Lately it’s that homemade Hallowe’en costumes appear to be a lost art.
And I’m not ragging on parents who work long hours and in the interests of allowing their child wear the costume of said child’s heart’s desire, run out and buy it...
No. I get that.
And I understand that (apparently) the ability to use a sewing machine is a skill dangling off the bottom of the home economics resume on both sides of the gender gap.
I also understand that for some people it’s worth their money and not their time when it comes to Hallowe’en—they’re pressed for time and would more willingly part with money than create a Hallowe’en costume from scratch, regardless of sewing ability involved.
To be absolutely clear: this is not a rant about people who buy their costumes.
This isn’t even a rant about how all holidays are becoming increasingly soaked in consumerism—every atypical square on the calendar seems to be another reason to buy things. Ugh.
This is, however, a post about the reaction we receive from our homemade costumes.
People are flabbergasted.
Like, completely floored.
Absolutely effing shocked that I made the costumes myself.
DID NOBODY ELSE GROW UP IN THE 80s?!
GAH!
This year my oldest wanted to be a chicken, and my youngest a Jedi knight.
I thought about what we already had in the house and cross-referenced it with what is easily found at second hand stores. There was a storm all up in this brain like no brainstorm ever before.
Thus, this year the Hallowe’en costumes here at Chez Lannis have been brought to us by an $8 Value Village ladies’ white hoodie, a pair of red jogging pants and three stained white T-shirts from our household rag bag, a plastic chicken mask left over from Princess’ wedding (as incongruous as that sounds), a lightsaber received one Christmas past, an old canvas belt, and the living room curtains.
Yes, the living room curtains.
Since I’ve painted the room, I’ve decided we didn’t need to put them back up. Which means I had six chocolate brown sun-bleached panels with nowhere to go... until this ulterior purpose arose.
So I bleached a couple of panels
Jedi DONE!
For the chicken? That white secondhand hoodie got flipped inside out, and the red jogging pants were hacked and sewn into the shape of a chicken’s crown, stuffed with—yes—more red jogging pant material before being sewn onto the hood. The stained T-shirts were cut into rough wing shapes and hand sewn onto the hoodie’s sleeves before I cut them into long 2” strips that look suspiciously like feathers.
The handy dandy thing about t-shirt material: it doesn’t fray.
Chicken DONE!
Admittedly what sells the chicken costume is the latex beak mask, but that’s okay. And with his glasses, my oldest resembles Disney's Chicken Little more than a bit, to his dismay (he’s been given permission to go trick or treating sans glasses on All Hallow’s Eve).
And since we live in Canada, I ensured both costumes would fit over the boys’ coats.
Hallowe’en gets, er, chilly in these here parts.
The Jedi costume though... at our town’s local Hallowe’en shindig I had a woman ask if I had purchased my youngest’s costume online, because it resemble the one she knew to be $75.
SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS!
Now, I’m pretty frugal (that sounds better than cheap) but there’s no way I’d be spending $75 on my kid’s costume, even when I know since it’s a Jedi costume he’d want to wear it
But just imagine the look on this lady’s face when I finally flagged down the six-year-old Jedi (who was busy flipping around on the grass, swinging that lightsaber for all he’s worth and making the appropriate vocal lightsaber sounds), to show her the curtain panel’s pockets, hidden on the inside hem of his dark robes.
Yes, lady. This costume cost me NIL.
And apparently it’s a lost art.
