Don’t be a Halloweenie
Few things are more irritating than the guy who shows up at Halloween costume parties dressed as “himself.” And if (like me) you’re attending the sold-out Mystery Ball at the Bay Area’s Headlands Center for the Arts this weekend, there’s no excuse for not dressing up. Not feeling the standard store-bought fare (boring!)? Consider these off-the-wall DIY ideas:
Lite Brite
INGREDIENTS: Cardboard box, paint or construction paper (in black and white), Christmas lights, portable power supply, string
Get lit with this throwback to decades past. Paint a cardboard box white (or cover it with white paper). Paint or cover the front of the box black and use a pencil to draw out a grid. Push Christmas through the “screen” from the inside to form a message or a pattern, switching the bulbs to change the colors. Step inside, and secure the costume with a shoulder harness made from string tied to the box edges. Encourage others to play along.
Freudian Slip
INGREDIENTS: Slip, felt-tip pen
Beat down the hordes of low-brow werewolfs and mummies with this painfully punny costume and the flagrant display or wit. Inscribe a secondhand slip with your favorite Freudisms; “Where id was, there shall ego be,” “At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father,” and “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar,” are a good start. Psychoanalysis was never this much fun! Optional accessories: fake moustache, cigar, and masking tape (for labeling others). Thanks to Jesse Hock for the idea!
Waldo
INGREDIENTS: Come on. You’ve found him, like, a hundred times.
Nothing beats inciting choruses of “I found him!” from the scores of childhood friends you never knew you had. Click over to mobofwaldos.com for tips and patterns, and finish the look with a sampling of items from Waldo’s rotating stash of accessories: spectacles, a stocking cap, a scuba mask, a backpack, a shovel, a cup, and a cane.
Skanky the Road Kill Possum
INGREDIENTS: Short furry dress, tire, pink swimming pool noodle, paper mâché possum head
You know the routine (and if you don’t, add Mean Girls to your Netflix queue). Every Halloween, thousands of ladies turn to the tried-and-true formula of benign-costume-gone-sexy. Sexy nurse. Sexy cowgirl. Sexy cat. ReadyMade’s own Mike Senese (who did the sketches pictured at left) and Alex Sheehan (who plans to wear the costume) are turning the skank parade paradigm on its head with provocative possum couture. “I’m taking the inherently non-slutty and making it naughty and awkward” Alex says. The finished ensemble will include a fuzzy fur dress (complete with tire tracks!), a prehensile pool-toy tail, and a paper mâché possum hat with blinking red LED eyes. Scary.
The RIAA
INGREDIENTS: briefcase, business suit, law-suit
Combat the inevitable flood of pirates and pretend pop stars this Halloween by dressing as something really scary: the inexorable strongarm of the RIAA. This simple costume requires only a business suit and briefcase filled with legal documents to dispatch at mutinous miscreants. You just got served!
Bubble Wrap Jellyfish
Bumbershoot Bat
Last but not least—and with a tip of the hat to our current Macgyver Challenge—here are two costumes that put old umbrellas to work: a Jellyfish and a Bat.
Happy Halloween!
