By Reagan Russell
Despite protests from my dad about how I’m “an adult and too old for Halloween”, I have always taken this holiday very seriously. However, planning for Halloween as a twenty-year-old is much more stressful than it was when I was nine. Halloweekend, requiring three separate, original, funny yet still fashionable and quirky costumes, is seemingly impossible. Add a student budget on top of this, and I’m just re-wearing costumes I wore in high school but maybe with a cuter top.
When picking a costume, you do not want to match with half the people in the Gait. While not a unique costume by any means, accidentally matching with the entire men’s rugby team as a pirate was not my plan a few Halloweekends ago. Certain costumes, like pirates, firefighters and witches, are classics and easy to shop for, but very popular, and force me to try to be more creative.
Graphic courtesy of Gabrielle Lalonde
However, the fine line between an original costume and something too niche for people to understand is one I am afraid to walk on. Nobody wants to have to explain their costume all night, or spend hours thrifting, scouring Amazon or borrowing from friends just to assemble a costume that people may understand. One Bishop’s student claims, “I think a lot of girls get judged for not having a creative costume”, but the reasons for having a “basic” one are pretty understandable.
Women in particular have a hard time planning. Commercially available Halloween costumes from Amazon and Spirit Halloween are typically “Five Oh Cutie” or “Handcuff Hottie” for women’s police costumes for example. If that is less your thing, or you’re not prepared for a potentially chilly walk to the Lion, you are confined to your Pinterest board.
Planning group costumes can be even more of a nightmare. Trying to coordinate who is going to be which guy from “The Hangover”, especially when someone in the group hasn’t even seen the movie, makes for a difficult time. Someone may want to match on Thursday night, but the rest of the group may only be going out on Friday and Saturday. To make matters worse, if you are half of a costume and hanging out with other people during the weekend, you may just look like you didn’t even dress up or couldn’t get someone to match with you.
When has a traditionally popular costume run its course and is no longer a cool costume? What if it snows on Halloween? What is a socially acceptable budget for planning Halloween costumes? One student claims, “there are many different themed nights at the Gait… there isn’t a financial constraint on having three costumes”, assuming you’re going full out for each Gait night. These are my concerns when planning for Halloween every year, and most years, I resort to a few tried and true staples.
This year, I am trying to get myself out of my comfort zone a bit more. Yes, one of my costumes is fairly standard, but at least there’s a pun involved this time. Worst comes to worst, we’ll just pretend the pun wasn’t involved as I blend in with the other numerous witches this year.
