No More Costumes: Disney Cast Members Allowed To Choose Their Own Work Outfits Under New Rule
A small group of Walt Disney World Resort cast members has quietly traded their assigned costumes for more personalized workwear.
The Store Where It Started
Uptown Jewelers, the Pandora retail location tucked along Main Street, U.S.A. at Magic Kingdom Park, is ground zero for the change. WDWNT reported on May 11 that cast members stationed at the store are no longer suiting up in the turn-of-the-century themed costumes that had long been part of the location’s carefully curated aesthetic. In their place, employees are now putting together their own workwear, provided it falls within Walt Disney World Resort’s appearance guidelines for the location.
In practice, that means business-casual clothing in neutral tones: olive green, white, khaki, cream, and similar shades. The result still reads as cohesive and fitting for the Victorian atmosphere Uptown Jewelers has always maintained, but it hands cast members a degree of personal expression that assigned costuming never allowed. Employees have already started personalizing their workwear with accessories, including jewelry and belts.
Walt Disney World Resort did not make any public announcement about the policy shift.
A Perk That Management Has Had for Years
For cast members at Uptown Jewelers, the change brings their wardrobe situation closer to what area leaders and management-level employees at Walt Disney World Resort have long enjoyed. Those roles have historically operated under Disney Look guidelines rather than assigned costumes, giving managers the latitude to dress themselves within a defined set of professional standards. The new arrangement at Uptown Jewelers extends a version of that same flexibility to hourly retail cast members — a relatively rare move for a Disney theme park location.
The scope of the change remains narrow for now. Cast members across Magic Kingdom Park and the broader Walt Disney World Resort property are still required to wear their assigned costumes, and there’s been no indication that the Uptown Jewelers approach is being rolled out more widely.
The Bigger Picture on Disney Look
Small as it may seem, the Uptown Jewelers shift is part of a longer arc of change in how Walt Disney World Resort approaches cast member appearance. The most consequential moment in that evolution came in 2021, when both Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort rolled out the most comprehensive Disney Look update since the policy was first established when Disneyland Park opened in 1955.
That overhaul permitted visible tattoos, colorful nail polish, and gender-inclusive hairstyles and facial hair for the first time. It also allowed cast members to wear costumes that correspond to their gender identity rather than their gender assigned at birth.
What do you think about the new dress code at Uptown Jewelers? Share your opinion with Disney Dining in the comments!
It’s nice to give the employees a choice of what to wear in the job. But won’t that be confusing who actually are Cast Members and who are patrons? Yes, the name tag, but I’ve seen name tags for patrons to buy.
I don’t really like the idea. I enter Disney World with all the anticipation one could have for the magic, the excitement, the enthusiasm of being in a different world. A world of make believe and fun. I wouldn’t change anything about the salespeople in stores or in any other capacity it’s all part of the magic and fun and music and lights and fireworks. It’s about imagination and happiness and being away from the rest of the world. I attend Disney World at least twice a year or more. It’s the magic!
I’ll set it again. I think Disney should just shut down. They’re going from something that was great in making it into something other that is like a hobo land I guess we’re gonna start having the ear rings and purple hair and all that on everybody. At least buckies has a great idea which sticking what they started Betty lava changed to when you got all the crazy lunatics and leftist. And alphabet, people moving into Florida, anybody expect to have
At least during the early days of Disney Walt had picked out things that you would know which land you was in or which part of the park who was actually a worker there. And who wasn’t, but istan got so much cost to go there that you just put drug dealer are.I I got five or six credit cards.I’m putting this vacation on for twenty years
It is in fact part of the magic, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Enough magic has been “stolen” from us over recent years at a much higher cost!!! Please, please, please stop taking things away.
What going to happen next at DW like it was said, purple or red hair. Why don’t they put a bull nose ring, wear baggy clothes and wear rip clothes and come to work or you can puy a name tag off the shalt and put it on and walk in to the store and start working oh forgot there young people out there don’t want to work, for those that do want gov.to support them. That a whole differant type of topic.
Disney is taking away all the magic! Wearing the Disney costume helps put you in a magical place. Taking away the “magic” is destroying Disney and is going to stop “family” values to stop going to Disney. I hate what the changes are and my long time love of Disney is fast going away due to all the changes that try to destroy my values. We pay a HUGE price for the magic and once it’s gone then people won’t be going Disney anymore!
I think Walt Disney would be so disappointed in the loss of the vibe , aka the MAGIC. We started going on the Disney cruise ships years ago for this same reason. Bring back the authentic Disney magic.
Slippery slope.
Just a way to save money on clothes and now cast has to buy their own.
Remember when they switched to take your costume home.