Attic Fancy Dress

It comes as no surprise to me that that Gaga lady spent 3 hours in Afflecks last week. Weird yet indelibly wonderful is an apt description for it. Having said that, I must make a more pronounced effort to frequent this magnificent Manchester location more often. Yes, it can be a bit daunting at first, a maze of weird and wonderful stalls and shop fronts. But its worth getting lost here every once in a while, why? Because you’ll find private vendors here who have a genuine passion for their respective products and services and the corporate whore in them has yet to emerge. It’s refreshing.
My first ever visit to Attic was unfortunately without a license to roam. I was missing a single item for my Halloween dressage and was told Attic had it in stock, thus this was a last minute dash and grab job. The meandering nature of the shop floor plans didn’t help much but the fact that it wasn’t rammed like most other shops before 5pm was a huge bonus. First thing of note, the customer service was incredible! Out of breath having run to the top floor headless chickenly looking for the joint armed with a sweaty quizzical facial expression I was kindly approached almost immediately and offered help. A mere five minutes later I was a sent packing a calm and happy customer back running down the stairs headless chickenly once more. What great service eh?
Now five minutes equates to an hour in Inception time (See Nolan’s brilliant 2010 scifi flick Inception) so thinking Inceptionly, I discovered that this place caters for pretty much ALL your fancy dress needs. Whether you have a Lord of the Rings fetish, or you’re a self confessed Star Trek geek there’s something here for everyone. They also have fabrics and other random tools and tricks of the trade perfect for creating your very own costumes (If buying the readymade ones isn’t your cup of tea)
Ultimately venturing into Attic is journeying into another world of sorts, which is both scary and exciting. The former because a longer than necessary amount of time spent here prompts the thought «hmmm I wish it was fancy dress all the time.» It really is a literal form of escapism manifesting itself into a physicality. Which as it turned out this Halloween, is heaps of fun!
I for one will definitely be returning and discovering more about this place as research for my next film project. The place is a production costume design gold mine. For the rest of us, it definitely is a one stop shop for all your fancy dress needs.

I don’t tend to visit fancy dress shops much, for the simple reason that it’s much more fun and much cheaper to sort costumes out by yourself. Having said that, unless you happen to be an avatar of the needle and thread, there will be occasions where simply throwing together what you found lurking in the depths of Oxfam’s finest will not be enough. Also, unless you can fashion things like devil’s horns, necklaces of bones, and 15^th century firearms from household materials, you’re going to need the helping hand of Attic.
They seem to cater for absolutely any eventuality under the sun. The idea being, I suppose, that’s it’s better to have an answer for a request, no matter how obscure and unlikely, than to turn someone down. That way, when a young gentleman asks, «I want to look like Alice Cooper», you can say, «Yes, sir, would you like the wig? And you will, of course, need the face paint. The ball-​crampingly tight leather pants are right over here, the bomber jackets there, and the riding crops to your left».
And he will look AWESOME.

This place absolutely saved the day for me on Halloween the other week when I was completly and utterly stuck!
Thank god for the chavs being afraid of Afflecks, it meant I avoided the TWO HOUR queue for the two shops in the Arndale centre and managed to get myself everything I needed in about 20 minutes!
This place is an absolute haven for all things dress-​up, from the outrageous mascot outfits to hire to the down right raunchy outfits that are just not to be worn in public, this place has it all.
The owners are clearly experienced and despite the fact there were far too many people in the shop when I was there, tons of extra staff were working which meant no queue for tills if you were paying cash, you just found someone wandering around with a bumbag and paid them!
Fantastic service and it was much cheaper than anywhere else I’d been to, will definitely come here next time I need to dress up… might not leave it until the last day next time though!

Found on the 3^rd floor of indie hangout Afflecks Palace, Attic stocks Manchester’s biggest selection of fancy dress costumes, theme costumes, theatrical make-​up, gothic clothing, retro clothing, Halloween costumes, Christmas costumes, latex masks, medieval costumes, Edwardian costumes, 20s, 40, 50s, 60, 70s, 80s costumes, cartoon characters, superheroes, pimps, gangsters, cowboys, Indians and pirates, Romans, Grease, the Village People, Rocky Horror, Sound of Music, Wizard of Oz, Black Adder and well… you get my point.

Huge huge selection of fancy dress here. I challenge you to find any costume/​character that is not in this attic shop– truly amazing!
Going into this shop made me wish my friends were not becoming convinced they are older and mature now-​opting for a dinner party of a fancy dress occasion.
I will fight on and pursue a night as a Smurf soon. all with this shops help :)

The lady who runs this fancy dress place is so nice! They have such an excellent range of stuff, not just actual costumes but everything you would need to make a costume perfect, or even enough accessories to not need a full costume! From face paints to fishnets, noses to knee high boots, packaged outfits that you can keep, sombreros to santa hats. Pretty much anything you need, if you ask for it, one of the guys will try their hardest to find it for you.