The Halloween Costume That Could...
...just work. Good ideas come to me daily as mid-October approaches. I have every intention of visiting the craft store, but somehow never get around to it. At the end of a day's work, sitting on my couch is always more alluring than battling fabric, duct tape and agitated wannabe witches on the checkout line. I suspect that I will end up where many of us find ourselves the day before Halloween: invited to a costume party with no costume, scrambling to create a last-minute get-up.
Here are a few last-minute costumes to get you out of just this predicament:
Cockroach
Other than a bedbug, what could be scarier to apartment dwellers like myself? Sure, you could go for bedbug, but you'll likely encounter tears and stories of great tragedy instead of tequila shots. To make this costume, just conjure up a cardboard box, tape, a headband, safety pins and a brown non-toxic marker. Draw and cut the wings out of the cardboard and safety pin them to the black or brown t-shirt of your choice. Create additional legs and safety pin them to your clothing. Cut out a pair of antennas and duct tape them to your headband. Lastly draw two brown marks on your cheeks so that people understand that you're really going for it.
A Glitter Bomb
Normally there is nothing more annoying than glitter. But Halloween is the perfect time to indulge in the sparkly substance. Glitter bombing—primarily conducted by non-violent activists and drunk girls wearing obscene hats at bachelorette parties—is when you run up to someone and dump a ton of glitter on their heads. For this costume, dress up in all red , perhaps using a red shirt you no longer care about. Write a random countdown time onto your shirt. Find a piece of rope and artfully place this somewhere on your body—this will be your fuse. Buy a ton of red glitter and sporadically cover yourself in it. Finally, create a small pouch to carry around a bunch of red glitter. This way you can literally glitter bomb your friends. Though this costume will probably cause your friends to laugh at your inner-prankster, you'll also ensure that everyone around you has to take a nice long hangover shower the next day.
Kim Kardashian
Friends are going to snap your photo all night, so why not dress up as everyone's favorite celebutante? Then you can pretend the flashing cameras are the paparazzi documenting your night of fame. Take this occasion to wear that sequined super-tight tube dress you bought for New Year's Eve but never wore. Stuff your tights with extra padding around the bum to resemble her famous derriere. Find some fake jewels and a black wig, and coat on the bronzer and eyeliner. With enough photos of you posted on Facebook, you may just land your own reality show by the end of the night.
Sexy-Whatever
Creating the Sexy-Whatever is like playing a game. Come home after work, pour yourself a drink and look around your home. Find the very least sexy thing you can. Is it a spatula, a shower curtain or a box of tampons? Now go into your closet (or if you're a guy, the closet of a girl you know) and pick out the most scandalous outfit. This should be something you'd never be caught dead wearing in public... stripper heels and ruby red lipstick, for example. Now somehow connect the two. The spatula can be a dangling necklace. The shower curtain can be a cape. And the tampons can be duct taped onto your outfit. Now you have a sexy costume full of dichotomy and humor.
Maude Standish is a writer who lives in a tiny coach house in Brooklyn. She is currently working on a screenplay and blogs daily about trends at The (t) Files.
