A History of Halloween Costumes

Halloween began hundreds of years ago, under Celtic civilisation where communities would dress up in costumes in order to ward off the spirits of the dead. Much has changed since then whether it be  the alteration of turnip carving to pumpkin carving or the introduction of  Trick or Treating, Halloween is but a shadow of what it once was. But there is an ongoing tradition that has been passed from the Celtic festival and yet has changed significantly over the past hundreds of years, that of the Halloween costume. 

Of course it is not surprising that we have come away from the costumes the Celts would have worn during their celebration. Indeed,  in tradition one would have worn animal heads and skins as opposed to the synthetic costumes we wear now. This is all but certainly down to the fact that we view Halloween differently to how the Celts viewed it. Where as we see Halloween simply as a commercial holiday the Celts may have viewed the animal dress as necessary to ward of the undead. Furthermore, it is also because of a development in technology, resources and general customs that we would now not choose to wear animal carcasses as our attire. 

However perhaps what is more interesting is not the development from animal hide to synthetic costume but the development of costumes over the past few decades or so. Whilst Halloween was not particularly popular in the UK In the 80's it was in the USA. This allows insight into how deeply halloween costumes have changed. In the 80's halloween was largely reserved for kids, as such many of the costumes one would see on adults would be that of the traditional Universal Horror movie characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein or the Wolf-Man, costumes reminiscent of characters found in folk law and classic literature  from the 1800's. Most costumes which strayed from this formula were exclusively made for children. Indeed, you would still come across pop-culture based costumes, such as a ghostbuster or Batman but only in the forms of mass-produced halloween costumes with little thought put into the design or the quickly put together costumes by an over-worked mother who had little resources to create anything wonderful. Children did not care for the costumes details, just that they were recognisable as their movie hero. 

Yet, whilst these forms of somewhat traditional costumes remain, Halloween costumes have advanced greatly to what they are today. Today it is unremarkable to scroll through social media or go to a bar on Halloween and not see the majority of adults dressed up. Some do of course maintain the more traditional approach and dress as a sexy vampire or simply just purchase the first costume they see at their local party store. However, adult costumes or costumes in general have become far more creative and spectacular over the past decade. This can be putdown to two things Cosplay and the internet. 

For those who do not know what Cosplay is, its a form of 'fancy dress' in which people dress like a character from a piece of media they enjoy, whether a comic book, a movie, a game or a TV series. Perhaps, this doesn't seem too dissimilar from that of a child dressing as a Ghost Buster in the 80's, yet it is greatly so. Cosplayers often spend months  as well as hundreds or sometimes thousands of pounds making a costume which is both spectacular and accurate to the character they wish to portray. Many of these costumes can be seen as of an equivalent quality to costumes found in multi-million dollar films. Cosplayers put so much effort into these costumes due to their general passion towards their craft or their favourite character, they also sometimes create these costumes to enter competitions or build a career. It is from this surge of Cosplayers and media accurate costumes that Halloween costumes too have had to become more spectacular. Whilst many Halloween costumers would not dress up for conventions as Cosplayers do with the social media presence of professional costumers many have become more determined to create bigger and better halloween costumes. Furthermore, Cosplayers have normalised   adult 'fancy dress' which not only makes the general public more confident to dress up in a spooky costume where they may not have done so before but it has also allowed for prosthetics and other costume essential to become more easily available. Indeed, Cosplay has seemingly revolutionised the halloween costume by not only making it more popular in adult circles but through making many want to create more so realistic and wondrous costumes. 

The internet in general has also revolutionised the halloween costume. This is not simply in the sense that people have more access to viewing professional cosplay and other amazing costumes at their general leisure but in that it has created a new realm of costume making. That is the 'meme' or joke costume. Indeed there has, in the last decade alone, been a giant increase in people who make an effort for halloween by not making an effort. They come dressed as regular people who are perhaps a stereotype or  different from themselves such as a 'Film Student' (which was my friends Adam's costume of choice this year - pictured below) or a 'Grocery worker'. They also come dressed as puns, some choosing to dress as a ceiling fan (also pictured below). Whilst others dress as a mutual real life fear we all may have, 'student debt' or the 'taxman', perhaps scarier than any fake monster we could dress as. Finally many also dress as memes such as cold Bernie Sanders or Butter dog. None of these costumes require thousands of pounds or hours of work to make but are extremely effective and produce humour in what is meant to be a horror filled night. This upsurge in humorous or everyday costumes can be put down to social media sites as many have become more aware that these not so scary halloween costumes are available to them. The general growth of Ironic humour which we see in places such as twitter can also be to blame. In general Halloween costumes have developed greatly not simply just from the animal skins of Celtic tradition but that of the 80's Halloween costumes as there is now such a great emphasis on adults producing spectacular costumes or costumes which have an ironic or humours air to them.