Between midterm season and homecoming excitement, students might be caught off guard by how quickly Halloween is approaching. For students who find themselves without any costume ideas and are left rushing to find a last-minute Halloween costume, here are some options for Halloween.
A quick Halloween classic, the option of putting together an all black outfit, throwing on a pair of cat ears and drawing some detailed whiskers is an easy way to build a cat costume. A black top, black skirt and cat ears from Amazon have a combined total of about $25 for a quick and inexpensive costume.
The same base black outfit can be matched with a $13 pair of wings from Amazon and DIY antennas. To make the antennas, get a plain black headband, two black pipe cleaners and two black pom poms. Hot glue the pipe cleaners onto the headband and the pom poms onto the pipe cleaners to make your very own bumble bee, ladybug, beetle or butterfly costume.
Another costume students may find they already have pieces for in their closets is Britney Spears from her “...Baby One More Time” music video. The necessary clothing items include a white button-up blouse, a black or gray pleated skirt, black knee socks and a heather grey sweater. Match it with Spears’s famous two braided pigtails decorated with pink bows at the ends and pink fluffy scrunchies at the base of each braid, and you have an iconic costume.
Some students shared ideas for quick, easy and somewhat affordable Halloween costumes students can quickly throw together.
Emma Steiner, a sophomore studying environmental science and geography in the Honors Tutorial College, suggested dressing up as Juno from the 2007 film of the same name. She says all students would need is a striped T-shirt and jean shorts. This tee from Amazon costs $15 and is similar to the shirt Juno wears in the film.
Steiner also mentioned dressing as Rodrick, from the book and movie series “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” An easy way to achieve this look is to get a black Sharpie and write Rodrick rules on a white tee, and add a messy eyeliner look. A plain white T-shirt that would work well for this costume only costs $7.80 on Amazon.
Audrey Adkins, a sophomore studying business and strategic leadership, introduced the idea of going as a Tricky, a character from the mobile video game “Subway Surfers.” Students need a red toboggan, a white tank top and a pair of jeans. This costume can easily be assembled with some closet basics, with the addition of a red toboggan for $7.95.
Ricky Talbot, a freshman studying chemical engineering, describes his last-minute Halloween costume of choice as the “South Park” character Eric Cartman.
“It's really easy because you just need a blue hat, which I'm sure I could find, and then I already have a red hoodie in my dorm,” Talbot said.
Really, any of the core four “South Park” boys are easy and recognizable costumes since “South Park” has kept producing content and maintaining relevance for 28 years.
According to Maddie Purcell, a sophomore studying political science and biology, the best way to spice up a last-minute Halloween costume is to add fake blood, a go-to for Purcell and her friends.
“We bought a lot of blood, and we periodically cycled through what ‘dead’ thing we were that night,” Purcell said. “It works, and it looks really cool. We were just like dead Playboy bunnies for a while.”
Purcell came up with this idea when she had to do a lot of last-minute costumes for Halloween weekend in 2024. One of the bonuses of this idea is that students can take any of their old costumes they have lying around and reuse them.
These are just a few ideas of a long list of Halloween costumes. Hopefully, these costumes can be an answer to students' Halloween costume stresses or help with brainstorming new costume ideas.
