Mine was from childhood. I dressed as the King of Hearts, with a sandwich board. Just like the character in the movie Alice In Wonderland.
My wifes Supergirl outfit from two years ago was pretty sweet.
And one year I was Douglas MacArthur, with the sunglasses, lots of stars on my hat and epaulets, and the long pipe.
The costume didn’t wear well, though, as I kept having to remove the glasses in the dark, and the pipe was too clumsy to keep clenched all the time. So people thought I was a generic soldier.
I like gonig as a zombie. It’s really easy if you don’t mind wearing makeup. The costume can just be old clothes, a bit ratty and torn, with some dirt on them. For the face, get liqud latex and apply a thin layer to your face, being careful to keep it out of your eyes, nose, and hair. When the latex dries, put makeup on your face to blend in all in, pale green works well, and shadow the hell out of your cheeks and eyes for the gaunt, sunken-in look. Then peel the latex in spots to make it look likt the skin is falling off. Where your real skin is showing, put some dark red makeup so it looks like muscle underneath.
Looks cool as hell for how easy it really is. I should post some pix.
My favorite costume of all time was freshman year in college when I had to go help run the haunted house the university put on for the local kids (I go to school in not the best area of DC).
However, since I was poor and had procrastinated, I decided to go as a mummy. Basically, I had some friends wrap me in toilet paper from head to toe several times over and tape it together every once in a while.
I looked like an idiot and it fell apart inside of an hour. But still, I look back on it with fond memories. Good stuff.
I’ve always liked the “Black Ghost” costume (a la Gary Larson). Unfortunately I’m not a party guy so I never got t try it out.
For my youth I was always Sheik Yabutti dressed up as an Arab. It was my dad’s idea and I didn’t find out till recently that this was a Frank Zappa song.
Is that the same as the “Invisible Pedestrian”? That’s what I was the last time I dressed up. Got it from a 1970s episode of Saturday Night Live with Dan Akroyd and Jane Curtin, where Dan is selling horrible children costumes and one of them is the Invisible Pedestrian. Mine consisted of a black cap, black jacket, black t-shirt, black pants, and black shoes. It was simple and it made people laugh, and that was good enough for me.
Not to brag, but more often than not I come up with some pretty cool costumes. My masterpiece was Edward Scissorhands. While the wig and face powder and clothing was not a problem, I ran into a snag with the actual gloves. I ended up breaking apart several pairs of scissors and taping them to a pair of black gloves, and wrapping black electrical tape around them to cover the sharp edges.
Last year I was Tony Clifton from “Man on the Moon”; before that I managed to look exactly like Ozzy Osbourne.
Another personal favorite was ten years ago I dressed as Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan, complete with pillows in an Eagle sweatshirt, headphones, and big thick glasses.
The absolute best costume I ever made for my son was the Merlin costume I made for him last year. To start I died a bedsheet royal purple and made him an ankle length tunic. I stenciled on moons and stars in random patterns with gold and silver metallic spray paint. I made the stencils from a manila folder.
I made him an ankle length cape from black satin with gold lame lining. I stenciled silver moons and stars to the lining, and gold moons and stars on the black satin outside. The cape should have been purple also, but the black and gold looked too cool. I put some elastic loops on the inside of the cape that went around his wrists so every time he moved his arms, the cape followed. The cape was very full and flowing…the bottom hem was 4 yards long.
Of course he had the conical hat (made from poster board and scraps from the purple bedsheet and gold lame cape lining) and long flowing gray hair and beard.
The best part of the costume was the staff. We painted a length of 1" doweling gold and with a clear 3" super ball that has a tarantula embedded in it, some cannabalized parts from an old candle holder, lots of glue and more spraypaint later we managed to create what looked like
a crystal ball encased in metal filigree (sp?) on the end of the staff.
Another great thing about the costume is that he wants to wear it again this year.
One year I dressed all in black – leggings, turtleneck, thigh high boots – added a hat with ball fringe, a domino mask and a serape, and finished it off with a pair of black and green iridescent wings.
I was a Spanish Fly.
