The Masked Singer's costume secrets – Disney link, strict item rules and code names

The Masked Singer is Britain’s most mysterious TV talent show, but behind the scenes secrets have come to light.

It’s one of the most secretive TV shows around, because the aim of the game is to figure out which celebrities are hiding behind their masks.

Each week, different masked celebs take to the stage and sing songs in front of the nation, but they’re disguised by elaborate costumes.

The hit ITV show, hosted by comedian Joel Dommettt, sees the public join panelists Jonathan Ross, Rita Ora, Mo Gilligan and Davina McCall as they try to expose the anonymous stars.

However, despite the show’s secretive nature, some fascinating behind the scenes facts have emerged about the show’s costume department.

The costume designers don’t know who they’re making the outfits for

The costume designers are tasked with making the stars’ incredible costumes, but that doesn’t mean they know who they’re making them for.

In fact, the majority of the costume team don’t actually know which stars will be sporting their wonderfully-wacky suits on TV.

Apparently, the costume team are sent measurements for each of the celebrities so they get the sizes right, and they use a stand-in with the same body shape to fit the costumes.

Designer Tim Simpson told Huffpost UK that most of his team will only find out who the stars are when they’re revealed on TV.

The costumes take around a month to create

The Masked Singer’s beautifully-crafted costumes never fail to stun on the stage, so it’s no surprise that they take a while to create.

The show’s designers are able to start building the head of the costumes first, before the celebrities are confirmed.

However, they can’t build the rest of the costume until they get sent the measurements.

Tim said the process can be “stop-start” until the producers have finalised the line-up, which usually consists of 12 celebrities.

Once the line-up is ready, the team work simultaneously on all 12 consumes for about a month.

The show’s costume rules were inspired by Disneyland

The celebrities are tasked with wearing hefty costumes on the show, which can get rather tiring for them.

With this in mind, show producers have put rules in place to protect the stars – and they’re inspired by Disney.

Executive producers Daniel Nettleton and Derek McLean told The Sun had learned that performers at Disneyland were only allowed in their costumes for 20 minutes as the stars would feel woozy after too long.

The bosses said: “The stars were only allowed in their costumes for 20 minutes.”

They added: “We took inspiration from Disney. That’s how long Minnie and Mickey Mouse can be in their costumes before going doolally.

“We ended up being quite strict about it. You don’t want celebrities in costumes going crazy all over the place.”

The costume team is multi-talented

The show’s design team is a force to be reckoned with, boasting 45 members of staff – from sculptors to metal-workers.

Tim said: “We’ve got sculptors who are sculpting the masks, we’ve got tailors, we’ve got people who can flock and who can paint and who can pattern cut and work in foams.

“There’s also metalwork going into the costumes, there’s electronics – not to mention the team that just organise everything and the logistics of buying all the materials in, which has been so much harder this year, because we weren’t able to just walk down the rag market and go shopping, we had to do it all online.”

Contestants wear plain black – and their items are restricted

Mel B starred as Seahorse on the second series of the show, and she dished on the tough backstage rules she had to follow.

The former Spice Girls singer revealed that stars have to hide all of their belongings in black bags – so their items don’t give them away.

When backstage, the stars have to cover their faces with visors, and wear black hoodies that read: “Don’t Talk To Me.”

One time though, Mel nearly lifted the lid on who she was as she turned up to set with some very Mel-esque items.

She told Metro: “I’m a big fan of leopard print so I did arrive with a leopard print bag and my leopard print ear pods that I had to then cover up and hide.”

“They were like, ‘no you’re meant to bring everything in plain black’.”

The celebrities have code names

To help protect their identities on set, the stars are reportedly given codenames which are used by the production staff on set.

Apparently Ex-EastEnders star Patsy Palmer, who was Butterfly, was known as Square, and The Darkness singer Justin Hawkins (Chameleon) was Light.

Former Labour MP and postman Alan Johnson was called Stamp when he appeared as Pharaoh in the first series.

Only a few people know the true identity of every star

In 2020, host Joel Dommett told a virtual press conference that there’s only a few people on set that know the real names of every celebrity.

He said: “I think there’s six people in the production staff who know, out of a production team of probably 250 people.

“That’s two producers, a clues team person, a make-up person and a costume person and that’s basically it.”

The Masked Singer continues Saturday night on ITV and ITV Hub

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk