Article by Rachel Minkovitz ’19
Happy Halloween, Bobcats! I hope you all had a safe and fun holiday with lots of candy. If your weekend looked like mine, you went to a couple of Halloween-themed festivities and saw a lot of different costumes. If your weekend looked like mine, you also probably realized on Friday afternoon that you needed to find a costume ASAP and then hunted for last-minute DIY Halloween costume ideas on Pinterest and Google. I saw some awesome costumes this year and decided to compile a list that may help you (and me) with ideas for next Halloween.
One of the cleverest costumes from Halloween this year, in my opinion, was a pun- a mobster. It’s probably not what you’re thinking it is—this was no ordinary old-timey member of a gang. This mobster was, instead, a cross between a mom and a lobster. I thought it was great, which comes as no surprise since I’m always seaking out good puns (seeking, seaking? No? Just me? I might need to coral in my puns).
One group went as the different mascots for popular cereals- Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes, Toucan Sam for Froot Loops, Lucky the Leprechaun for Lucky Charms, the Trix Rabbit, and Buzz the Bee for Honey Nut Cheerios. I loved this group costume because it was cute, recognizable, and looked super comfortable, which is a must-have, whether you’re going trick-or-treating, partying, or just relaxing and having a chill night.
Another fun group costume involving a twist on the ever-popular animal costume came in the form of some party animals. The group added party hats to pairs of leopard-print fuzzy cat ears and voila! Party animals present and prepared to be, well, party animals. While this group chose to stick with a cat theme, it would also look cute with a bunch of different animals. Regardless of the animal you choose, this is a fun way to jazz up the standard animal costume.
If you’re more in the mood for a film or musical reference as a Halloween costume, you could go with a classic, as one group did: Grease! Half of the group wore the cool-kid leather look of the T-Birds, one rocked Sandy- and Olivia Newton-John’s famous all-black outfit, complete with red heels, and the other half channeled the Pink Ladies with powder pink jackets and neck scarves. It looked good and was a perfect costume for spending the night dancing with friends.
This year, I ended up going as Rosie the Riveter, and I wasn’t the only one! With all of the accomplishments being made by women this year, I decided to dress up as an iconic feminist figure. Plus, I already had all of the elements of the costume: a blue button-down shirt, jeans, and a bandana.
Of course, these aren’t the only costumes I saw and appreciated, but they’re some of the ones that I thought could either be replicated easily or could get a person thinking about a similar theme. The most important thing, though, is to pick something you like and are comfortable wearing—it’s no fun if you’re constantly readjusting a heavy prop or you’re being poked by a stray piece of wire. I’ve made that mistake a few too many times and sacrificed non-itchy skin or painless flat shoes for a cute costume and to be honest, it made the night much less enjoyable. In my opinion, far better to be comfortable, even if it means wearing something that doesn’t completely match the outfit. It won’t ruin your overall look if you switch out a pair of stilettos for a pair of flat sandals or swap a thin tee with a warmer shirt, and you’ll probably have a better time that way if you don’t have sore feet or are shivering the whole time. Remember to have fun on Halloween, whatever you choose to wear. Here’s hoping that we start planning ahead of time next year!