If yer going to spend yar hard earned doubloons, it best bet be on a high quality pirate or wench outfit.  There be two way to think about about costuming.  

1) Buy a different cheap costume every year 

2) Buy a great outfit that you can improve or change each year.

The average cost of a halloween costume be $96 for men n' $77 fer women, which can get costly over time.  Ye could buy a new costume each year, funneling money into a flimsy costume that will last ye a single night, or make an investment in an amazing outfit that ye be proud to wear n' will last ye years to come.

If yer going to spend $770-$960 on costumes over a ten year span, why not put that money towards a timeless outfit worth wearing again n' again?

Cheap Costume: You don't feel comfortable wearing it, it may fall apart before the night is done, it may not fit right, many other people can be wearing the same costume. 

Quality Outfit: A high quality costume will stand out from the crowd of cheap outfits. More people will ask for a photo.  You will feel like a movie star for a night.  Be part of the cool crowd.  You'll begin building a character that will grow with each year you wear it.

Popularity of Costuming:Costumes n' costumed celebrations have been a part of cultures all across the world throughout history.  Halloween, the most widespread costume holiday, hails from a Celtic Gaelic harvest festival with roots in Scotland, Ireland n' Wales.  Halloweens popularity has spread rapidly over the years, n' has become more popular in countries like Russia, Japan, Canada, Australia, Dubai, Saint Helena, n' most of Europe.  These celebrations aren't just fer kids either; the number of adults that participate in Halloween has grown from a little more than half in 2003 to over 70% in 2018.
Many countries have either adopted halloween or have their own cultural equivalent; this can be seen in countries n' regions like Mexico, Latin America, n' Spain, where people celebrate their loved ones during Dia de Los Muertos n' often have costumed celebrations.  

Outside of holidays, costumes have become a major draw to conventions.  Over the past 10 years cosplay has entered the spotlight as comic, anime, n' sci-fi conversions have grown from an underground niche to mainstream event.  

Why Pirates: In the past 10 years there have only been two costumes that has been consistently relevant enough to be listed within the top ten popular halloween costumes- Pirates n' Witches.  In addition to pirates 10 year reign as some of the most popular costumes, wenches made the listing fer 7 of the 10 years.

Part of what makes a pirate costume such a worthwhile investment is the sheer amount events ye can wear it to- its one costume that ye can wear more than once a year.  There be pirate festivals, Talk Like a Pirate Day celebrations, tall ship festivals, costume parties, Disney Cruises, Pirate Weekend at Renaissance Fairs, n' plenty of games fer sport teams who use pirates n' buccaneers as their mascot.

Pirates have a long history n' spanned across every country that touches the ocean, which allows for all sorts of different periods n' styles of garb.  This versatility allows for pirate costumes to be easily altered fer other events as well; with a little modification a classic pirate outfit could be styled as a colonial for 4th of July or Revolutionary War events.

Show Pirate Fashionsyar Pirate Loot n' Swag! We love to see Arrr wares on ye rogues n' vagrants when ye go ashore! Email us photos inyar pirate garb n' just let us know where ye were adventurin' n' what ye be wearin'.

Ye may also be featured in Arrr Newsletters to the Pirate Fashions Brotherhood across the seas! We've had pirates carry Arrr Swag from the Ybor City Pub Crawl to Live Theater Shows for Treasure Island or Pirate Festivals! 

Keep a weathered eyefer Arrr piratical exploits as well! We've had Arrr products n' designs appear on the Starz Show- Black Sails, AMC's Turn, Salem n' Blackbeard's Outfitfer Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. Additionally,arrr products have appeared in museums n' pirate venuesfer entertainment!   

Early this year in the old town of Alexandria, when clearing the site fer a new hotel, they discovered a 250 year old sailing ship.  It would be a revolutionary War era ship, but we don't know if be a American Privateer Ship or a British Merchant or Navy Man of War, yet. 200 the city decided to develop this waterfront property themselves and backfilled the Potomac River to make way for more commercial waterfront.

