We’re not particularly fond of the holiday of Halloween – we like it all right – but what really gets a fire burning in us is the discussion about coming up with Halloween costumes. After a lot of thought and, in particular, a lot of debate over the past weekend with friends regarding what we’re going to be for Halloween this year, we came up with the definitive rules for a killer – no pun intended – Halloween costume.
- Nothing topical: Remember in 2008 when every girl you saw was Sarah Palin? Yeah, no one wants to be flanked by a million other unimaginative, brainless people who are wearing the same costume (we’re looking at you, Ironman). Plus, if you go as something topical, there’s a 99% percent chance someone will wear it better than you. Recent nominees for Lame Topical Costume include The Joker (2008), Amy Winehouse (2007) and the most ubiquitously poorly done one (at least in Brooklyn) from 2009: Max from Where the Wild Things Are.
- No concepts: Overheard in every dorm in the country: “Wouldn’t it be hilarious to go as the ‘Walk of Shame?’” “OMG, you HAVE to go as that.” Absolutely not. Concept costumes are almost always poorly executed and achieve only a slight shrug and shake of the head when explaining your costume to party goers. Concept costumes are funny when talking about them, but disappointingly lame when followed through on. Concepts are also the equivalent of laughing at your own joke and they’re absolutely the type of things that are funny to talk about, but less so when brought to life.
- Be nostalgic, but not too obviously nostalgic: We get it, everyone thinks Super Mario, the Ninja Turtles, Doug Funnie and Legends of the Hidden Temple were cool. These costumes have been over used like a young pitcher on a Dusty Baker managed team. The key is for fellow party-goers to say “Ooooh! I remember that” when you tell them what you are.
- The 30/70 rule: 30/70 is the ideal ratio for your costume (hat tip to our friend Zach). You want 30 percent of the people you encounter to get the costume right away and the other 70 percent to get it after you tell them. For the costume to be effective, you need complete understanding and buy-in from everyone you encounter, but you don’t want to be so obvious that people recognize it immediately.
- The only one: The golden rule of costumes is you want to be the only one at your destination with that costume. If people are dressed in the same ‘stume as you, chances are they did it better than you, at which point you feel like a sucker. We recently changed our costume idea this year to avoid this rule.
Taking all of these into account, we’ve deciding on our costume. We were originally going to be spaghetti & meatballs (non-topical, nostalgic for dinner as a child, a tangible item, we’d guess the 30/70 applies) but then we found out someone at one of our destination was going as “spaghetti in a heap on the floor.” As a result, we’re going to be Alexander the Grape, everyone’s non-favorite, oft-forgotten candy from childhood. We can only hope it tops our costume last year of Tetherball.
Tags: 30/70 rule, Alexander the Grape, Concept Costume, Costume, Halloween, Topical Costume
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