How to DisneyBound
How much do you love your favorite Disney characters? Did you know that you can prove it next time you’re at the parks? All you need to do is sport the right garments to improve your sense of style at Disney. Here’s a quick look at DisneyBounding, one of the favorite pastimes of Disney diehards.
What’s DisneyBounding?
The unofficial definition of DisneyBounding is that you wear the colors and style of your favorite Disney characters to honor them during a park visit. In practice, you’re selecting daily outfits that will remind others of these characters. You’ll choose based on colors, styles, and general fashion trends. Plus, you can use accessories like jewelry, purses, and handbags to accentuate your wardrobe for the day.
You may have trouble grasping the intricacies of DisneyBounding at first. Let’s make the concept easy to understand. Please shut your eyes for a moment and think about Minnie Mouse. What colors did you visualize? In your mind’s eye, you saw her in polka dots, right? Presumably, she was either in red and white or pink and white. Those are the main colors that comprise her ensemble in most media representations.
When you DisneyBound, your goal is to recreate the sense of style of your favorite character(s) without dressing up like them. Besides, you can’t do that even if you wanted to try. Disney theme parks have strict rules about character impersonations.
The company doesn’t want unaffiliated parties pretending like they’re Disney representatives. It’s an understandable decision. If someone in a Mickey Mouse outfit yelled at a child, the kid wouldn’t understand what was happening…and the parents may not know that a fake Mickey Mouse caused the problem. Disney does make some looser exceptions for special ticketed events, but it’s still largely a huge no-no.
How DisneyBounding Works
DisneyBound is the next best thing to dressing up as your favorite character. You get to distill the essence of Minnie Mouse’s style into an entirely different outfit. The basics are easy to understand, but the options are limitless.
How would you DisneyBound as Minnie Mouse? The number of options is seemingly limitless. You could wear the obvious choice, a simple polka dot dress in Minnie’s style. Alternately, you could throw on a denim shirt and white shorts. Then, you would add a red bow to your hair or a pair of red shoes to bring out the other classic Minnie colors.
By now, you should have an idea of what this means. Every Disney character has a certain number of identifiable colors in their palette. Similarly, they have certain distinctive characteristics such as Jasmine’s flowing outfits or Belle’s village chic. You want your outfit to show these stylistic choices that make each member of the Disney family so distinctive.
DisneyBound Decisions
I don’t want the process to sound difficult, because it’s not. You can put as much or as little working into DisneyBounding as you like. All you need to do is answer a few questions before assembling your ensemble.
The first question is which character to pick. And the best part of DisneyBounding is that you can choose a different one each day…or different outfits for the same one! During a recent Walt Disney World vacation, my wife did just that, meticulously planning several days’ worth of outfits for our trip. It was a fun way for her to anticipate a week at Disney prior to leaving.
When picking the character, you should think about who your favorites are. You should also keep in mind a second factor. The color palette for each character matters, too. You may have items in your wardrobe that fit well with a certain Disney icon like Donald Duck. Don’t laugh. His basics are blue and white with the occasional red tie. Combined with his yellow skin tone, you have all the bright colors in play, perfect for a Florida or California day.
Are you a fan of black? Most “good” Disney characters eschew darker tones, ceding them to the villains. But Black Widow obviously goes a different way with her ensemble. You could wear a stylish black leather jacket or coordinate an all-black outfit. Black Widow always throws in a splash of red sometimes, and this knowledge gives you a chance to add a different element. For example, splashy red lipstick or a kicky red hat completes the Black Widow look.
Your decisions all boil down to what you have in your closet and what you want to achieve with your look. The goal of DisneyBounding is to have fun and feel more connected to the Disney experience. Pick the outfits that maximize your enjoyment of all things Disney.
How Far Should You Go with DisneyBounding?
That brings me to another decision you’ll want to make. Once you know the character and color scheme in play, you have to set your limits. Will you take a minimal approach to your DisneyBound outfit or will you do something dramatic that everyone will notice? There’s no wrong answer, and I strongly suggest that you mix things up on various days.
You’ll find ideas for DisneyBounding all across the web. Pinterest and Instagram are the best two places, although a couple of others are great for beginners. Leslie Kay, perceived as the originator of DisneyBounding, has an official website full of suggestions. She offers detailed instructions and also links to websites where you can buy any apparel you need to complete your outfit. Also, her Instagram feed has more than 2,000 DisneyBound images!
YouTube is a wonderful resource for DisneyBounding. Here’s a link to 10 EASY DisneyBound outfits. I’m confident that you can do at least one of them using apparel you already own. Even Disney gets into the act on their official YouTube page. Here’s a Moms Panel interview with Leslie Kay that includes several ideas.
Since DisneyBounding is so popular, a quick Google search leads to thousands of useful fashion suggestions. Any time you want ideas, just pick your favorite Disney character, add the word “DisneyBound” to the search, and check the Google Images section. Even the most obscure Disney animated movies have outfit ideas.
Armed with all this information, you should have no problem building the perfect DisneyBound outfit. I should give you a word of warning, though. DisneyBounding is extremely addictive. Once you get started, you may find yourself thinking about fashionable Disney ensembles all the time. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with DisneyBounding at home, either!
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