During a normal year, right about now, a month out, is when most of us would be figuring what to wear for Halloween. This year nobody would really blame you if you wanted to skip the holiday altogether. After all, it’s not like you can safely mingle at parties or anything of that nature. Then again, do you have anything better to do?
If you, like us, plan to dress up anyway — even if only to celebrate the season at home, work, or standing slightly obscured behind a tree at the park just after sunset — we have some costume ideas.
The maskedIf there’s one article of clothing that has come to define this year, its the face mask. And plenty of pop culture characters were wearing them before they were cool, er … necessary. Sure, many horror villain masks aren’t COVID-19 friendly – Jason Voorhees’ hockey mask and Hannibal Lecter’s mouthpiece both have holes in them around the mouth and nose. But plenty of non-horror characters fit the bill.
[image:1]Ninjas, for instance, are almost always depicted as covering the lower half of their face (and, perhaps, everything but their eyes). Want to get more specific? The Mortal Kombat video game franchise has at least a dozen masked characters. Whatever you do, just don’t dress up as Scorpion, yell “Get over here!” and pull people toward you with a spear. We’re supposed to be social distancing, people.
If you’re a Marvel fans, a number of full-body costumes, such as Spider-Man and Iron Man come to mind. If you’d rather not cover up everything, the Winter Soldier is a pretty simple DIY costume. The defining characteristics of the look are just shoulder length hair, a mask that covers your mouth and nose, and a silver arm with a red star near the shoulder. Assemble those and you’re ready to fight Captain America.
The magical and mysticalRemember back in January when Durango’s Snowdown organizers announced that the 2021 theme would be “A Magical Mystical Snowdown: We Put a Spell on You”? Oh, what a simpler time. The upcoming winter festival has been canceled, but that doesn’t mean you can’t bust out your robe and wizard hat for Halloween instead. Then, if they decide to carry that theme over to the 2022 event (*fingers crossed that this will all be behind us by then), you can dust off your get-up in … 15 months.
[image:2]Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings costumes tend to be multi-layer and a bit warm, perfect for autumn in Colorado. Just the resist the urge to dress up like beloved-children’s-author-turned-TERF J.K. Rowling herself. Yeah, it may sound clever at first to combine a Hogwarts robe, a wig, and some sort of transphobic sign/printed tweet, but if nobody gets it, you just look like a transphobe. Do something fun from “Game of Thrones,” “His Dark Materials,” or “Artemis Fowl” instead.
The musicalIn the before-times, there used to be places called clubs (OK, not so much in the Four Corners) where you could go to listen and dance as people called “disc jockeys” created music with a catchy beat. (At least we assume they were actually doing something, not just holding headphones to their head, gyrating, and hitting random buttons.) Some of the most popular DJs adopted personas that completely obscured their faces. Artists like Deadmau5, Marshmello, and Daft Punk all wore some sort of easily-identifiable headpiece.
[image:3]What’s great about dressing up as any of them is that, for the most part, the helmet/mouse head/white cylinder is the only important part. You can totally get away with just wearing your casual everyday clothes, or, like, a track suit otherwise. If you want to get real creative, though, make up your own persona. Hey, maybe if you learn how to make electronic music too, you’ll find yourself on a new career path.
Nick Gonzales
