page_title: Costume
section_title: Religious festivals
hierarchical_section_title: Costume / Religious festivals
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Fashioned or European-Style Santa Suit, http://www.costumers.com Watermark (painstakingly&#160;:-) ) removed by Ali&#39;i on 15:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC) {}
context_page_description: Costume is the distinctive style of dress of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch.
  The term also was traditionally used to describe typical appropriate clothing for certain activities, such as riding costume, swimming costume, dance costume, and evening costume. Appropriate and acceptable costume is subject to changes in fashion and local cultural norms.
  "But sable is worn more in carriages, lined with real lace over ivory satin, and worn over some smart costume suitable for an afternoon reception." A Woman's Letter from London.
  This general usage has gradually been replaced by the terms "dress", "attire", "robes" or "wear" and usage of "costume" has become more limited to unusual or out-of-date clothing and to attire intended to evoke a change in identity, such as theatrical, Halloween, and mascot costumes.
  Before the advent of ready-to-wear apparel, clothing was made by hand. When made for commercial sale it was made, as late as the beginning of the 20th century, by "costumiers", often women who ran businesses that met the demand for complicated or intimate female costume, including millinery and corsetry.
context_section_description: The wearing of costumes is an important part of holidays developed from religious festivals such as Mardi Gras (in the lead up to Easter), and Halloween (related to All Hallow's Eve). Mardi Gras costumes usually take the form of jesters and other fantasy characters; Halloween costumes traditionally take the form of supernatural creatures such as ghosts, vampires, pop-culture icons and angels. In modern times. Christmas costumes typically portray characters such as Santa Claus (developed from Saint Nicholas). In Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States the American version of a Santa suit and beard is popular; in the Netherlands, the costume of Zwarte Piet is customary. Easter costumes are associated with the Easter Bunny or other animal costumes.
  In Judaism, a common practice is to dress up on Purim. During this holiday, Jews celebrate the change of their destiny. They were delivered from being the victims of an evil decree against them and were instead allowed by the King to destroy their enemies. A quote from the Book of Esther, which says: "On the contrary" (Hebrew: ונהפוך הוא‎) is the reason that wearing a costume has become customary for this holiday.
  Buddhist religious festivals in Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia and Lhasa and Sikkim in India perform the Cham dance, which is a popular dance form utilising masks and costumes.
caption: A traditional, European-style Santa suit
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