The Adventure of Picking a Halloween Costume

Every year when Halloween comes around, there’s a mix of excitement and anxiety. It’s the year I can be anything I want...but what do I want to be?? It’s a perennial struggle, but breaking it down the costume-picking process makes it less stressful, and dare we say, even fun!

Step 1: Ideation
If you’re anything like, you get stuck right away on the first step of ideation. It’s like a blank canvas or a blinking cursor...where to start?? 

We’ve found that categories is a good place to start. Do you prioritize being scary, attention-grabbing, comfortable, political, funny, or even...punny? Even if you’re not sure yet, narrowing down to just 2-3 of these helps a lot! 

You can also look for sources of inspiration such as Pinterest, Instagram, Google, or Reddit. We’ve found good ideas by looking for people, topics, or even typing ‘halloween’ or ‘costume’ into their search bars. If you want to do something super on trend, you can even look up the top daily searches on Google to see what people are talking about. ​

Finally, if you’re really desperate, the quickest path to a costume is probably going to a physical store or e-commerce and just buying a ready-made costume. This doesn’t have to be lame (although it can be…), you can always choose a classic and there are some pretty creative costumes online these days too. ​

Step 2: Visualization
Okay so you have some ideas now, but how do you know if it looks good on you? Back in the day, the only choice was to somehow get the actual costume and put it on, realizing you look ridiculous, and repeating this process until you find one you like (or run out of energy / $$$). 

Thanks to technology these days, you can skip a bunch of steps by visualizing your costume digitally! That’s like, literally what we’re doing here at Forma, where we’re slowly digitizing every outfit in the world for anybody to try on, even costumes! You can try costumes that other users have already uploaded, and if you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can even add your own outfit by simply uploading a picture!

You could also use some face swap tools or perhaps try some filters on Instagram / Snap etc. But regardless of what you use, use technology to remove the guesswork and see yourself before committing! 

Step 3: 2nd opinion
Now, this is a step that too many of us skip...whether it’s costumes for Halloween, a first date, or a business meeting. Think of somebody who has good style judgment AND is willing to tell you the truth, even (especially!) if the truth hurts. First of all, maybe something you’re not sure of actually looks amazing, and you just need another set of eyes to give you a tiny boost and you’re done! On the flip side, would you rather have somebody you know tell you that you look bad, or would you rather be out there on Halloween and a bunch of people think it without telling you??

And after Halloween is over, you might want to keep this going...at least for special occasions :) 

Step 4: Live it
Once you’ve decided, there’s nothing left except to live your costume. So much of your costume (and style overall, while we’re at it) is how the person wears it. Does it really matter what Zendaya wears? Ok, it probably matters a little but what she wears is secondary to her authenticity and owning it. 

And if you think that being Zendaya is probably a bit too hard, then forget about other people, you should live your costume and own it because hey, Halloween is supposed to be fun. You have 364 other days in a year to worry about what other people think :)