My partner and I spent $250 and dozens of hours making alice and mad hatter costumes but they have lasted us 3 years so far, halloween, tea party, comiccon

I like making costumes! If anything, it’s a good way of making clothes that you would never make otherwise, and there isn’t anywhere near an expectation of quality. Making a costume yourself basically automatically ensures that people would be impressed, no matter how shitty the costume is.

Regarding perfectionism, it’s something that I’ve had to learn throughout my various forays into arts - there’s going to be mistakes. There’s always going to be mistakes. You can’t avoid it, no matter how skilled you are. The skilled artists know how to avoid drawing attention to their mistakes, and that generally means that they just let it happen without caring about it. But also, it’s just a costume, and as mentioned above, people will be impressed regardless of how shitty it is.

Regarding effort, it requires a lot of effort. Because you’re making unusual clothes, you need to spend a lot of time to design it and make sure it fits properly. I designed costumes this year for me and my partner, and in total that took maybe 2 months. It’s also more expensive than costumes you buy online. The raw material (cloth, thread) was maybe around 200 USD total, roughly 4-5x the cost of a regular costume you can buy online, or 2x the cost of a niche costume that you can buy online. It’s definitely not a good use of money and time, but it’s a good hobby project.

Regardless of if you buy a costume or if you make one, here’s the trick: don’t skimp out on the wig. Most people don’t wear a wig, and the people who do tend to use cheap wigs. Cheap wigs have a plastic-y texture and are difficult to style. I get wigs from Epic Cosplay, which have a lot of different colors to choose from and tend to look fairly realistic.

Also, wigs never come with hair already at the right length! Make sure to give the wig a haircut, it’ll look way better if you remember

Luigi hat: £7.95

Moustache: £3.99

Water pistol (only found a double pack): £3.75

Total: £15.69

Unfortunately, not many people got the reference when I pulled my pistol to complete the set.

There wasn’t much effort, apart from having to custom trim the moustache, since it came in a pack, and none of the included ~12 styles were the exact same as Luigi’s.

My wife and I wore our Renaissance Faire outfits for Halloween this year. A really good Ren Faire costume, IMO, looks medieval but has lots of customizations that make it look more authentic and lived-in, which I think just takes time and multiple iterations. So, we put a little money (<$20) and time (a few hours) into “upgrading” them throughout the year when we can get deals on various components. Grand total, we’re still at less than $100 each.

Every year I try to make my main costume a little better. This year, I tried again to get a KFC bucket, bit again they gave me a size too small. I’ll try again next year.

I also have a tie dyed lab coat and lab goggles as an emergency costume.

Next year I think I’ll add a mask and that might cost me $25 if o can find one at spirit of Halloween today.

We bought my son’s costume for something like $25, he was a Ghostbuster. My wife and I got tablecloths from the dollar store for a couple bucks each and were ghosts. Costumes don’t have to be perfect or expensive!

My kids got fall guys inflatable costumes, $35 each. I wore the same costume I bought 6 years ago, a steak. Cost $70

My son went as the loch ness monster this year. Cost about $3.50

This year:

$10 “space officer” shirt from temu

$60 Kira Nerys Cuffed Earring from rock love

Edit: Adding pic to prove to happened

I live in a part of the world that doesn’t usually celebrate Halloween much, but last year our street made an effort. It seems people noticed because this year someone decided to hold a themed market here, and there was a big turnout. I think it’s becoming a thing for the town now.

My neighbour is getting seriously into 3D printing and made lots of cool toys that he gave away instead of food. That was cool to see, because he’s been struggling a bit since his wife died, and he was never very community-oriented, but having something like this brought out his good side.

I reused a wizard costume from a fantasy fair earlier this year. Hung a pumpkin full of treats from the end of my staff, and rode around on my electric unicycle for a bit, giving them away. Any bit of novelty is valid if it’s in the right spirit. That’s what I like about Halloween.

You can’t really go wrong if you wear something that works for you. High or low effort, it’s all good.

Just myself. I am Ken this Halloween. (The rollerblade version.)

I spent around $120 gathering all the different elements of the costume, and it looks superb.

“forest spirit in autumn” I wrapped some silk flowers and leaves onto a headband with suede cord, glued pieces of the remainder to my face and body, and wore flowy clothes that I already own.

Cost: $5.88

0 money. I already had a pair of bunny ears, improvised a tail from curtain tassel tie-back thing that was already like a fluffy white ball, white clothes.

My son went as Wario.

• Overalls, $15 used on Mercari
• Yellow shirt: already owned
• Yellow hat, $10 from a hat store

I went as Waluigi, similar stuff and costs.

There’s one more key consideration I haven’t heard people mention: you can choose to make your costume out of stuff you can wear outside of Halloween!

My son can wear purple overalls any day of the year. Our hats aren’t cheap costume hats, they’re baseball caps, which are useful accessories you can wear any time.

If you’re looking to get started making a Halloween costume, try going to a thrift store or an online reseller like Mercari and recognize that Halloween is an opportunity to buy stuff you kinda want to wear but feel self conscious about buying. Buy yourself a used leather biker jacket. It’s just a costume! But also… Now you happen to have a dope jacket in your closet. Maybe wear it the week after Halloween and see if it feels right…

That’s one of the best parts of putting together Halloween costumes, imo.

I got a cheap hat from walmart and a clip on bow tie from the goodwill. Then I donned a shitty sport coat I had at home, and pinned a couple cards from an old deck I had to the hat. Went as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. It took maybe 30 min to put together. Definitely didn’t blow anyone’s socks off, but I had something to talk about at the parties I went to and had a good time.