Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls” told us that “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
Insert your own “Yes We Can!” joke here.
Take Back Halloween! is a fantastic repository for female Halloween costumes where you don’t need a ton of money, sewing skills, or even a lot of time to create your own versions of the examples they give.
- River Song would be impressed.
The site has a diverse, multicultural group of role models to choose from, with four general categories: Glamour Grrls, Goddesses and Legends, Notable Women, and Queens. Each page is like a strictly-feminist version of “Badass of the Week” with pictures and historical information, except with bonus easy-to-follow instructions for a costume. The red-headed BAMF pictured above is Boudicca, a British Queen who fought off the Romans (ferociously, if not ultimately successfully.) What is it with Britain and awesome red-headed rulers? To dress up as her get yourself:
- Some flannel sheets
- A long, red-haired wig
- A Celtic-ish crown, can be plastic
- A sword and shield, can be plastic
- Stick-on Celtic tattoos
- Big gold bracers/cuffs, doesn’t need to be real gold or even actual metal
And there you go! (They have further instructions on Boudicca’s page for things like “How to Fold a Celtic Tunic” and sample pictures of the items.)
My own costume of “Generic Witch” seems a little pathetic in comparison, but I will say that I have always wanted to wear purple Christmas lights in my hair and shiny violet ribbons as boot laces. I’m definitely excited for All Hallow’s Eve in exactly one year. I think I’ll go as Himiko, first monarch of Japan… or Chalchiuhtlicue, Aztec goddess of water… or Christine de Pizan, who lived by her pen way back in medieval Europe… maybe I can just go to a bunch of Halloween parties and get to dress up more than once…
One Elle Alison 