The country is not returning to 1977 and its home-made fancy-dress costumes or Coronation bunting dug out of attics.

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The husband of actress Kate Winslet has successfully blocked the Sun newspaper from publishing a set of "embarrassing" photos of him at a fancy-dress party.

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When in 1883 Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt, arrayed for a fancy-dress ball as Electric Light, topped off her satin and diamonds with a large incandescent bulb, it subtracted nothing from the elegance of the scheme.

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All the people I talk to perched on their tractors, waving their banners - done out in fancy dress that makes one point or another - are looking to their governments for solutions.

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But in Olympic-themed fancy dress outfits they waved to the crowd and collected donations as they walked the route.

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Mr White, who was sitting in the public gallery during the evidence, had earlier told the jury he and Ms Manning had gone separate ways after attending a 1970s-themed fancy dress party and a night club in Milton Keynes.

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Designed by fashion icon Betsey Johnson, the pink paradise is complete with pink-and-white striped wallpaper, a table set for a fancy tea party and a closet stuffed with dress-up clothes.

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Some 40, 000 spectators clad in fancy dress will pack out the Hong Kong Stadium for the three-day annual event, held 23 to 25 March this year.

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This long involved young men trying to catch the eye of women, typically by donning fancy dress (in the cold war a favourite was the garb of Soviet border guards) or through good-natured abduction often in combination.

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