School Resources

We have a vast array of clothing and costume in children's sizes -from pre-schoolers to teenagers! We can cater for many a popular musical or school play, and when we’re not busy with Christmas and End-of-Year shows, there’s always the Shakespeare in Schools Festival and the Let’s Dance Schools’ Celebration to keep us on our toes. Find out more about our costume collection...

Complementing this, our aim at Gladrags is to provide costume and artefacts as an affordable and enhancing learning tool, pertinent to school subjects, activities, and key learning objectives. Worn by both teachers and pupils our costumes have enriched many a classroom topic, project, presentation or open day.

Go to Shared Ideas to find out how other teachers have used our resources and Educational Workshops to see what we can offer further.

We offer historical costume, vintage garments and authentic cultural clothing to suit most eras and countries, plus plenty more from animals to aliens, princesses to clowns. Perfect for a Stunning Start, we can kit out a range of key historical figures, from Cleopatra and Florence Nightingale to Henry VIII and Nelson Mandella ... and The Bard goes without saying! 

Schools benefit from our subsidised rates, £3 an outfit for members, £6 for non-members – see Costume Hire Prices for further details.

Download our Primary School posters for your staffroom:

Schools Members promo poster
Schools New promo poster

When World Book Day comes around, click here for a comprehensive list of all the character costumes we offer!

                                                                                See our Costume Resource Box Brochure.

Used imaginatively, our Resource Boxes offer a fresh and interactive approach to cross-curricula learning at KS1 / KS2 / KS3 levels.
Popular requests from schools include:

ERAS: Early Britons, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Tudors, Victorians, Edwardians, Evacuees,
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS: Henry 8th, Florence Nightingale, Ernest Shackleton,
CONTINENTS AND COUNTRIES: Africa, India, Asia, Europe, Americas and individual countries, as well as 'Around the wold in 80 days'
HISTORICAL THEMES: Victorian children's chores, Suffragettes, Titanic, Evacuees, WW1 and WW2
OTHER THEMES: Circus, Fairytales, Superheroes, Space to name but a few!
We can curate further topics according to your needs so do just ask.

Our Resource Boxes

• Contain clothing, accessories and artefacts tailored to your specific project.
• Inspire discussion, enquiry and creative learning and writing.
• Complement role-play, hot-seating, freeze-framing, character work.
• Contribute to increased understanding of a topic, text or subject matter.
• Invite exploration of social and historical contexts of era, country or culture.

Resource Boxes are also priced keenly from £5 for members £8 for non-members. See Resource Box Prices.

We do appreciate how very busy you are, and as well as selecting costumes yourselves, you can simply order boxes for collection; give us your wish-list and where we can we’ll get it all together for you!

It is worth considering membership if you are likely to hire more than 25 costumes in the course of a year, as the hire will be even more cost effective. Membership is open to not-for-profit organisations, and schools and colleges as a means of receiving further benefits, which are:

• 40 -50% discount on costume hire and topic boxes (see Prices)
• 20% discount on educational workshops
• free use of sewing and costume-making equipment
• free use of library service, including loan of books
• priority relating to use of costume storage service
• any new services on offer
  
  

Members are consulted on our resources and service provision to help us make improvements, and invited to volunteer time and expertise to Gladrags as a way of contribututing to the organisation. There are no formal voting or related rights attached to membership.