GET INTO COSTUME
It's 1836, you have made it home to Falmouth in Cornwall. Conjure up some of the people that you encountered on your round the world tour or who may be awaiting your return on the quay... pirates, sailors, coconut-wielding natives... Use newspapers to design their costumes.
What you need:
- Plenty of old newspapers
- Masking tape
- Stapler
- Scissors
- Someone to model the costume!
What to do:
Divide into teams and let the imagination run riot! Newspaper is a very versatile material:
- ..to make it strong, roll tightly (good for spear making, knives, hat brims or the 'stays' for dresses!)
- ..to change its shape - curl strips around a pencil (good for curly hair, ribbons, wigs); pleat it (for those wide sleeves) ; fringe it (for feathers, grass skirts!); fold it (for collars, belts); scrunch it (for padding), cut into strips and weave with it (for plaits and bracelets)
- secure with masking tape and/or staples
Suggested rules (may be modified by general agreement!):
- Time limit 30 minutes
- Only the materials supplied may be used
- Teams of three, the smallest person models the costume
- Winning costume decided by general vote (but no team can vote for itself) taking into account: how relevant the costume is to Darwin's sea voyage and this time in history; how well the costume has been designed and executed.
Remember:
- To recycle your newspaper! (using masking tape is slightly better in this respect than sellotape.)
What was the fashion in the 1830's?
- The fashionable lady may have worn a narrow-waisted dress (tightly laced!), full skirt, padded shoulders, large puffy sleeves, large wide hat ornately trimmed with feathers, bows, ribbons, hair elaborately dressed with ringlets, curls, loops.
- The fashionable gentleman may have been sporting a tall hat, shirt with standing collar, cravat, waistcoat, frock coat, overcoat or evening cloak, curled hair and sideburns.
- Naval officers - might have stood to attention in a bicorn hat, epaulettes, frock coat
- And the people that Darwin encountered on his travels.... take your pick from Cape Verde native girls with shawls and turbans; South American Gauchos (cowboys) with long moustaches, long curling hair, knives stuck as daggers at their waist; South American Indian ladies with plaits, broad bead bracelets; native Fuegians whose men folk wore very little apart from a 'mantle' over their shoulders and a 'fillet of feathers' around their heads; Chilean miners with broad trousers, long shirts and leather aprons all fastened with a broad sash around the waist; Tahitian ladies with crowns of coconut leaves to shade their eyes ...
- Darwin's travel journal 'The Voyage of the Beagle' makes, even today, a really exciting read! He describes his day to day adventures, encounters with natives, journeys into thick forest and up treacherous river gorges, amazing plant and animal life, storms and high seas ...