One of the most popular themes for parties is fancy dress. This is true for everything from children's parties to the kind of parties which go on behind locked doors late at night. Of course different types of fancy dress party require different types of fancy dress. For example, while a suitable theme for an adult fancy dress party may be 'porno doctors and nurses', this would be far from suitable for children (for whom cowboys and Native Americans may be more suited).

The difference between adult fancy dress and children's fancy dress is often to do with the suggestive undertones of adult fancy dress. This is because our idea of escapism changes as we grow older. While children may dream of being princesses or racing drivers, our ambitions are usually so well squashed by adulthood that the cheap thrills offered by seeing friends or workmates in suggestive dress is about as wild as our escapism gets. That is not to say that all adult fancy dress has suggestive undertones - a bright, red afro wig, for example, may appeal to 1980s footballer fetishists (if such a thing exists) but would generally just look silly. In fact, most party wigs are fairly ridiculous contraptions, usually based on fashion fauxs pas from decades gone by. Particularly popular are the aforementioned afro wigs alongside quiffs, mullet wigs and wig/hat combinations (which often means a baseball cap with attached ponytail).

No, adult fancy dress can be anything you want it to be. If you are having a fancy dress party, be sure to pick a theme appropriate to the people you are inviting. For example, while throwing a fox and hound party may be appropriate if you are inviting moneyed, hunting types, chances are it would not go down so well with a group of animal rights activists (who have a well-stated dislike for fox hunting). One popular theme since the very dawn of fancy dress has been the masked ball. There is a baffling array of fancy dress masks on the market today. The creation of latex has made it easier to create masks of characters from movies, famous faces and animal masks than ever before. Modern masks are a long way from the original masks worn by Venetian high society; it is hard to imagine Shakespeare's Iago wearing an Osama Bin Laden mask, for example. This said, who could have foreseen Prince Harry's Nazi fancy dress stunt?

A more suitable choice for a child's fancy dress party may be face painting, which is always popular. It is difficult to beat such a simple activity and children have always taken great pleasure from being made to look like animals. Again, being made to look like animals is something that may happen at those late night adult parties, but that is another matter entirely.