Costume components

Halloween is fast approaching, and with little time left to buy a costume I bet you still haven’t figured out what you’re going to be. Don’t worry—I’ve got your back.

Some of you may be content going to a costume store and purchasing another sexy nurse, cat, or police officer outfit, and that’s fine. But if you’re a costume purist and Halloween enthusiast like me, here are a few tips I believe will lead you to the perfect DIY costume.

I believe the perfect costume must be a combination of many different components. Important among them is humor. I think humour and wit are some of the most important parts of a Halloween costume. If your costume makes people laugh, there’s no doubt it will be a hit at any party or gathering.

Subtlety is important to achieve the perfect amount of wit in your costume—you don’t want to go overboard and offend someone, but you also want to make sure people understand the joke without you hammering it over their heads. We get it, 2008. Sarah Palin is dumb.

The next important component to a costume is its relevance. In order for people to understand your costume, it should be up-to-date and something a wide group of people will understand and enjoy. I think relevance is an essential part of any costume, as well as an easy way to make it a standout. Dressing up as something people can easily relate to is a way to make sure your costume is one of the best in the bunch.

While you’re making your costume, it’s worth remembering although you want to be funny and up-to-date, the costume should look good on you as well. There’s no use going out as an Ugg boot, as funny as that may be, if no one can tell you’re a person under all that cardboard.

A good costume doesn’t have to go to extremes in order to elicit a response, and I firmly believe you can look good and have a standout Halloween costume at the same time. If Tina Fey has taught us anything, it’s that smart and sexy are not mutually exclusive. Most importantly, I think originality is vital to the success of your costume. If you wish to avoid being one of the many, it’s important to think outside the box in order to create something different and entertaining.

Although your costume might meet the criteria of being witty and relevant, it might be an overly-popular costume idea at the time. You could risk being one of 20 Michael Jacksons at a party.

To avoid this, it’s a good idea to ask around and see what other people are dressing up as, or to go for something slightly more obscure.

Finding the perfect Halloween costume is hard. But if you get it right, people won’t soon forget the time you dressed as Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod, Wayne and Garth or one of the Golden Girls.

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