The beauty of this photo shoot is that I basically threw it together in one day! How is that possible?
Well, there’s no doubt that we have more costume-y things lying around our house than the average family. We also benefit from having both girl and boy clothing to pull from, given that we have three daughters and two sons. In any case, these Newsie costumes are very attainable!
Let’s start from the top, shall we? A Newsie just isn’t a Newsie without that iconic cap!
We already owned this beautiful plaid one. Jeff’s parents got it for Elliott, in London, a few years ago. Elliott just loves this hat and he’s worn it quite a bit. It has an extra sentimental history because he wore it when we went to see Jeff as Bert in the musical, “Mary Poppins”. Was that really three years ago? What a magical, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious show that was!
Eliza ended up wearing the plaid hat in our Newsie photos (she loves red), and I bought three more caps on Amazon so our older four could all wear them when they came to see us in “Newsies”! (I kept trying to find them in thrift stores, but they just weren’t turning up.) So, I ordered this set of two, Newsie Flat Caps.
Then, I ordered a smaller Newsboy Hat for Oliver. Moral of the story? These hats aren’t cheap. I intend to snap them up whenever I find them at the thrift store, from now on. They are very versatile, so they will get lots of use in our family!
Moving right along…Here’s Emma’s outfit. Only the socks were hers. The other pieces came from the rest of the family!
Emma’s vest was one that I bought at Target and wore in my early 20s. I just took it up at the shoulders so it would fit her.
When Emma tried on the vest, I pinched it up at the shoulder seams until it was raised to a good length on her torso. Then, I stitched the vest at the shoulders.
Emma’s knee pants were a pair of long shorts that I also used to wear. I altered them to fit Emma by pinching two darts at the back of the waist. I also made them fit more snugly under her knees by moving the button at the hem farther over. This drew the tab closure tighter under her knees.
These simple alterations took mere minutes!
The darts are triangular shaped folds of material that start wide and then taper in. Normally, I would make darts taper to a fine point, but the bulky, back pockets on the shorts got in the way. Meh. Good enough for a Newsie costume!
Emma’s boots were a last-minute find! I saw a pair on Facebook Marketplace and met the seller in our Target parking lot the day of the shoot. At $5, the price was right! The zippers are not historically accurate, but boots can be hard to find. Plus, I knew they wouldn’t be as noticeable when the pictures were in black and white.
On to Elliott! In addition to his new hat from Amazon, Elliott wore a thrifted vest, boots, a pair of my socks, one of his own shirts, and his Pilgrim pants.
Eliza wore one of Oliver’s shirts, an old vest of Elliott’s, thrifted boots, and some shorts that I turned into knee pants.
The shorts came from our YWCA thrift store. Green tags were 50% off, so the shorts were actually $1.50! The hems were double-stitched. I simply took my seam ripper to the lower row of stitches, and made a small opening in the upper row. Then, I took some thrifted elastic and fed it through this make-shift elastic casing with a safety pin.
This is definitely the fastest and easiest way to make short pants or breeches!
The downsides to using elastic are: 1. It’s not historically accurate. 2. The activity of the wearer causes it to ride up, as you can see, here!
Oliver’s outfit was the most colorful, although you can’t tell in the black and white photos! He also wore his Pilgrim pants.
We ran out of vests, so, I decided to break in the suspenders that he’s going to wear in my sister’s upcoming wedding! (Emma was also wearing a set, hidden under her vest.)
Annika wore one of Oliver’s shirts and some shorts that I took in by making a small pleat at the hem of the inseam. Her vest and boots were thrifted and the hat is one of mine!
And that, my friends, is how I put these outfits together!
Here’s a look at our Newsies in full color!
