If you need to get an idea of the sort of thing, just think of the moulin rouge costumes. Here are a couple of videos showcasing a few different costume ideas!
Of course, not every saloon girl would be dressed as flamboyantly as this - but here are you basic principles:
 Saloon girls costumes photo from - www.flickr.com/micadew Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to get started! The cowboy or cowgirl style costumeSo first off - SURPRISE! Cross dressing was actually a thing in the Wild West! Bet you didn't guess that! But don't take it from us, trust historian Peter Hoag: "what I was unprepared for when I started uncovering all these female to male cross dressers, I also started to uncover hundreds of stories of men who dressed as women." So if you've scrolled down here because you're a chap - but you'd rather be a saloon girl - go for it! You'd be totally on brand in doing so! Now down to the looks - let's start with the basic and work our way up from there. Check out the photo and videos below:  vintage cowboys photo credit: www.flickr.com/robinshall
Let's break this down a bit as to what you can choose from:
And as if all that wasn't enough, you've still got the option to go as a well-to-do gent in your top hat and finery! What more could you ask for? Hopefully this has sparked off a few ideas for you. If you're still stuck, we recommend scouting through a few westerns for more ideas, ask your local fancy dress shop for advice, or check out our Pinterest page for more ideas! Not got your Wild West Ball tickets? In the latest made up burlesque concept, performers are completely reversing their classic strip routines, putting on their clothes rather than taking them off - reverseque is the new trend sweeping the industry Burlesque performers are always pushing the boundaries of their acts to new levels - now they are defying audience expectations by completely reversing their acts - by starting with a reveal and ending fully clothed.
So how on earth could something like this work - in an art form where the tease is such a key part of it? Well that's what makes it such a challenge - we caught up with April O'Foole, a starlet who's fully embraced the Reversesque philosophy in her acts: "I just love the challenge - walking backwards onto the stage in high heels is one of the toughest things you can do - the hardest bit of the costume is probably the corset though!" But this is just the tip of the iceberg - performers are now using magic style trickery to reverse their confetti showers and even champagne pours Jojo Kerr told us a little bit more about it: "To reverse a confetti pour takes and incredibly intricate setup - every piece of confetti needs to be sewn up with a piece of delicate fishing wire - and it has to be laid out perfectly to get the effect of going off the floor, into the air and back it into your hand without a hitch!" With performers everywhere getting inspired to put on the clothes, we could be entering a new era of burlesque and variety acts, where everything is done in reverse - imagine jugglers starting their routines with 8 balls and ending with three - perhaps contortionists coming out as a pretzel and turning into a normal human being - or maybe even performers starting out by hoovering champagne off their bodies into a bottle! Either way we are made up to see what the future brings from the industry, as they continue to push the boundaries of possibility and illusion with this new trend! |
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