Our granddaughters recently went to a school fete & the them for the children was Pirates & Princesses. Our grandaughters wore pretty 'fairy' dresses with sparkly shoes & tiars (minus the wands) which were bought from the local supermarket!
Most of the other girls wore similar outfits & they all looked beautiful, bless 'em!
Following on from ChuffingHells suggestion I went to a fancy dress party at Christmas which was seaside themed. One bloke came as an icecream seller with a box slung round his neck with string. He'd made all these icecream cones from proper icecream cones and expanding foam - they looked brilliant!