Halloween Costume Idea '10: A&E Hoarder

The Look (L-R):

• Cat Sweater

• Cat Brooch

• Cat Tote

• Christmas Cat Brooch

(accessorize with decomposing vermin and denial)

Previous Costume Ideas: Tippi Hedren, Vintage Medium

Bad Hair of the 'Good War': Get The Look!

During WWII, supporting the Allies on the homefront meant more than merely tying a yellow ribbon around your fruit trees. It also meant purchasing bonds, conserving rubber and walking around town with Hobby Lobby birds stuck in your updo like it was no. big. deal.

Brilliant!

Pictured Above: 8-bit Halloween costume via Kindacarsick

The Way Of The Academic

Every year I challenge The Boy to dress up as Jacque Lacan's 'mirror phase' for Halloween, and every year The Boy rebuffs me by asking whether we have all the requisite parts for my infamous "Who Farted?" costume. (In case you're wondering, these parts include a can of hairspray, a boot polish kit and a t-shirt with the words 'who' and 'farted' written across it. I know. I am as embarrassed as you are, Gentle Reader.) 

Well this year I've concocted four perfect costumes for The Boy, all of which satisfy his inclination as a philosopher to dress as a concept rather than a thing each Halloween. The first such costume (pictured below) might look like reality TV star-turned-unemployed playboy Jon Gosselin, but is, in fact, 'folly' in its material form. Similarly, the costume on the top right is not, as you may have first thought, Lady Gaga, but what I suspect 'desperation' might look like were we to de-abstract it from the conceptual realm. 'Regret' looks quite a lot like John "I love the Working Class" Edwards (no big surprise there), while 'perfection' is practically the spitting image of snarktastic The Soup host Joel McHale. 

I have yet to present The Boy with these ideas, but I am secretly pulling for Desperation. The Boy has a great set of gams.

'Halloween-Around-A-Headband' (no. 2): Vintage Medium

In this, the second installment in our unanticipated series on easy DIY Halloween costumes built around 'statement' headbands, I show you how to transform yourself into a vintage medium in the throws of ectoplasmic transmission.

Pictured Above: Ectoplasmic extrusions from a variety of orifices c. 1920s

As you may already know, Gentle Reader, Patricia Arquette was not the first 'medium' to capture the cultural imaginary, and the writers of Ghostbusters did not invent ectoplasm. In fact, both of these ideas date back to the late 19th century, or what most recognize as the apex of the American Spiritualist Movement.

In this curious Victorian era phenomenon that would marry magic, religion and technology, members of the spirit world began to make themselves known to their living counterparts by way of various earthly mediums. In many instances, this medium was a camera (whose extra-sensitive 'eye' could purportedly register ghostly apparitions in ways that the human eye could not). But once word got around that such spirits were likely the result of post-productive tampering by corrupt photographers and not actual supernatural activity, the Spiritualist Movement found itself reverting back to the practice of using human mediums.

Curiously, these mediums were not simply overtaken by a spirit and made to ventriloquize his words. Rather, they actually materialized from one the medium's many orifices (e.g., mouth, ear, eye, vagina) in the form of what became known as 'ectoplasm' (but what looked more like common household staples like gauze and string). These highly orchestrated seances were populated with other believers (or, 'hucksters') and captured on film in order to 'prove' the existence of both ghosts and their communicating vessels. (And, as you might imagine, these vessels were almost always women, who were/are imagined as passive receptors fashioned exclusively for bringing life into the world. This is perhaps why we today think of women as better 'communicators' than men!)

Pictured Above: Two examples of turn-of-the-century 'spirit photography' that would soon be outmoded by photographs depicting supernatural activity during seances

To become a vintage medium, you really just need a life-giving female body, this fantastic headband and a simple old-timey black frock that won't distract from the spirit seeping out of your ear. EASY, and guaranteed to make others squeamish (if only from their embarrassment at having absolutely no knowledge of this great moment in American cultural history).

The Look (Top L - R):

Vintage Black Leather Ankle Boots via elmstreetvintage

Vintage 14K Gold Habille Shell Cameo via Thingsremembered

Vintage 1950s Forever Full Wool Party Dress via mimisgamine

Vintage 1950s Glossy Noir Purse with Ornate Gold Detailing via Huzzah!

Handmade Tulle Headband via richladyoriginals

(accessorize with some modest stockings and a lot of fraudulent acting)

For The Birds

As I probably need not tell you, Gentle Reader, Tippi Hedren is a favored costume among the five or six women nationwide who thumb their noses at the prevailing hegemon by not dressing up as harlots for Whore-O-Ween. It's a fabulous alternative and a unique option in that it permits its wearer to be at once classically-styled and grotesquely ravaged (while also giving her some degree of credibility among the intelligentsia, who, I hear, love old films).

Well, while reading the always fabulous Kingdom of Style today, I discovered that some clever fellow Etsians have blessedly made all of our Tippi costumes a whole lot easier by mounting a pair of belligerent crows on a headband. GENIUS! I, for one, will be wearing this at many inopportune moments.

The Look (Top L-R):

Handmade Hitchcock-themed Halloween Headpiece via buffalump

Vintage 1950s Nubby Green Suit via needlefelter 

Vintage Box Purse via mannequinreject

Vintage Dark Brown Alligator Pumps via savagespider

(accessorize with a tousled blond wig, some fake blood and a touch of magical realism)

Still Need A Halloween Costume?

If so, perhaps you could go as the new Chloé collection? It would be a great 'concept' costume; when people inquire about the inspiration behind your homeless person getup, you could laugh condescendingly and reply, "DAHLING, I'm the Chloé Spring 2010 ready-to-wear collection! OBVI."

Pictured Above: Post-apocalyptic androgyny with a touch of 'crazy'