The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of my favorite classic ghost stories.  First written and published by Washinton Irving in 1820, the story relates the tale of schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, who hopes to win the hand of local beauty Katrina Van Tassel.  His hopes are dashed when he’s chased out of town by the Headless Horseman and vanishes forever.  The story leaves it up to interpretation whether the Horseman is a true specter or a prankster after Katrina, but I prefer to think of him as the ghost of a decapitated Hessian soldier.  In most visualizations, the Horseman appears in all black carrying a jack o lantern in place of his lost head.

The above ready-made costume is the most widely-available Headless Horseman costume.  I think we can go more sinister.  You might consider buying this costume since it has a built-in head cover, but then supplementing it with a better cape, riding boots and breeches.  Or you can start from scratch.

There are several ways to make your own headless costume.  One common technique is to take a rolling backpack, lift the extended handle, and use that as the base to build the outfit around.  You’ll need a shirt larger than you normally wear and padding to attach your new shoulders to your real arms.  Other materials people find useful include cardboard and foam.  See some more detailed instructions by scrolling halfway down this Coolest Homemade Scary Halloween Costume page.

By the way, there’s no reason why this costume couldn’t be for a Headless Horsewoman.  What do you think?  Do you have a favorite character from the realm of horror that you would like to see recreated in costume form?

While it’s true that I love dreary above all else, like a raven, I have a big weakness for sparkles.  Last year was the first Halloween that I noticed several fiber optic enhanced costumes for women.  The trend continues this year, with even more costumes on the market that harness battery power to sparkle.

Other new light-up costumes available from Buy Costumes include a Tinker Bell, a Blue Butterfly, a sailor, a goddess, Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts.

It’s so unfair that the above “Shock Therapy” costume only comes in boys’ sizes.  I want one!  Child’s Shock Therapy Costume, Small available through Amazon for $32.99

Light Up Accessories:

Have you worn a fiber optic costume?  What kind of reactions did you get?  Do the parts with lights on them get warmer at all?

Last Halloween, my good friend Megan had blond hair.  But during the spring, she went crazy and dyed her hair black.  I don’t know what she was thinking.  Everyone knows that blonds have more fun!  Actually she looks hot with her jet-black hair and she’s taking advantage of her darker do.  She’s been talking about dressing up as a geisha for Halloween.  I love the idea and can’t wait to see what she comes up with.  In the meantime, I looked around for online inspiration.

Since this is Upon a Midnight Dreary, I have to dreary-ify everything. The geisha costumes in this post are less traditional and more fitting for vampire, steampunk or zombie geishas.

Traditional geishas always wear a kimono with a dramatic obi (the wide sash that goes around the waist like a belt or waist cincher).  On their feet they wear tabi socks (the split-toed socks) with zori (similar to flip flops).  They have their hair up, often in complex buns with hair ornaments.

If you are looking for a kimono for a costume, you might consider searching for a yukata.  A yukata is a light, summer kimono.  It’s made of cotton instead of silk, so it’s comfortable but often less expensive than a silk kimono.

Kimonos and Kimono inspired Dresses:

I also found this next kimono by chance, but it’s from a Japanese site.  I think that it’s for sale, but I could be way off.  I suspect that someone with Japanese language skills would be able to find additional goth-appropriate patterns featuring spiders, bats or skulls.  Unfortunately, most of the yukata I found featured flowers and cheerful patterns.

Obi:

If you google obi you’ll find plenty of solid obi in every color of the rainbow to coordinate with your kimono.  Somebody with good embroidery skills could take a solid color obi and add a darker motif such as a skull, spider, bat or black cat.  For a non-traditional, more severe look, consider substituting a thick belt or waist cincher over your kimono.

A third option is to modify a scarf.  Elizabeth Abernathy created this tutorial to make an obi style belt from any silk scarf that you can wrap around your waist one and a half times.

Wigs:

If you want to style your own hair, there are tutorials like this one on Youtube.

For your Feet:

Sock Dreams is always my go-to website for hosiery.  They have a bunch of different Tabi sock styles including some Halloween-appropriate striped ones:

Other Accessories:

A note on makeup: Makeup is going to sell the geisha look.  You can find tutorials on Youtube for both traditional and non-traditional geisha makeup styles.  I recommend doing an image search and finding a look that fits with your costume.  And as always, I’d advise you to go with Ben Nye and/or Mac makeup products for best results.

Aside from frustrations with the language barrier, I had a good time compiling this post.  Does anybody have any ideas to add?  Are you considering a costume that I could do a similar scouting post for?  I love these kinds of challenges, so feel free to leave a comment or email me with your costume desires…

Alice in Wonderland Halloween costumes are as popular as ever.  That doesn’t mean you can’t find a way to make them your own, or dreary-ify them.  Here’s a preview of some of the Alice costumes new for this season.

Mad Hatters

For some reason, there are more new Mad Hatter costumes than there are new costumes for any other character.

New Wonderland Accessories:

What do you think?  Are you going to be an Alice in Wonderland character for Halloween?

The recent Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland had so many inspiring costumes.  If you want to dress up as a character from the movie for Halloween, you’ll have tons of choices.

Alice

The Queen of Hearts

The Mad Hatter

The White Queen

While searching for White Queen costumes it became clear that she’s been neglected as far as commercial costumes go.  I’m surprised because she has a creepy-ethereal quality perfect for Halloween.  You could use a second-hand wedding dress or an angel costume as a base to build on:

Women’s Theatrical Costume Princess Dress White Queen Gown Elizabeth Dress from Amazon for $63.99

The Cheshire Cat

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

McGuire-Nicholas 110C 2-Inch Wide Red Suspenders from Amazon for $5.54

Many sites will let you sign up to be notified when costumes become available.  Make sure you get your order in early (like today) if you’re ordering one of the non-licensed, custom costumes from Etsy or ecrater.  Tomorrow there will be a post of some new, non-film Alice inspired costumes.

If you’re like me, you may have trouble letting the personalities in The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers who Inspired Chicago have all the fun.  Consider having a 1920s themed Halloween or get a book club together and throw a speakeasy party after you’ve finished reading.

Jazz Killer Costume

The Dinner and a Murder website has some more 1920s costumes, including gangster costumes for men.

Hair

In case you’d rather style your own hair, here’s a helpful tutorial from ilovegerardo on Youtube.

Accessories

There are lots of garter/gun holsters available from online costume stores, but most of them are really cheap with tiny toy guns (we’re talking finger sized).  A lot of places won’t let you bring in any prop weapons anyway, but if you want to go the garter/gun holster route, I suggest making one or having one made rather than cheapening the rest of your outfit with a tacky one.

Speakeasy Party

If possible, disguise the location of the party a bit.  Make your guests work to find it.  Give them a street number, but turn off all the lights that would be visible from the outside.  Have them enter through the garage or wind their way down to the basement.  Give your guests a password that they must have to enter the party.  Do a gun check and pat them down.  Once inside, dress and decor should be glamourous.  Set the stage with low-lights, tablecloths and real glassware.  Serve prohibition era cocktails such as the Whiskey Old Fashioned, Sidecars and French 75.  A pianist or jazz ensemble would be ideal, but recorded jazz music will work as well.  Era appropriate mix compilation cds include: The Big Broadcast, Volume 1: Jazz and Popular Music of the 1920s and 1930s (this is the first of a series), Flappers, Vamps And Sweet Young Things, and Original Dance Music of 1920′s & 1930′s.  When it’s getting late, stage a police raid that will force your guests to scatter.  (Make sure that arrangements have been made so no one is driving home drunk though!)