Get into the Halloween spirit early by pulling inspiration from your favorite pop culture characters and their style for your own outfits.
Credit: Courtesy of MCT
From the second the clock struck midnight Oct. 1, I haven’t been able to get anything Halloween-related out of my head. I’ve been watching all my favorite movies based on the holiday, eating as much candy as I can stomach and planning the costume of my dreams. But I decided I don’t want my Halloween celebrations to end there: I want to make my fashion choices revolve around this spooky day as well. I don’t mean wearing cheesy, pumpkin-covered sweaters or purple and orange striped socks, though. I mean treating every outfit I pick this month as a costume and dressing up as a new character each day. If you’re up to this challenge as well, read on to learn how to keep your costumes tame enough for everyday wear.
Become a character
If you’re at loss with how to begin, pull inspiration from one of your favorite characters in pop culture. This can be a literary character, someone from your favorite movie or even a real-life personality — the options are virtually limitless. Keep in mind that ensemble shouldn’t be an exact copy of what your chosen inspiration is wearing. That’s no fun and can easily be seen as doing too much. Simply use your own wardrobe and that wonderful creativity you possess to fashion an outfit based upon theirs. This means not even “Beetlejuice” or the “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy are off-limits, just pick a few of your favorite elements and have fun with it.
Adopt the attitude
If you’re dressing up as someone else for the day, you’re going to want to make sure you also have the attitude it will take to carry it with ease. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should be quoting lines from “The Royal Tenenbaums” just because you’re pulling inspiration from Margot Tenenbaum’s main ensemble, but rather that you add some sass and snarky remarks to your everyday vernacular just like she does. The whole point of this is to make you feel more comfortable and empowered while wearing something you wouldn’t normally wear dressed as yourself, not to make everyone around you question your sanity — so proceed with caution.
Leave your comfort zone
If you’re the type of person who loves wearing ripped jeans, band T-shirts and worn-in sneakers, you won’t look or feel any different if you choose to base your outfit around Ellen Page’s lead character in the movie “Whip It.” To really rise to this challenge, try instead to dress as someone who doesn’t reflect your everyday wardrobe choices. At the very least, you can start out with included minor elements of your chosen icon’s style, until you become comfortable enough to go for the whole shebang. For example, add pearls to your heart’s content to emulate Daisy Buchanan from “The Great Gatsby” (both book and movie versions) and when you feel up to it, throw on a drop-waist dress with matching hair wrap to give off all the flapper vibes you can muster.
Fashion is all about having fun and expressing yourself, and there’s no better way to do so than including elements of your favorite character’s style in your outfit. Get into the spirit of Halloween now, but don’t be afraid to continue getting inspired by pop culture icons in the future.