People have been in search of 17th century Scottish pirate William Kidd's hidden treasure fer hundreds of years with no success until now. In May 2015, a 50kg (110 pound) silver bar be brought a shore of the island of Sainte Marie, from what be though to be the wreck of the Adventure Galley. The U.S. explorer Barry Clifford believes there be many more bars still in the wreck. which he has been working on since 1999. Mr Clifford be best know fer discovering Pirate Captain Black Sam Bellamy's Whydah Gally off Cape Cod. 

William Kidd was a privateer executed fer piracy in 1701 after a voyage to the Indian Ocean. He was tried for plundering a Armenian ship, the Quedagh Merchant, flying French colors. 

Later a technical team from the UN's cultural division investigated the find, to discover that the silver bar was in fact 95% lead. Many parts identified as the Adventure Galley were also found to be broken part of the old Sainte-Marie port constructions. So much fer the myth that pirates buried treasure, when we all know that real pirate spend n' drank their treasure as fast as they got it, just like regular folks do with their paychecks now a days.

In August 2014 Newsletter, I made the prediction that Peter and the Starcatchers was going to be the next big pirate movie series that featured pirates.  The movie is called Pan, I not sure if actually based on the Starcatchers series or a completed different store, as many time moves based on book are completely changed.

It features Hugh Jackmen as Blackbeard, who I love as an actor in some of period films such as Les Miserables and Kate & Leopold. But I am not really like this Blackbeard look in armor n' feathers with the very high hair line. I do love his double barrel flintlock pistol he carries on his baldric.  Here is the first official teaser trailer to the movie.

Everybody be preparing fer the holiday of plentyful treasures.  So here be my paddle board all decorated fer the Tampa Boating Parade of Lights on the Hillsbourgh River.  It be a beauty of a 14 foot Kaholo racing paddle board.  The Flying Tiger be currently brigantine rigged with 2 mast n' a long bowsprit that puts here at 19 feet long n' 6 feet high. Pirate's boats should always be made of hard wood, none of that plastic covered foam fer me, arrrrrgh!  

The strange item in the middle be  a special hand made forward paddling system, as pirates like to see where they be heading.  Most  sculling boats row backwards. Captain Kidd's Adventure Galley had 32 guns n' 44 oars, which would allow them to capture a prize with little or no wind. We rogue arrrrrr alway a bit unconventional in ship building fer faster speeds.  I am planning to rig a sail n' mount some guns on her.  

Each month we be featuring a killer pirate saying paired with one of Tiger Lee's Hot Pirate Babe.  Collect a different one each month, they will be perfect on yarrrr icebox.  Get one of these fabulous Limited Edition 4x6 Mini Poster fer FREE with a purchase of anything on-line or in store this fine of month of October 2014.   Sign up fer the newsletter to see each featured mini-poster.

Sorry we missed the Sept Newsletter, but here be the mini-poster fer September 2014.

Each month we be featuring a killer pirate saying paired with one of Tiger Lee's Hot Pirate Babe.  Collect a different one each month, they will be perfect on yarrrr icebox.  Get one of these fabulous Limited Edition 4x6 Mini Poster fer FREE with a purchase of anything on-line or in store this fine of month of August 2014.   Sign up fer the newsletter to see each featured mini-poster.

I be Tiger Lee, here be a tale of my visit to the old world. I boarded the Brixham Pirate Festival in its 5th year. Not sure what to expect, I arrived at the old seaport village, with about 40,000 visitors. Maybe 10% dressed in that they call “fancy” outfits, what we call cheap Halloween costumes. About 60 pirates were dressed in authentic pirate kits. Most of them re-enactors be very knowledgeable about pirate history and what they be wearing. There be a surprising number of them that actually be carrying n using black powder firearms, as you must have a hard to come by firearm’s license. Black powder is classified as an explosive, so special requirements are required fer storage. They also have firearms converted to fire regular 9mm pistol blanks to avoid the black.

