We talked about candy last week, before I discovered that eating my beloved candy corn together with salted peanuts is EVEN MORE DELICIOUS. Why did no one tell me about this?
And now we’re going to talk about costumes, because duh, it’s Halloween.
I wasn’t really good at costumes as a kid. And I guess my mom wasn’t either, since that’s who puts in the real effort when it comes to making Halloween stuff, which was the norm when I was a trick-or-treater. She did make me a pretty sweet witch hat, though, which I wore approximately one zillion times. I am a costume recycler; once I had the stuff, I usually used it multiple times. I think I went as a present (wearing an enormous, gift-wrapped box) three years in a row. Ditto witch. Ditto gypsy. Weak sauce.
The Dude, on the other hand, had a crazy, novel costume every year. MamaDude was a total Halloween badass, and seeing the pictures of the Dude and his Sister in ornate, handmade, culturally-relevant-for-children get-ups over the years–the “Ghostbusters” logo! A Garbage Pail Kid!–always makes me marvel (and, yes, quiver with retroactive jealousy).
Last year, I had my shit together, and I pulled together a cop outfit and went as Officer Strunk of the Chicago Grammar Police to one party (which was a big hit with the nerds), and then as Marceline the Vampire Queen from the cartoon series Adventure Time. So, if I end up doing anything this year, I’ll pull out one of those and wear it. I wanted to dress up this year as Brünnhilde, from Wagner’s Die Walküre. I sketched it months ago, and started figuring out how I’d sew an “armored” bodice and fashion a spear and shield out of cardboard. (I am a big believer in the DIY aesthetic when it comes to Halloween. Renting stuff feels like cheating to me.)
But then I didn’t have any rad costume party invitations. And my money situation doesn’t have a lot of room for buying fabric and craft supplies. And I’m spending most of my free time looking and applying for jobs, which is arguably more important.
So, for this week’s FFT: I need some tales of costume awesomeness. Or hilarious costume shame, if you’re no longer scarred by the memories. Did you wear tie-on plastic smocks and itchy masks of cartoon characters? (I did. Bugs Bunny, when I was maybe 5.) Were you one of those wildly creative kids who came up with conceptual costumes that wowed your friends neighbors? And did you deal with the horror of having to wear your heavy coat over your costume, thereby ruining the entire effect? Man, I hated that.
I rarely get the opportunity to dress up now, but as a younger, shorter haired woman, I dressed up as Elvis several times for Halloween parties. I would tack some gold ribbon along the seams of some black trousers and round the neck of a black top to fake a 70s jumpsuit, qiff my hair and then enjoy sticking out like a sore thumb amongst people in ‘sexy cat’ costumes. This look is particularly suitable for the single (or poly) and open-minded, because Elvis has an effect on a lot of people. A LOT.
Growing up in the midwest, I got used to having to wearing a coat under or over whatever costume I chose. Which was the WORST THING EVER OMG when I was in middle school and bought what I thought was a vaguely sexy genie costume (in retrospect, I didn’t even know what sexy meant, but it had puffy sleeves!).
I think my best costume was my senior year of college when I dressed up as Amy Winehouse. I wore an old ripped tank top, short shorts over fishnets, a huge messy bouffant wig, and covered myself with fake blood, eyeliner and sharpie tattoos.
Also, someday, I dream of going as a ham. Like Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird.
As a kid, it was store-bought all the way. I had no imagination for costumes (and still don’t). Our kids, however, always invented their own and continue to do so as adults. Our son went to work today dressed as the Bear Jew from “Inglorious Basterds.”
My dressing up as an adult has centered around Harry Potter. I have robes (well, okay, Son of MM’s high school graduation gown), a hat, a scarlet and gold tie, and a white shirt I wear when it’s dress up time. That rig has gone to conferences and movies and also to work when I was at the bookstore and in charge of handing out candy.
My feeling about trick or treaters is that I don’t care how old you are, but if you want a treat from us, you have to give a nod at a costume at least. Showing up with your usual clothes, a jaded expression, and a bag does not impress us.
Wow, Cait and Plum-Pie – so creative! Cait gets super literary points.
My favorite costume was the one I wore in 5th grade. My brother had gotten a super-scary rubber cobra mask. So I put on a sheet, wore some jewelry my mother had brought back from Egypt, carried a staff (broom handle), and went as the Egyptian god Seth. (Which was a bit of stretch, as Seth’s head was some unidentified animal, not a cobra, but hey).
I was so proud of my costume and felt betrayed and horrified when during our classroom’s costume parade, my teacher announced me as a “lizard”! Seriously?? sigh. So geeky, so young.
