Halloween Haunts: What Your Costume Choices Say About You by Jennifer Brinkmeyer
I don’t know how many adults have a costume chest, but I have two. When spring cleaning rolls around, no clothes leave my house that have the potential to make a great costume someday. This is the only area in which I am a complete pack rat. Today I’ll wave my freak flag, and analyze some typical costume choices through my past looks.
1. Traditional
I have been a witch at least four times–for Halloween, that is (ha ha!). Choices like witch, skeleton, or vampire are traditional for a reason. What would Halloween in America be without these archetypes? People in scary costumes are already in short supply. The traditional costume says that you care about Halloween and preserving the terror. In my case, I’m also playing it safe here. Others have done witch much better. A traditional costume may also suggest a reluctance to take risks.
2. Fancy
I spent over $100 to look like the Queen of Hearts for a night, but I spilled red nail polish on the costume before the Halloween festivities even started. Costumes like this show a willingness to invest in good-looking duds. This particular costume shows my interest in dressing as a powerful woman. But I’m not owning the fact that the Queen is evil. The cruelest thing about me is my willingness to dress my poor cat up like a card soldier. For the price of two playing cards and some Scotch tape, Neko out-dressed me that year. Fancy costumes can indicate a concern with appearance.
3. Real-Life Idols
This costume cost $4. All I bought was the wig. The rest came from my rock-star friends. What does it reveal? Rebel style! Why pay to look like everyone else when you can just rock out on the cheap? Because Joan Jett inspires me, the empowerment I got from dressing as her for a night made me bolder. Dressing like an idol usually means you want some aspect of their character to bleed into your daily life.
4. Funny
This is me as Robin Sparkles from How I Met Your Mother. This costume says that I’m in it for the laughs. It’s also the first costume I ever made. I got the jacket at Goodwill and decorated it with Puffy Paint and the iron-on Canadian Flag patch. It shows that I put in the effort to make a detailed costume, my interpretation of the original.
5. Superhero
Because I wasn’t sure how well I could translate the TV version to a Halloween costume, I opted for Kristy Swanson’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Superhero costumes are about empowerment as well, with some fun, action-packed motivations too. I’ve got a whittled stick that I turned on Dracula when he arrived at the party. Spending the night whirling and kicking and punching was fun. I’m also doing a bit of cosplay here, because I wanted to look just like the movie poster. After Goodwill was a bust, I went online and got some discount dance clothes for $15. This suggests an eye for detail, or perhaps tendencies toward perfectionism.
What was your best costume and what did it say about you? What are everyone’s costume plans for this year?
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: In celebration of Halloween, the Horror Writers Association is offering one free, e-book copy of Freak Show edited F. Paul Wilson. Comment below to enter or e-mail membership@horror.org with “HH Entry” in the subject line.
Jennifer Brinkmeyer is a horror novelist and secondary English teacher. A graduate of The University of Iowa, she is currently querying her debut novel. Her karaoke repertoire includes Eurthymics, Maroon 5, Pat Benatar, and Nelly. Please visit her at her website, as well as The Midnight Society, where she posts every other Sunday.
I love dressing up as a witch…well…not too far from my natural state! 🙂 I was Elvira one year too. Now that was fun-especially when the mall gate I was pulling up (bookstore in the mall) at closing time grabbed the bottom of the dress and pulled it over my head. Awesome. Truly epic embarrassing moment in time.
Here’s a spooky idea for a future costume! What about dressing up as an opposite of either who you are or who you admire? For example, you could choose a woman who is not so strong or someone who has been marginalised. As a complete opposite, what about dressing up as a male figure? These types would definitely indicate that you can walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, even for just one night. This would take some ingenuity and courage, to say the least. Love all your costume ideas so far!
Excellent costumes! I’ve never seen anyone go as Robin before.
I went as a Victorian-era gravedigger a year or two ago. It was sort of like your “real life idol” in that I used an old black suit jacket and vest with old black jeans, a costume bowler hat I already had, and a garden spade — total costume cost $0.00.
Now I want to dress up this year.
What a fun article, with a lot of great ideas. 🙂