They had two stages of entertainment, one fer kids n another one for adults. They had a mixture of regular musicians playing some pirate like music, plus a number of dedicated pirate bands, some were quite good, just like in the New World. They only had one vendor sell some leather items. My guess be that the hundreds of shop keepers around the harbor didn’t want competing vendors around.

At 5:30pm they had a skirmish at the Golden Hind, a replica of the ship that Sir Frances Drake used to circumnavigate around the world. There are two of the ships, one in London, which be the more authentic one. The ship here is more of a floating museum, except that half of the time during low tide, it sits on the mud bank. I be told that 30 or 40 years ago the Golden Hind in London wanted to dock at St Augustine, but the city told them NO. After 300 years they are still holding a grudge against Sir Frances Drake fer burning down the city, even though they hold a re-enactment called Drakes Raid every year for the past 20 years.

The skirmish (we call an re-enactment) starts out with the authorities check the papers of the English merchant, to discover they be French pirates, so the garrison opens fire to the pirates on board. They have a large wall gun, muskets, blunderbuss, and pistols blasting away at each other. Then the port side troops attack and board the ship. There be a melee aboard an actual wooden tall ship. Cutlasses be clashing all around the ship, with the outnumbered pirates killed or taken prisoners. It was truly wonderful to watch gunfire and sword fighting on a tall ship with pirates and British soldiers in a historic seaport harbor. So much better than most pirate re-enactments that happen in an open field, nowhere near water or ships around. Even pirate event that have tall ships, they normally just have ship to ship cannon firing, but never a boarding action. View Melee Video

This Brixham Pirate Festival once held the World records fer most pirates at one location in 2009, but Hasting currently holds the title with 14,231. This event always happens during the 3 day Bankers Holiday weekend. There be no formal pub crawl event, but the area is filled with a tons of great little pubs and restaurant, just like it must have been during the great Age of Sail two hundred years ago. The pirates here didn’t seem to drink as much as the pirates in the new world. The local shops sold plastic swords n cheap pirate hats to the tourists; there wasn’t much a serious pirate could find to plunder.

Blimey, I did come across an interesting place call Smugglers and Pirates Experience, a large red building that consist of 4 pirate businesses in one place. All the graphics and building be modern n very professional looking. The first be an olde tyme pirate studio, similar to my old business, but the costumes used to dress up be of the fancy pirate outfits shot against a photographic background.

The next business is a 50-minute multimedia experience that cost 7 pounds. It consist of a series of room and tunnels that are set up with a series of screen with project talking characters that tell a story of one certain smuggler, which this area had much real history with. At the end it talks a bit about pirates. I think the pirates be recently added as a marketing pull. It seems that smuggling doesn’t get the respect that pirates get. There be a pirate gift shop of mostly plastic pirate stuff. I was hopping to find a good book on smuggling, but didn’t fine one. The last be a pirate themed restaurant called the Smugglers Retreat. Very targeted to the common tourist and kid market, but not very exciting fer a seasoned pirate re-enactor.

So how does pirating in the New World differ from that in the Old World? In the UK, pirates have been growing; there are currently about 2 dozen events. There is almost no middle class of pirates here, just tourist dressing up in cheap Halloween costumes and serious re-enaactors. It might have to do with the fact that there don’t seem to be vendors for people who want better stuff to buy from. In the New World there is a growing group of pirates that want to wear something better than a quote-unquote “fancy” costume, but is not wanting to spend the time n’ effort of learning to make yar own authentic garb. I think the growth of this middle ground is important fer the overall growth of the pirate market.

The event didn’t have as much to do as pirate festival in the states side, but there be no cost. For the common tourist and even the experienced pirate this be an event worth travelling fer. Overall I be pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoy it, yarrrr!