Accrediting International Costume Competitions

Adopted May 9, 2010

The document “ICG Guidelines: Ensuring Fair Competition” notes that the International Costumers Guild recognizes certain contests as “International Competitions”, but that standards for recognizing additional events with that status are not within the scope of those fairness guidelines. At the time of this writing, the events so recognized are Worldcon, Costume-Con and Anime North.

This document delineates standards intended to establish the guidelines and procedures by which the ICG may so accredit an event as an “International Competition” as described in the “ICG Guidelines: Ensuring Fair Competition.”

  1. A Costume Competition will be considered for ICG accreditation as an “international competition” at the request of its owning organization, said request to be addressed to the ICG Corresponding Secretary.
  2. Each request will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The ICG President (or President’s designee) will appoint an accreditation committee to review the request and present a recommendation to the ICG BOD for final approval/denial. The Board may choose to have the general membership ratify such decisions.
  3. The Costume Competition and Event under consideration should adhere to the following standards:
    1. Costume Competition at the Event must include judged competition of entrant-built costumes. Entrant-built means that at least one member of an entry had an active creative hand in the construction/assembly of their costume(s).
    2. Judging and awards should focus on costumes, their design and implementation rather than performance. (Presenting of awards for performance does not disqualify a competition from consideration, but a significant set of awards focused on costume must be presented).
    3. Competition rules must be explicitly based on the document ICG Guidelines: Ensuring Fair Competition.
    4. The Competition demonstrates a general respect of and support for costume, costumers and costuming.
    5. The Competition allows and encourages participation by entrants from outside the host country of the Competition.
  4. The ICG may choose at any time to revisit its accreditation of a Competition as an “International Competition”.Should such review disclose that the event no longer meets these standards, such accreditation will be revoked.

These Standards have been drafted by the Standards of Practice Committee for the International Costume Guild:

Kelli Lynch — ICG Corresponding Secretary, Committee Chairperson Ann Catelli — ICG Vice President
Karen Heim — St. Louis Costumers Guild President
Rob Himmelsbach — ICG President
Nora Mai — ICG Archives, Former ICG President
Dawn McKechnie –President, Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada
Kevin Roche — Silicon Web Costumers Guild Vice President
Ramona Taylor — St. Louis Costumers Guild