Costume Chronicles, Volume 1

I'm going to publish a bunch of the fantastic costume contest stories in multiple posts today, because they're hilarious, and really, who does work on Friday? Later tonight I will announce the winner of the $100 ModCloth gift certificate! Hopefully these will make you guys laugh as hard as I did, and provide some inspiration to the undecideds out there. Feel free to comment on your favorites--everyone appreciates some creative costume validation! Thanks so much to everyone who sent me a story. As always, you guys rock!

In no particular order, we begin:

My favorite costume to date happened last year. I was the iPod Shadow Dancer. I have never had so much fun dressing up. Granted I did have to wear leggings as pants (please do not shun me.) My friend Jessica painted my face for me and even had to put a little paint in my ears to get the full effect, talk about intense and it was awful to clean up when I was ready to come out of the shadow. I love Halloween so much! I can't wait for it this year, I plan on dressing up as a porcelain doll and I just bought the perfect dress for it, a Betsey Johnson I picked up a Goodwill! Ek!
~Amy

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Picture this: The glamourous year of 1990. Me, a tender eight year old girl...avid Hulk Hogan fan.

I blame it on my babysitter's older brother, who was allowed to sit in the den for most of his life watching WWF. When my mom asked me what I wanted to be for Halloween, I thought the answer was an easy one. I wanted to be Hulk Hogan, motherrrrr.

I don't remember the weeks leading up to Halloween nor the progress of mine and my sister's costumes as my mom hacked away at them on her sewing machine. All I remember is laughing as my mom helped my sister into her dinky clown costume...and then crying when she held up a matching one for me.

My mom was forced to paint me as a "sad clown" that year, mainly because I'm sure she was worried neighbors would ask why her daughter had two tear-stained streaks running down her face.

Shortly after that incident I decided I'd rather be arm candy for Rick Flair. And then my parents had a whole other set of problems.

~Megan

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We don't celebrate Halloween in Australia, but I looove a good dress-up party and wanted to send you a couple of pics anyway. I recently attended an advertising industry awards night (I'm an Art Director) where the theme was pink. I dressed up as an Aussie favourite; the Iced Vo-Vo biscuit (cookie?). This biccie is one that your grandma would serve up half-stale on weekend visits; I'm sure every Australian has fond memories. They are made up of a layer of biscuit (hmmm), a layer of pink icing and a strip of jam down the middle. Coconut flakes seals the deal.

My costume is made of layers of material and wadding mashed together and run through the sewing machine and coconut is flakes of polstyrene packaging. I felt like Gretel on the night, I left a trail of flakes everywhere I went! Was totally worth looking like a tosser: I won best dressed and 5 kilos of chocolate! Yay!
~Lindsey N.

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So I think I was in grade six, and my friend Jess and I were trick-or-treating together. I don't even know what I was, I'm pretty sure I was "the Silver Queen" or something like that, with a big medieval style dress. Anyway, my friend was Pippi Longstocking. Her long blonde hair was braided and even stuck out, just like Pippi. So every house the people would say to her, "Ohh, Pippi Longstocking! That's so sweet! How did you get your hair like that, dear?!" and my friend would reply, "Fishing line and pipe cleaners.", very monotoned-like and straight forward. Almost every house we went to, it was the same question about the hair. It got to the point where instead of the usual "TRICK OR TREAAATT!", Jess would simply say "Fishing line and pipecleaners." with a bored look on her face.
~Bekah

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If you are a fan of SNL, you may remember Molly Shannon's character Mary Katherine Gallager, the spazoid Catholic school girl. Unfortunately with very little effort including a plaid skirt, white shirt with vest and white knee socks, plus dorky glasses, I looked SO MUCH like her, EVERYONE knew exactly who I was! I mean, I guess that was the goal, but I was a little scared that this is really what I look like.
~Kim

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Sexy Halloween outfits are a COP OUT. Last year at my friend's party there was a sexy cat, sexy policewoman, sexy angel, sexy devil...sensing a theme? I decided to break the mould and go as some sort of a dead Edwardian groom. I sort of ended up looking like a cross between King Charles the Third and Captain Hook. Full length leggings, long mans shoes, enormous white shirt stained with blood, mans red waistcoat, black hat and long curly brown hair. My makeup was the most extreme part of the outfit- whilst everyone else had put on a little more eyeliner than usual, I was truly dedicated to my cause: with proper goth foundation and black shading, I did look dead.

Proof of the extremes of my outfit can be found in the comment I got halfway through the party. A group of guys and girls had been sitting looking at me and whispering for a while, then finally one guy came up to me. "Umm...are you a guy or a girl?"

I decided to take it as a compliment.
~Zoe

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My freshman year of college, after meeting my favorite professor ever and deciding that I wanted to study medieval people because they're hilarious, I dressed up as Margery Kempe. This was possibly the most idiotic/useless costume ever, because it simply entailed wearing a white skirt and top, and telling everyone that I'd had sex with Jesus. So let's elaborate a little here. Margery Kempe was a medieval lady who found religion and wrote a book, yadda yadda, in which she claimed that one night Jesus came down to her in a cloud of purple (or something) and they had sex. She didn't say it quite like that, but that was the gist of it. I just thought that (and her in general) was so damn funny that I wanted to be her for Halloween. Unfortunately, as her clothing post-religion-finding consisted of wearing white, it was a dumb costume and I ended up changing. : (
~Claire

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Ok, so this isn't so much about the costume (although it was amazing -- She-ra, Princess of Power) but more about the experience of my Halloween of 1989. I was 6 years old, and at that point my parents (including my VERY pregnant mother) and I lived in an adorable little neighborhood out in Western PA, with many more cows than people. So every Halloween the neighborhood dads would round up all the kids and drive us in a van to a bigger neighborhood with less cows so that we could get as much candy as the other kids.

Well, this particular Halloween we arrived at the nearby neighborhood and, as I was jumping out of the van, I must have caught on a sharp edge because I (sorry, graphic!) ripped a huge gash into my palm and started bleeding everywhere. So, no candy, big gash and my dad has to rush me home to clean up this gaping wound. My mother, being a nurse, lept into action and spent probably a half and hour cleaning and dressing my wound and deciding whether or not I needed stitches. That decision was made when instead of taking me to the hospital, all of the stress sent my mom into labor and she had to be rushed there instead! So no candy that year, but a few days later, my very own little brother.
~Lauren L.

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Here is my Halloween costume. It is a hungry toilet. (My 11 year old sister is wearing it in this picture). Every year, I try to come up with something creative, like last year, when I was a cardboard tree, and I fell down the stairs because the costume was so hard to walk in, and there were leaves in my face. It ended up in the recycling the day it was finished. At least this year, I can actually see. It took a very long time to make, but it was worth it.

We came up with the idea to make a toilet costume at the beginning of October, and have worked hard to get it finished. The costume is made mostly out of cardboard and paper maché. For some weeks, there was cardboard, newspaper, and acrylic paint scattered all around our house. The toilet bowl was extremely hard to make, but in the end, the long hours of work were worth it.

~Alexandra

Keep checking back throughout the day--LOTS more stories to come!