The Traditions and Evolution of Halloween Costumes

The craze for weird and funny costumes ranges from apparel that is worn by television stars, music entertainers, celebrities, ghosts, witches and even the devil himself. The craze is for original Halloween costumes that are distinct, weird and unheard of. Moms are busy searching for original and creative ideas that are practical, feasible and can be made at home. They all want their wards to win the Halloween Costumes completion of the year, which I am afraid is an ardent and strenuous task and can get on the nerves.

The origin of Halloween costumes is derived from diverse sources including national costumes, Gothic and horror costumes from ancient literary works, classic horror movies, subjects of trauma and terror. The movies and the fiction characters from Frankenstein and Dracula were the objects of original Halloween costumes.

Towards the end of 19^th century, disguising in costumes and going out dressed in silly attire was widespread in Scotland at Halloween. You can find the Scottish poet John Mayne making pranks at Halloween in his poetry "What fearful' pranks ensue!", and Robert Burn’s Halloween mentioning bogies ‘ghosts’ the supernatural related to the night.

In US, people made Halloween Costumes prominent in early Halloween parties in the advent of 20th century, when trick-or-treating was also becoming prevalent. It is interesting to note that the markets were quick to cash these trends by making mass Halloween costumes which appeared in stores in the 1930s in America.

Traditional Halloween costumes are designed after popular heroes, Disney characters, movie roles, supernatural beings and aliens like ghouls, vampires, monsters, spirits, poltergeists banshees, skeletons, witches, goblins, devils and sprites. To extend novelty and uniqueness to the costumes, people have role modeled custom designs after the fiction characters.

Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction and real life archetypes like ninjas and commandos. Fairies and princess costumes also found their way to Halloween costumes.

Now the question is how to devise unique Halloween costumes?

If you brainstorm, you will find that there are many ideas that are lurking behind your own brain ready to manifest given the opportunity. For example if you thing of fairy costumes, think of a distinct fairy theme, Tinker bell, a gothic fairy, garden fairy or a rainbow fairy costume. If you want an angel Halloween costume, think of fallen angel costume, renaissance angel costume or a midnight angel costume.

Disney characters are evergreen ideas for Halloween. Snow-white, dwarfs, Mickey mouse, Minnie, the witch and demons are always a favourite. Give a turn, a twist to the generic idea and costume; and you will find that a rare idea and costume is desperate to erupt from the mind.

Halloween has abundance of natural resources, the elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows; these prevail in the festive season. People use pumpkins, Jack’O lantern for the Halloween decor.

 Certain symbols of Death, Occult magic, Dark Art found their way to Halloween, while black, blood red and orange are the holiday's original traditional colors. You can wear costumes of black and orange, eerie white or grey and crimson red. They look awesome on Halloween.

Whatever colours you choose, make sure that you select bright colours that fit you nicely.

An original, authentic poem from Shakespeare. Enjoy!!!

"Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowls the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide:"

Shakespeare

Even the likes of Shakespeare could not stop from writing and painting the gruesome horrors of Halloween.