So let’s just jump right into this thing. If you read my writer’s biography for Her Campus you will see “avid Disneybounder.” If you don’t know what that is, then let me introduce you to it! Disneybound or disneybounding was a trend created by a woman named Leslie Kay, and came about because of the Disneyland “no costumes” rule. For those who don’t know about that aspect, Disneyland has a rule at their parks that visitors are not allowed to wear costumes in the parks. A loophole to that though is Disneybounding. Basically, Leslie Kay creates outfits that are inspired by Disney characters (and sometimes other characters in pop culture) that can be made out of everyday clothes.
I follow Leslie Kay’s Disneybound blog and Instagram page almost religiously and I have since high school (our CC Hailee can attest to this). Since high school many of my outfits have been Disneybound outfits. Now you may ask, “that’s at least four years worth of outfits, how have you not run out?” Well, its because Leslie still puts together outfit lays and has at least 7 years worth on her website. Some of these outfits have been real successes, while some of them are a stretch because I do not own the exact pieces or colors of shirts or pants (but I am slowly getting there). I have also started getting into a habit of shopping to fill these needs. For example, when I’m shopping I ask myself if I like the piece first of all and if I do what Disney character it can be fashioned into.
I know that this sounds a little crazy, but I’ve always loved fashion and Disney so to find something that combined the two was really great. I’m also really indecisive and having outfit layouts makes it so much easier to get ready in the mornings. To illustrate my point I’ll show you my outfits this past week and explain a little bit about this.
Monday: Whoops!
Monday a joke because I did not Disneybound that day and just stood in front of my closet for 45 minutes deciding what to wear before my roommate chose my clothes.
With that being said, I was pretty lucky that this week I got 4 Disneybound layouts which worked out well so I could write this article
Tuesday: R2-D2
Okay so here’s the outfit layout on the website. I don’t have pictures of me wearing it, whoops. This is obviously designed for a holiday party and way too fancy for my typical Tuesday activities which means I had to figure out how to downplay it. I don’t own a casual white dress, so that meant it either was my white skirt or white jeans. The desperate pile of laundry meant that white jeans won. I also wore a plain white t-shirt. With outfits like this I’ve learned that the accessories make them or else you could be a plethora of characters that are all white. So I wore my black earrings that look like hearts, a silver and blue ring, a red,white, and blue bracelet and my navy blue slide on sneakers. Usually when I do outfits that are robots, men, rides, or animals I don’t fix up my hair nor do my makeup.
Wednesday: The Matterhorn
Along with characters, Leslie Kay also uses the parks as inspiration as seen with Wednesday’s outfit, which is based off of the Matterhorn Bobsled ride at Disneyland. I actually had a very similar outfit with pieces that were almost identical, but here at the University of Wyoming, it had decided to drop to 35-degrees and dump snow on Wednesday. So I ended up wearing a pair of green motorcycle pants, my plain white t-shirt with a light red flannel thrown on over it, and brown “cargo pilot boots.” The accessories for this one were a little off as I do not own a crystal necklace nor a ring that looks like a rock so I wore jewelry that had gems in them (if that makes sense).
Thursday: Sabor
Now you might not know which this character right off of the bat, so I’ll just tell you it’s the jaguar from Tarzan (y’know the evil one who killed his parents and Kala’s baby). This was honestly the hardest outfit because I do not own anything cheetah print, so it was massive improvisation time.This happens some days because my closet is not as expansive as all of the clothes that Leslie Kay uses for these outfits. That is okay though because I use these templates to work with what I have. I don’t always want people to recognize that I’ve tried to be a Disney character and most people don’t unless they know that this is something I do, and even then they ask me who the outfit is based off of. Anyway, for this I ended up wearing khaki pants, a black blouse with gold and white polka dots, and a pair of brown booties. For the accessories, I wore gold knotted earrings, a white and brown bracelet, a gold and brown bracelet, and a gold “A” ring.
Friday: Will Turner
Finally, today my inspiration was Will Turner (also known as my OG Orlando Bloom crush). It was a pretty easy outfit to pull off I just wore black skinny jeans, my light red flannel shirt, black leather jacket, and black boots. For the accessories I wore my gold knotted earrings, a gold and silver chevron necklace and a brown belt.
So there you have it, my week in Disney outfits! Now I know this seems kinda nerdy- a college student does this in her everyday life, but I love it. It is pretty fun for me to wear outfits inspired by my favorite movie producing company. These outfits bring a little bit of magic into my daily routine and for that I am so grateful for Leslie Kay and her wonderful imagination for giving me a way to carry around a little bit of Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust through my days.
P.S. you should go check out her website Cakeworthy (https://www.cakeworthystore.com). Along with setting up these outfits she designs actual clothes based off of Disney movies and now Nickelodeon tv shows. It’s where I got my Powerline snapback (if ya know, ya know what I’m talking about) and my Dumbo wallet!
All the inspiration is from http://disneybound.co.