MM I totally agree with you. No effort at some sort of costume (at least a clever bit) means no candy.
I should clarify the above. It’s mostly big teenagers who come around with no costume demanding candy, and my answer to them is no way. If you’re a cute little under-4 kid who doesn’t know any better, I’ll give you candy. If you’re a big, gruff teenager, then you better amuse me.
I once went as Tweety bird. My mom made the costume from tons of yellow foam. I looked like a packing peanut. however, I still sang the tweety song at every door, which garnered me double the candy of any other year.
I definitely second the DIY mindset, and refuse to buy costumes. Last year I was really short on time and cash and went as a “fork in the road” dressed in all black with road lines in white hockey tape and a fork taped to my stomach. No one got it, but at least people were intrigued!
@Elibard: Right. I don’t ask much from little kids; dressing up has a different meaning to them than it does to older kids and adults. SoMM went out trick or treating throughout high school with his crew, but they all spent a lot of time conceptualizing and executing costumes. One year he ripped up and dirtied a t shirt and jeans and put bruises and cuts on with makeup. He was dressed as the economy. But everyone thought he’d been mugged.
As an adult, I have been Friday Kahlo, Carmen Miranda, Ugly Betty, Salvador Dali, and Audrey Hepburn. This year I will be David Bowie from Labyrinth and I so excited!
As a kid I loved Halloween, as store bought was out of the question financially, it was make our own with whatever was around the house. My sibs and I planned for months, also setting up a haunted house in one of our bedrooms, complete with stuffed clothing dummy that sat up from a coffin (a suitcase), when pulled by a string from the opening door.
My kids shared 2 bought costumes over the years, mainly because we picked up a really well made full body plush cat, and panda, from a kids consignment shop. Since then, mine have gone as a spy, a magician, each of them as Link from Zelda, etc. The Link costume was the most fun for me to make! And it looked sooo good. This year my 10yo is going as a cobweb, my 14yo is reusing his Link costume.
My best costume in college was road construction. I wore a bright orange rain poncho with caution tape on it, and had one of those blinking orange construction lights.
My Mom hates halloween, so were mostly on our own growing up. But one year my Dad brought home toxic waste bags from his work that were taller than us, so my two brothers and I cut arm and head holes, then went as toxic waste. Our sister was 6, so put her in a little white coat and she was the inspector. We were dorks
This year I already had a Halloween party and since I am getting my Masters in Theology, went as a pregnant nun. One of my brothers helped yet again and MADE a prosthetic baby bump for me, then decided I needed more. So I ended up as a pregnant nun, wearing chucks, and carrying “nun-chucks” so I could protect the “belly”. We are STILL dorks.
I LOVE these ideas! Egyptian gods, traffic cones, toxic waste! David Bowie in Labyrinth! (DUDE. PICTURES.)
@BetterFish: Why does your mom hate Halloween?
Perhaps I’ll just punt and celebrate this instead: http://jesusween.com/
When I was little, like maybe 9 or 10, I decided I was going to be into nonrepresentational costumes, although I wouldn’t have used that word to describe my idea at the time. One year, I stuck a dowel rod in a knit hat and tied a balloon to it, attached some miscellaneous colored paper and ribbons to my coat, and carried around some haphazardly chosen object – I don’t even remember what it was. People asked, “What are you?” and I said “I’m a person with a balloon on my hat carrying a [whatever-it-was].”
I had no idea what I was going to be for Halloween, but a friend posted Take Back Halloween! on her FB, so I clicked and fell in love. It was too late to order some of the stuff you can buy to help piece together the costumes, but I used the idea of Persephone to make an Aphrodite costume. A wine-red flat bedsheet, some safety pins, and a couple sprigs of fake flowers, and I had myself a beautiful costume for about $8. Plus, I could dance in it when I went to my university’s Gayla (a play on “gala”) queer costume party and drag show. <3
@Skada: I went as Persephone one year! MamaSharper put together a toga-like outfit for me and I sewed silk flowers to it. I think that was 5th or 6th grade.
In 3rd grade I went as Laura Ingalls Wilder, in a pioneer dress with a bonnet that my mom made (it really helps to have a mother who can sew). She then took brown yarn and made two thick braids which she sewed to the sides of the bonnet so I had Laura’s pigtails (my own hair was in a blond bowl cut at the time). And then in 4th grade, I wore a Pink Panther suit made by my aunt that my older cousins had all worn.
Halloween is not a big thing where I am.. but the thing we dressed up to every year in primary school was Book Week.
