Halloweekend in college is one of the most fun events of the entire year. Even if you don’t usually go out on a normal weekend, Halloween is not a normal weekend. Since it is usually a multi-day celebration at least, it can be stressful brainstorming exactly what to wear each night while also trying not to spend a zillion dollars. DIYing costumes and reusing pieces is the key to a successful Halloween and I’m not saying that my costumes were that elite, but it definitely can become overwhelming and with so many costumes in the vault, I can share some and provide inspo for your upcoming Halloween party.
Freshman Year:
My freshman year, I only went out on two of the nights of Halloweekend. The first night, my ex-roommate and I were KISS, the band. I got the inspiration for this costume after seeing Margot Lee and her friends dress up as them for a previous Halloween. We got oversized KISS t-shirts from Amazon. With that, we just wore tiny black shorts under it as the shirt was supposed to fit like a dress. Since we were supposed to be rockers, we both wore fishnets and then did the signature star around our eyes.
Night two, my friend and I did the basic angel and devil costume. Me being the angel, I wanted to switch it up a little bit because I knew I would be seeing more than one person in my same costume. I opted to be a dark angel and this had to be the easiest costume ever. I wore a black tiny top that I got from Zaful in like eighth grade and a black mini skirt from Windsor. The knee-high fishnets were popular in 2019 I guess because I wore them with this outfit as well. I added a black fuzzy halo from Party City to the top of my head and I was good to go.
Sophomore Year:
Halloween Sophomore year did not exist for me, thank you Covid.
Junior Year:
Night one, I was Snooki. This was one of my favorite costumes ever but the amount of stress that I had trying to prepare for it was unmatched. I searched high and low for a leopard print going out top and I could not find one. Not on Amazon, not at Destiny Mall, it was ridiculous. It took me posting on my private Snapchat story mid-breakdown for me to discover one of my friends had one that she was willing to let me borrow. So the top, I have no idea where it is from but you can probably find one on Shein. With that, I wore the black mini skirt from Windsor (it makes a lot of appearances), a pair of sunglasses that had leopard print on the inside from Forever 21, and big silver hoops. My hair was too short to do a poof but I still pulled it back.
For Friday night, my roommate and I decided we wanted to be Mean Girls for Halloween. We settled on dressing up as the Jingle Bell Rock scene from the movie. I was also obsessed with this costume. Our only downside was the fact we could not find a top and skirt that were the exact same shade of red. We got red tank tops at Walmart and then cropped them and then red mini skirts from Forever 21. The Santa hats were from Amazon and then I hot glued the white fluff around the edge of the top and the bottom of the skirt to resemble the outfits from the movie. Lastly, in the movie, they were wearing boots but because we were going to the frats and didn’t want to ruin leather boots, we wore black high socks with our frat shoes.
The final night of Halloweekend I went as Olive from the film Easy A. This costume is pretty basic but I wanted to use pieces that I already had. In the movie, Olive wears black skinny jeans. Instead of doing that, I opted for the black mini skirt from Windsor. Along with that, I wore this black corset top from an online boutique but it is the brand Tic Toc. (I also wore the costume senior year of college but used the black corset top from Urban Outfitters.) I wore silver hoops and then a pair of black sunglasses from Tobi. For the A that she always wears, I bought a red felt sheet and cut out the letter A, and safety pinned it to my top. Lastly, I got costume pearls from Spirit Halloween and wore those as well. (This mirror pic is the only one I have of this costume, don't judge.)
Senior Year:
I was the Queen of Hearts for the first night of my final Halloweekend. I didn’t want this to be a super in-your-face outfit, especially because I wanted to be able to re-wear the pieces of it. I got a red bodycon dress and a pair of black and white earrings with hearts on them from Forever 21. I then bought black knee-high fishnets and a tiara from Spirit Halloween and a pair of red heart sunglasses from Amazon. While this was not my favorite costume of the weekend, I still thought it was cute and comfy so it was very worth it.
The second night, I was Barbie. I know, super ahead of the whirlwind of Barbies that we’re going to see this year; I was ahead of the trend. Anyway, I wore a pink halter dress from Target. I had bought it over the summer and wore it to the bar so already getting my money's worth. I ordered oversized bedazzled pink sunglasses from Amazon and then printed a Barbie logo in my school’s Mac lab to safety pin onto the dress. I tried to do pink tones for my eyeshadow and keep the makeup light. The reason I emphasize wearing clothes that are not too expensive is because if you are going out, especially to a frat, the chances of you getting spilled on are high. I know this because it has happened to me a time or twenty, once being in this specific dress.
The final night of Halloweekend had to have been my favorite costume of all time. I don’t know how I thought of this but it was actually genius. My roommate and I dressed up as Candy Land. And I know what you’re probably thinking, how do you dress up as a board game? We each got bright blue skirts and blue oval sunglasses from Urban Outfitters, we lucked out because it was all in the sale section. The hardest part was finding a bikini top. Obviously, I own so many swimsuits but I did not need them in Syracuse, NY in October and when I say how lucky I got to find one in the clearance bin at Hollister, I didn’t even care that it was a size too small. It was midnight purple with glitter in it and was perfect. I got white puff earrings from Forever 21 and a candy bra from Spencer’s. Using a lollipop as a prop in the photos emphasized the candy theme and I cannot exaggerate enough how much I loved this costume.
Halloween is definitely one of, if not, my favorite holidays. I look forward to it every year and while coming up with costumes may stress me out, it is always worth it in the end. I cannot wait for Halloween this year and I hope that if you are in a time crunch and stressing about a costume, this can help you out and offer some inspiration!
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