DIY: Halloween 2015

Trio of minion costumes, Instructables

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It's time again to troll the web for Halloween ideas. And there are some good ones. Group costumes appear to be big this year.

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Mario Kart (Image Imgur, ShadowmanJack), Mashable

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Here are links to 3 lists with images: 35 Fun Group Halloween Costumes for You and Your Friends; 20 Genius Halloween Costume Ideas You Can Whip Up Last Minute; and 11 Halloween Costumes No One Else Will Have. The slides in this last list also serve as comments on current social trends and perceptions; one of the slides--Unemployed Dov Charney--links to a background article about the former CEO of American Apparel.

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Costume: Unemployed Dov Charney, refinery29

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There 20,000 ideas at Coolest Homemade Costumes.

If the minions in Despicable Me have caught your fancy, here's how a number of people have adapted them to costumes: 21 DIY Minion Costumes from Despicable Me for Halloween. If you have the time and patience, this article will explain how to build a costume true to the original minion form: Trio of Minion Costumes (Despicable Me). The instructions are fairly complicated, but the description walks you through them well.

Instructables is sponsoring a Halloween Costume Contest (the minion costumes above are an entry). There are 33 days left to submit an entry and the prizes are described thus:

Ready your sewing machines, fire up the glue guns, and charge your battery packs, it's Halloween again! Enter your DIY masterpieces in the Halloween Costume Contest for a chance to win some awesome prizes including an iPad Mini, a Petcube Camera, a Leatherman multitool, Samsung digital camera, and more, provided by HalloweenCostumes.com and Petcube!

-- Marge

DIY: Halloween costumes using ideas from costume designers

Flowing fabric holds an inexplicable appeal for me. For examples see Getty Images Flowing Fabric page.

So when considering what types of Halloween costumes to suggest today, my thinking came round to focusing on how designers use fabric and what shapes and silhouettes they present. Also, local theaters, as opposed to well-endowed big-city ones, often costume the actors on a shoestring. Materials to consider for your own Halloween creation are cheesecloth, muslin, cotton lawn, light canvas, drapery lining, and such.  Nick of Time Textiles discusses costume and dancewear fabrics and has a nice selection. Five yards of 60-inch wide fabric will go a long way and at $4.50 a yard costs, uhm, $22.50 (example is Aqua Pongee Woven Fabric).

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Draped Fabric Costume, Belle Clara

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Some designers to draw ideas from are Belle Clara and Gwen van den Eijnde. The FIDM Museum in Los Angeles has an interesting exhibition of Outstanding Art of Television Costume Design.

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Gwen van den Eijnde, Unusual Costume Design, Culture Vixen

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In my search of costume design I came across this excellent DIY article for a Cheesecloth Ghost Costume, posted by Cathi at her blog scratchandstitch.

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Ghost Costume, scratchandstitch

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Also you might consider incorporating unusual materials like newspaper, cardboard, and bubble wrap. Above all, have fun.

-- Marge