When I was in junior high and REALLY into Phantom of the Opera, my mom made me the complete Christine outfit from the “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” scene to wear on Halloween. Cloak, dress, the works. And that’s a gorgeous dress. I can still wear it if I feel like it, and it makes a nice pseudo-turn-of-the-century costume piece (It’s certainly not authentic, but it fools the public )
I love my mom for lots of reasons, but her making that outfit plays heavily into the equation. Now that I sew more, I can hardly imagine how difficult it must have been to eyeball the pattern from having seen the show once and using a few pictures as reference.
The year that all those poor tourists were getting whacked in Florida, I went as a German Tourist in Florida.
I wore a black turtleneck and shorts, black socks underneath sandals, a camera around my neck, a mickay mouse beanie, and a temporary tattoo-thing of a bullet hole going into my face. With fake blood coming out.
Tasteless? Sure. But I liked it.
Other good ones I’ve liked on others:
The Tegrin Guy: Wear a bathtowel around the waist, and put two different colors of shaving cream on head to look like “Shampoo”, with a fingerline drawn down the middle.
A Christmas Tree: Green sweats, Star on head, strings of Christmas lights stapled all over outfit. Long enough cord left dangling that he could actually “Plug himself in” when he was standing or dancing. It was a riot.
One year I was a Coke can… I won best costume in a contest at school
A Monty Python Gumby: So good and popular that my high school group photo of the Seniors contains me as a Gumby
Good group one: We went as the Reservoir Dogs: A group of us in identical suits with “HI MY NAME IS Mr White, Mr Blonde, etc” name tags and blood soaked shirts.
Last year I went as a Fairy Bitch Mother. Black bodysuit and tutu, combat boots, gauzy bat wings, and a riding crop. Evil Vixen Temptress makeup and big ratted hair. And I gave people not what they wished for, but what they damn well deserved. God, it was fun.
My favorite costume is the one I wore when I was a Junior in High School. I was a french maid. I had the fishnet stockings, high heels, apron, wrist cuffs, lace choker, and hair band and this short black mini dress which was off the shoulder and had the lacy stuff underneath the skirt part and kind of ballooned out. It looked really good. I wore it to a costume party at the bar and then to a house party. I would’ve won best costume at the bar but a couple of strippers showed up at the last minute with pasties and thongs and I lost out. The bitches! It was still a really neat costume.
I went as a Huggie (those squishy things you put around soft drink cans to keep them cold) using my squishy exercise mat wrapped around me and held up with a pair of rope suspenders. I cut out felt letters and wrote, “I’d rather be fishing.” on the outside.
My friend came as “Waldo” (of “Where’s Waldo?” fame) one year and it was hysterical. She wore a red-striped rugby shirt, jeans, white gloves and then she took a big pair of sunglasses and painted the lenses with White Out. She scratched out a tiny hole in the middle, to look like his eyes. She topped it off with a knit cap. It was hysterical.
Tacky prom-type or bridesmaid dress with all kinds of stuff randomly sewn on: ticket stubs, wine corks, office stuff like paper clips & post-its, receipts, small kitchen gadgets, etc. Tiara made from a bent wire hanger. White satin sash declaring me Miss Elaneous.
Once you get started with this “mis” concept, there are tons of related ideas.
Last year I dressed up as Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. I had a black dress, black shoes, and black opera gloves. I got my hair done up and it was all prettyful and I had a cute little crystal tiara and pearls. And the best part was the long [fake] cigarette holder that I made out of a wooden dowel which I painted. Sadly, I did not win the best costume at the dance I went to, partly because the judges were un-cultured morons who had never heard of the movie and only had a vague idea of who Audrey Hepburn was. I still had lots of fun though.
My favorite might be this year’s as I am going as myself (Miss Creant) but I can’t reveal until after OhDope
Two years ago, I went as the “Jewish American Princess”
The guy who was threw the party insisted that I come as a superhero.
I wore a glittery kind of dress with a sash with Jewish American Princess, Lee Press On Nails,fake eyelashes, a tiara, some big fake jewlery and my weapon of choices was to whine criminals into submission. I also painted an old phone card with gold paint, and used it as my magic credit card that I could use to charge criminals into something nice from Bloomies.
If you grew up any where near the North Shore of
Chicago this should make total sense
(and yes, I’m Jewish)