A decade of my Halloween costumes and their archetypes
It's the night you get to animate different facets of your personality.
Some people hate Halloween. What they don’t understand is that Halloween is a time to metamorphosis into another part of your persona: to allow something else to take over your body for a night. Each of us a multitude. None of us is all good or all bad.
When I was young, dressing up was my favorite pastime. My mom let us play dress up with her wedding dress and long dresses that she sewed in college.
In my first memory of Halloween, I’m four years old. In a last minute effort, I don one of my mom’s long skirts as a dress, we pin on straps to hold it over my little shoulders and I go door to door as a princess. This DIY approach to costumes starts early.
We win a Halloween contest as a family when I’m 10 and dressed as Cleopatra. I get a taste of winning, and chase that feeling again and again, winning for several of the costumes below.
Here’s some of my best handcrafted costumes from the last decade.
The Shadow
Maleficent
Costume Archetype: Victim to villain to mother
She plays the villain the Sleeping Beauty tale, but the Maleficent film from 2014 show her backstory. Maleficent is betrayed by her former lover who cuts off her wings. When his daughter is born, she seeks revenge on him by putting a curse on the baby that on her 16th birthday she’ll prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep, only to be broken by true love’s kiss.
The year the Angelina Jolie Maleficent film came out, I was dead set on building this headdress from scratch. I started by deconstructing wire hangers into a horn shape, filled them with tinfoil, applied paper machier, then glued on long strips of leather. The green eye contacts and sharp cheekbone contouring brought the look home. My first Best Costume prize at Zulily!
Bride of Frankenstein
Costume Archetype: A veritable Eve, created as mate, rejects her arranged marriage to a literal monster.
When it comes down to it, a wig and makeup can sell a costume. Put on a white dress and there will be no question who you are. Did you know the iconic wig was modeled off of Nefertiti’s headpiece?
This can be a spooktacular couple’s costume if your partner goes as Frankenstein!
Medusa
Costume Archetype: The punishment of the male gaze.
In the myth of Medusa, she is a beautiful human woman who is sexually assaulted by the gods, and has a curse put upon her. With her head of snakes, anyone who looks upon her turns to stone — even after her death.
It doesn’t really matter what you wear if you have a quality headdress. Medusa was a bucket list costume and I contemplated for years how to make a headdress light enough to wear on my head all night. Rubber snakes were too heavy and spendy.
In the end, I constructed ~100 snakes from mesh tubing of different widths and coiled them around a high gauge jewelry wire to give them shape, affixing them to a wig cap.
The white eye contacts took my costume into the 11’s! (Word to the wise, I don’t recommend driving in color costumes.) I went home with Best Costume, thankyouverymuch.
Dead Matador
Costume Archetype: Fighter haunted to replay the sins of life in death.
A matador’s personal style is as important as whether or not he kills the bull. Spanish-style bull-fighting is considered part sport, part art form1, and originates back to the 711 AD in Spain. They are said to be inspired from the Gladiator games of the Roman Empire. When you get in the ring with a 1300 lb. bull, occasionally the bull wins.
This jacket was embroidered while I binge watched seasons of Game of Thrones. I took a sequin bolero cropped jacket, then hand stitched gold appliqué onto it with custom shoulder pads with tassels and strips of tassels for the sleeve.
I was angling for best costume this year, and knew there was stiff competition, so a Matador wouldn’t be quite enough to win. Combining the costume with Day of the Dead makeup and Swarovski crystals on my lips, I won best costume. By one point!!
The Light
Lucky Cat
Costume Archetype: Wisdom and abundance
No doubt you’ve seen the waving little cat figurines in Asian restaurants and shops. They originate from Japan and are beckoning visitors into their establishments.
According to Lucky Cat: He Brings You Good Luck by Laurel Wellman, lucky beckoning cat figurines originated in Edo period (1603 — 1868) Japan. The most common origin legend involves a samurai who was beckoned inside a temple by a mysterious cat. As soon as he stepped inside, lighting struck the spot he was standing.2
Why be a basic cat when you can be a Lucky Cat? It’s so creative! I ordered green feline eye contacts that, somewhat unluckily, arrived the night after my Lucky Cat debut! Alas.
Jellyfish
Costume Archetype: Luminous and poisonous
Jellyfish are mainly free-swimming marine animals with umbrella-shaped bells and trailing tentacles... The bell can pulsate to provide propulsion for highly efficient locomotion. The tentacles are armed with stinging cells and may be used to capture prey and defend against predators. Jellyfish have a complex life cycle. The medusa is normally the sexual phase.3
This costume was originally housed under an umbrella, though it was cumbersome moving through party spaces. I transitioned the umbrella into a headdress, with handmade ribbon and chiffon tendrils and lights cascading down.
White Swan
Costume Archetype: Transformation and Romance
In Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake, a young prince falls in love with Princess Odette who is turned into a swan every night by an evil sorcerer, then resumes her human form by day.4
In 2019, I planned to make the iconic swan dress5 that Bjork wore to the Grammys in 2001. I ran out of time so switched to White Swan at the last minute. My ballet-dancing sister-in-law was Black Swan so it couldn't have worked out better!
The Characters
Carmen Miranda
Costume Archetype: Technicolor caricature
In 1939, Brazilian star Carmen Miranda came on the scene in Manhattan and become an overnight sensation in America. Known for her tutti-frutti hats, ruffles and larger than life personality, Carmen Miranda brought samba to the states and was the embodiment of female sensuality.
In building this costume, real fruit would weigh too much for a headdress, so I found 3D paper fruit print-out’s online. I color printed the designs, meticulously folded the 3D fruit and affixed them with a glue gun to my favorite turban. Then I layered a bunch of necklaces and bracelets, borrowed some maracas and Chiquita Banana!
Betty Boop
Costume Archetype: Baby-faced flapper vamp
The cartoon Betty Boop was a flapper and a famous sex symbol in the 1930s. Before Disney released its Snow White and the Seven Dawrfs animated film, Betty Boop was the star in a rendition by Fleischer Studios in 1933.
Portland has an incredible thrift shop called Red Light which is where I thrifted this vintage dress. It had Betty Boop written all over it! If your hair is short enough to curl, go for it, otherwise invest in short and curly wig. I drew on little curls to my forehead with black eyeliner. Hello false eyelashes!
Bad Sandy from Grease
Costume Archetype: Good girl turned bad girl, embraces her shadow
Good girl has summer fling with bad boy, says a teary farewell at summer’s end, coincidentally finds herself at boy’s high school in the fall, is rejected by bad boy, ridiculed by cool girls, falls into a depression, gets in touch with her shadow, undergoes a hot makeover, gets the guy and her life becomes a musical.
I wore my high waisted Spanx, a leather jacket, and an off the shoulder Reformation top, then bummed a cigarette and donned a wig.
Maybe blondes do have more fun.
The Polygamists
Costume Archetype: Forced non-attachment
In the 1800s, Mormon church leader Joseph Smith received personal revelation from God that he should marry multiple wives. His first wife, Emma, was in staunch opposition to this, even as some of her acquaintances married him in secret.6
If you want a simple group costume and have a surplus of women in your friend group, I highly recommend the polygamist costume. It doesn’t require much: minimal makeup, high necklines, long skirts, (as little skin as possible) and simple braids.
This felt rather tongue in cheek coming from my Mormon upbringing!
Wishing you a Happy Halloween! 🎃👻
Do you have a favorite? Feel free to comment below and to give it a heart if you enjoyed the post. If you dressed up this year, I’d love to hear about your costume and the part of your personality you embodied!
