Costume for an Inaugural Ball

Look at history through the lens of fashion, creating original costumes for inaugural balls throughout history.

• 1.

  Learn about fashion trends throughout history by exploring electronic and library resources. Use Crayola® Colored Pencils to sketch ideas for inaugural ball costumes for different time periods.

• 2.

  Design fancy fabric on velour paper using Crayola Oil Pastels. Choose imaginative colors, lines, shapes. Try using dots, squiggly lines, angular lines, concentric circles, and hatching or cross-hatching.

• 3.

  With Crayola Scissors cut out inaugural ball costume shapes, such as pants, dresses, shirts, and hats, from the velour paper. Glue these on a large sheet of colored construction paper with Crayola Washable Glue Sticks.

• 4.

  Use oil pastels to draw faces, arms, legs, and accessories. Fill in the background with the broad side of the pastel. Overlay colors to create new colors. Blend colors gently with fingers. Use paper towels to clean fingers and pastels as needed.

Benefits

• Students research fashions past and present.
• Students design period costumes for inaugural balls, using color, patterns, shapes and researched information.

Adaptations

• Build this activity into a unit about a country's leaders, the election process, and national celebrations. Find out about balls that are held on Inauguration Day. Play music that might be heard at an inaugural parade or ball.
• For students with disabilities that make it difficult to draw or cut, offer a computer design program.
• Use the remainder of the velour pieces to make additional fashion designs, or to make patterns, such as a mosaic.
• Expand these concepts into studies of apparel worn in several cultures and eras. Talk about natural resources (silk worms), technology (weaving), and other factors that influence design.