In the modern calendar, Halloween is more rooted in fashion and popular culture than it is in the pagan traditions of All Hallows’ Eve. It’s a chance for millennials to go all out with a costume that has taken weeks of planning and says something of the zeitgeist.
Nothing speaks of the rise of Halloween more than the evolution of its costumes. Back in my childhood days, a Halloween costume consisted of one of my mum’s old sheets with two cut-out eye holes. Each year the sheet would be thrown away and after several years of repeat outfits, we ran out of old white sheets and I had to make do with being a pink, polka dot ghost. Not mine, nor Halloween’s finest moment. As the 31st October became something of an excuse for retailers to sell us more unnecessary crap, shops began to fill up with plastic pumpkin baskets and nylon witch’s hats.
Halloween parties became more popular and so the costumes became sexy, on-the-pull versions of themed go-tos, purchased from Amazon for an eye-wateringly expensive price. Witches wore tu-tu’d miniskirts and black fishnets and leotards were teamed with an array of cat/bunny/leopard ears and tails.
Natalia Vodianova as a Jeff Koons sculpture
These days, there’s nothing more basic than the sexy cat/witch outfit. And no fashion veteran worth his/her salt is dressing in anything considered basic. Halloween costumes are now a measure of how up-to-date you are with popular culture. So, 2014 was the year of Maleficent or Mystique from X-Men. In 2015 one went as Kim Kardashian on the cover of Paper Magazine and in 2016 as any character from Stranger Things. This year’s most popular costumes: Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn and Pennywise the Clown. But if you’ve been very clever and timely with your outfit, you’ll be donning a red cloak and bonnet, as Offred from The Handmaid’s Tale.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba0j3M7hgIh/?taken-by=gypspallister
In a world obsessed with pop culture, there’s nothing more important than an of-the-moment Halloween costume. And the options are endless. You could be Salt Bae, Melania Trump, Cersei Lannister, Rita Repulsa From Power Rangers, the dancing hotdog or one of Taylor Swift’s many personalities.
What’s your favourite costume from 2017? Comment below!
