Masquerading by Character

The Venice Carnival is celebrated every year, as it has been for centuries, throughout Italy

The Italian Carnival used to be a time for children to dress up in fancy dress costumes and masks where they were accompanied by adults who ushered them around leaving trails of confetti and sweets. Not much fun for adults, who were generally, their chaperones !

In Venice, the tourist industry realised that the popularity of these Carnivals were fantastic for the city and, so, in the 1980's the Venice Carnival was revived for adults who can now have fun dressing up in elaborate fancy dress costumes with, a compulsory mask, to go to all the masked balls, costume parades and parties held at this special time of year for the Venetians

Original Venetian characters, such as, the Bauta, various nose and beak masks, including the famous Plague Doctor Mask, full face elaborate Volto masks, Joker and Jester masks, Arlecchino, as well as the well known, Colombina mask have been added to by the Venetians in an attempt to add new designs to the range on offer

The Cigno swan mask, Giglio, Luna and Cat masks, to name a few, are not Venetian stock characters and did not appear in the Commedia dell'Arte, however, they are now widely available and worn at the Venice Carnival

The decoration has also become more elaborate adding feathers glitter and braiding to satisfy the will of all the Carnival goers

Pick from Just Posh Masks wide range of Venetian characters from the left hand menu, don your mask, and have fun