(A celebration every year that celebrates Australian books and authors, it often coincides with the Children’s Book Council annual awards for children’s books.)
My mum would make costumes for us (with us helping) – one year I went as the hungry hungry caterpiller, Anne of Green Gables, a fairy, tin man from the Wizard of Oz, and others I can’t remember.
Now that I’ve spent more time on the earth, whenever I go dressed up as something, I like to choose things that I enjoy – so I’ve dressed up as (a non sexy) schoolchild, football player, fortune cookie with fortunes, a labourer, various kind of fairies (oh how I enjoy making wings), a book, a dark elf.
@mishiefmanager –> She doesn’t really like any holidays that are not Christmas. She scares easily and is religious to the point where demons are a very real threat in her mind.
Soo, while I love her to death, she wasn’t always the most useful Mom. But when my school had field day and I didn’t want to go, she took me shopping instead with no qualms so it all balances out.
I’m French, so we don’t really do Hallowe’en, except for a couple years ten years ago when they reaaaalllyyy tried to make it happen for commercial reasons (a lot of us use it as a reason for a dress-up party, but it’s not a big cultural thing).
. The year before I was a lazy Sailor Jupiter – right dress, wrong accessories. Oh well.
However, we do have Mardi Gras in March, and my mum used to make amazing costumes for me. She also used to paint kids’ faces during the school fair that always happens for Carnaval (that is the same thing as Mardi Gras).
My favourite costume evaaar was when she made me a full-body snow leopard costume. I shudder to think of the time that must have taken her, because fur is hell to sew, and I was 8 IIRC, so not small, and it was head to toe – it culminated in a hood with leopard ears on. We still have it somewhere, it was amazing.
As an adult I’ve only celebrated two Hallowe’ens, since I moved to Taiwan and it’s a bit more of a thing here. Last year I was a sixties movie spacegirl, with the plastic-y dress, super-sleek hair, etc, but no-one got it
@oh hells nah – Please tell me you’ll do a well-endowed sock-stuff in the pants area…I love that movie and Bowie is, er, distracting in his bulging tights.
Hmmm…childhood favorites. Well as several folks said for budgetary reasons they were DIY costumes. My mom really outdid herself when I was in preschool, she made me a spot-on Strawberry Shortcake outfit from scratch and even finished it off with giant freckles courtesy of her eyeliner pencil. The hat she made was amazing, even had a little strawberry stitched on top. This was before you had free patterns online or anything online, so wow.
In 7th grade (late 80s/early ’90s, at a school very into brand names and fitting in) I made my own costume and went to junior high as a wood nymph. Not a sexy wood nymph, a wood nymph. I’ve read a lot of Narnia over the years so I think that factored in. I used temporary green dye and green sparkly colored hair gel and it took about a week to fully wash out. A really preppy guy decided to brand me “that weird green haired girl” and I spent the next two years getting taunted about it from him and his clique. This was ironic because as soon as we got to high school in the 90s it was “in” to have brightly-dyed hair, but oh well. That’s how my first (of many) hair colors was a rockin’ green.
It was funny as a college-student celebrating Halloween in Geneva during my study abroad. We went to our director’s house and his girls were dressed up, and I had a fortune teller sort of outfit on, and I saw the occasional party-going kid on the street with an outfit…but most people didn’t follow Celtic/American holidays there and they actually do their dressing up in December during the Escalade celebration. Which was fun to watch.
As for costumes that didn’t go as intended – my one and only store-bought costume. In elementary school we got to march from class to class to “visit” in our costumes. I was really obsessed with She-Ra and I went as her awesome nemesis, Cat-Ra. The outfit was noticeably cat-like and kick-ass and I felt totally awesome about being Cat-Ra for the day. However no one noticed the mask or anything else, they just saw the little She-Ra brand logo on it and said “oh you’re She-Ra”! Doh.
This year my friends and I went as the crew from the Wizard of Oz. But as I can’t let anything be that easy, I went as Occupy Munchkinland complete with home-made political buttons and a shout out to Jack Layton. The Lollipop Guild was the Lollipop Union for a night and my costume was a big hit!
One year I went as a bug light. Two large rings of cardboard, one over my shoulders, one around my knees, painted black. In between, several wrapping paper tubes covered in shiny purple mylar, with little fake bugs glued to them. The whole thing wrapped in a piece of screening, and a black leotard underneath. It was a great costume but I had to stand all evening!
I reused the black leotard another year, using white duct tape to make a dashed line up the middle and down the arms, and two yellow stripes along the sides. I was a highway.
In college, one of my dormmates balanced a light plastic chair on his head. Said he was “a wad of gum”.