197) Costume Observations

(Photo from Trendhunter.)

As a nod towards Halloween, here are some observations on what makes a good/popular costume.

1) Cultural relevance, current or classic - This one's pretty obvious. Persona in pop culture, politics and other news get picked up as Halloween costumes due to their timeliness or timelessness. Examples seen this year - Current: Snooki and The Situation, Christine O'Donnell (she served that one up on a silver platter with her "I'm not a witch" ad), Chilean miners. Classic: Tom Cruise in Risky Business (white button down, underwear, black shades, socks), any Star Wars character, Marilyn Monroe.

2) Immediately recognizable to the masses - This ties into #1, since relevance usually equals recognizability. However, what some consider relevant may be obscure to others. For a while I thought it'd be funny to be Russell Brand, but two out of the four people I ran the idea by didn't know who I was talking about. In this sense, recognizability is a good measure for mass relevance. The one exception to this rule are the costumes discussed in #3.

3) Clever - These are the riddle costumes that take a little bit of thinking and piecing together. The best ones have a satisfying A-HA moment. Examples seen this year: Freudian slip (a slip with Freudian written on it), a nudist on strike (normal clothes with a sign around your neck that says, "Nudist on Strike").

4) Slutty - The writers of Mean Girls nailed it - "Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it." I've been thinking about why this is the case. Why every mass produced female Halloween costume sold in a bag is slutty (not just cutesy, just plain slutty), even costumes that aren't at all slutty in real life (see: slutty nun).

At the core, Halloween is about being someone else for a night, letting your inner freak flag fly, as they say. In some ways, it can be a little aspirational. Deep down (and sometimes not so deep down), women want to feel sexy, noticed, simultaneously liberated and objectified from time to time (a biological thing? tied to the desire to be seen as an eligible mate?). Halloween simply provides a judgment-free environment in which to do so. Is my theory.

5) Couple and/or group costumes - There is power in numbers. Simply put, you can dress up as anything you want if you have a few pals willing to do the same. Sticking with the group becomes imperative (example: a DNA strand made of people: cool. One lone double helix? not so much).

Happy and safe Halloween!