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Lunchtime Poll

Lunchtime Poll: Halloween!

Halloween is not a big deal to me. At all. Yet somehow I manage to stress over costumes every year. My favorite costumes have been my She-Ra Princess of Power outfit from kindergarten and the year I went as a functioning box of wine (it was an engineering marvel and made me VERY popular at the party).

Girl in a she-ra costume
My mom sewed this for me. It was awesome on all levels.

I’m feeling very uninspired this year, so inspire me! What are some good costume ideas?

By [E] Sally Lawton

My food groups are cheese, bacon, and hot tea. I like studying cities and playing with my cat, Buffy.

32 replies on “Lunchtime Poll: Halloween!”

A voting billet to remind everyone to go (when is voting again in America?)?
A page turner. Not that I know how that would look like.
Used wax. Glue some bandages and thick clots of hair everywhere and you’re done.
Lady Gaga’s outfit.

This is not my strongest point.

So for me the key to a great halloween costume is one where I can go outside without freezing my butt off. Therefore I’ve done lots of warm outfits. Some highlights: Cassandra Austen (Jane Austen’s sister), Morticia Addams, a green Witch (green dress with a green witch hat), Boudicca, Queen of the Icenii. This year I’m doing a slightly less warm outfit and going as Belle from Beauty and the Beast (her blue dress, so I get to walk around with a book!) and my man is going as Gaston, so he gets to be an ass all night which is quite distinct from his normal personality. Yay fun geeky stuff that’s also warm.

My top 3 favorite past costumes were:

-Slave Leia (shut up, every nerd girl at least considers it, and I had a lot of time on my hands and some extra copper wire and gold paint.) That costume is retired unless I decide I ever want to do crunches again, which is exceedingly unlikely.

-Alice from Resident Evil. I defaced a red satin bridesmaid’s dress, added boots and some holsters, and had an Umbrella Corp fake tattoo.

-One year in college, my dorm floor went as the Wizard of Oz characters. I was the Tin Man. Not sexy Tin Man, just lots of silver with a spray-painted funnel on my head.

These days, I do a lot of makeup-intensive costumes (abstract peacock!) or lazy-ass ones (Girl Scout!).

My friends and I are doing a group costume of Little Red Riding Hood. I’m the wood cutter. I need to get a second hand flannel shirt and a prop ax. The rest I plan to raid out of my closet.

I’ve gotten kinda good at minimal effort costumes. One year I was a biker, wearing my skinniest jeans, an old tee shirt, boots, a leather jacket, and bright blue eye shadow up to my eyebrows. Another year I was a glamour puss in a black cowl sweater, black pants, a black boa pinned to my butt, headband ears, and big false eyelashes.

I hate to admit it, but I don’t remember the last time I actually dressed up. Or had any reason to dress up. Okay- that one’s not really true since my friend loooves Halloween and throws a big party every year. But basically I’m the jerk that shows up in jeans and my old batman logo t-shirt and calls that a costume.

It’s hard in the northeast! Last year we had a snowstorm a couple days before! SNOW! like 8″ of it. We had no power for five days (which would have made Halloween even more awesome were it not for the fact that I was pretty much cold, hungry, and unshowered for those five days).

So maybe I’ll use this thread for suggestions. Get me back into a Halloween costume mood after a many-year hiatus.

Thoughts on your costume: you can take any costume idea and steampunk it. Those terms to go over well, but steampunk costuming can get expensive and needs to be fairly detailed to look right. Or take a favorite literary character or film character and then, with that character in mind, go to your local thrift store and find bits and pieces that go well.

I have a bit of a costume conundrum as well. I saw a tutorial on Pinterest the other day for a peacock inspired tutu, and I got it into my head that I wanted to be a ballerina in a peacock costume for Halloween this year. After I ordered a leotard, I sort of stopped and thought, “This isn’t exactly an inspiring costume. Should I have gone with a tougher costume?” I feel like I’m a bad feminist now. :P

You can thrift steampunk if you know what to look for. Mostly you want clothes that have a distinctive shaping to them. All the military style women’s clothes from last winter were great, and sometimes you can find some workable items at the Army Surplus store like leather ammo pouches, or old officer hats. An under bust vest will give a similar appearance to a corset. An escutcheon or fleur de lis charm, some ribbon and a pinback will make a fake medal. If it’s only for one night at a party, no one will notice if you have a cheep hat or plastic goggles. (I do too much steampunk costuming I think)

My two big vacations of the year are World Steam Expo and TeslaCon. I shimmy a lot of my clothes into steampunk costumes. Linnen dress slacks? Great. Bias cut plaid skirt for wearing to the office? Pack that too. Blouse with a mandarin collar and lots of pin tucks on the front? Get in the bag. My only big splurges were my corsets and my goggles.

Nice! Theoretically, I could probably make my own corset for costuming purposes, but I don’t think I’m patient or talented enough to make a nice one, so I’m saving up to buy one from someone who is. Corsets are so expensive! The giggles I have are ones I nabbed from a Quidditch accessories set that I painted a nice bronze and glued some trinkets to so that it looks more steampunk.

I was always rather fond of the Dracula-type costumes since cloak = warmth, which, when being outside in the dark at the end of October is a precious thing. On the cloak them, there’s also Harry Potter (or other HP character) and the Grim Reaper, too. If, for some reason, I end up having to dress up this year, it will be as a witch because I have a gorgeous black dress that I’ve been looking for an excuse to wear.

This year’s costume has been a bit of an issue for me because I keep getting vetoed. Apparently, my pop culture references are just a bit too out there for my med school friends. I was going to go as the 10th Doctor because I have an awesome blue suit and red converse already (yes, I’m cheap), but they didn’t know who he is. I still don’t understand this. Then I said I was going to be Daria, but apparently that’s not a costume for me, thanks Mom. Now, I’m super excited. I’m going as Harley Quinn and my best friend is dressing up as Poison Ivy. We’re going to have a super awesome time! :D

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