Fancy dress company has a Somali Pirate costume, advertised with a model in “blackface” make-up

While Simply Fancy Dress in Berkshire pride themselves on their outfits, another thing they pride themselves in, it seems, is shock value.

And hey, generally speaking, we have nothing against that.

But shock on one level, for the purposes of satire or bringing something to light is one thing – there is even a blog on their site detailing the most shocking costumes they’ve seen on the Internet clearly marked as “not for the easily offended…”

But visitors to the site don’t really need to look far for offense.

Aside from the typical national stereotype costumes for sale (look just above), there is an incredibly inappropriate Somali Pirate costume which could easily be construed as, well, a bit racist.

More than a bit, in fact blacking up has often been the subject of argument: David Cameron posed with rural Morris dancers wearing black make-up on their faces last year leading to a lot of comment.

The argument about that use of “blackface” in Morris dancing centres around the idea that those traditions are so old that meh, how could they be racist? Rural folk back then didn’t even know about different races, they thought the devil had a black face. And it’s all about hiding identity. And stuff.

Which makes everything okay?
Well, maybe not. Whatever side of that particular thorny contextual argument you are on, you still can’t escape from the fact that time has passed and things need reconsidering. Tradition, after all, does not exist in a vaccuum.

But it’s true, it is a bit different to someone putting on makeup deliberately pretending to be a different race. Whatever David Walliams and Matt Lucas may try and tell you, we aren’t still living in the 1970s. We know this, we had a look at the calendar and checked.

So this costume then. This is a white model, wearing a jokey costume (including optional hilarious inflatable machine gun and bullets) with brown make-up on his face. Which is not okay. Really.

Why not just get BAME models Simply Fancy Dress? Is there really a demand for racist fancy dress costumes? Do these costumes really sell well in this day and age?

The accessories on offer clearly show dark brown make-up as a recommended addition to your purchase.

Well, we asked them, reaching out to the company to provide comment and they haven’t got back to us.