Every year at my elementary school, they would have a Halloween Parade, where you'd either bring your costume or wear your costume to school. While my parents rarely dressed up, they'd often buy us a costume, and send us to school with a Ben Cooper costume in a box. When I say costume in a box, I mean quite literally a costume in a box -- the $10 box contained everything you needed to transform yourself from ages 5 and up to whatever you wanted to be that Halloween. The box contained a plastic mask of the likeness' face, and a vinyl overall which would be open in the back. You kept the weird overall thing from falling down by tying a series of fasteners in the back, and because these things had sleeves, the armholes would presumably keep the whole thing from slipping down. The overalls being made of vinyl were clearly labeled "Inflammable" with a big fire symbol on the box. Had I and my parents realized at this age "Inflammable" and "Flammable" mean exactly the same thing -- that the object can quickly catch fire or ignite, I doubt that my parents would have let me wear it, even if it was only for the few hours we spent trick or treating or in the elementary school parade.
The plastic mask which came with the costume were terrible, but as kids we loved them for their ability to quickly transform us into someone we were not. The plastic that sometimes cut into our faces as we pulled the mask up or down, and the constant reattaching of the elastic that held the mask to our faces were little inconveniences, but by Thanksgiving, usually the mask was destroyed by that point, and it'd be another year before we got more masks.
As children, we were suckered in by the masks -- they did really look like the character we wanted to be for Halloween, but the overalls were terrible -- most times they'd just have the logo of the licensed property emblazoned across the chest along with a picture of the person you were supposed to be -- to make it easier for adults to say "Oh my, what a cute (fill in the blank) you are!" when they open the door to hand out candy. Sometimes this led to rather embarrassing situations, such as when some old lady would open the door see the "Star Wars" logo across your chest and say "What a nice Star Wars you are!" instead of identifying you as Luke Skywalker.
Which leads me to the present day -- I don't really buy my own costumes anymore -- I make my own costumes, usually with things that I can get year round, or with items of clothing that already exist in my closet. I may pick up a few items here or there to help accentuate the costume, but on the whole, the goal is to keep it cheap (but still look good). I've had some rather elaborate costumes in the past -- an Incredible, Anakin Skywalker and Batman, but this year, I opted for something simpler. In fact, the only thing this costume cost me was eyeliner and a pencil sharpener, as I had the jeans and shirt.
Leave a comment