Best Literary Costumes for Halloween

Halloween is a great opportunity to display your appreciation for literature and its fantastic and terrifying creations. Here are some great ideas if you’re looking to go ‘literary’ with your costume.

  1. The Woman in Black

Like the character’s name suggests, you can just wear black! A dress is customary, but a sheet draped over dark clothes also works.  Consdier adding a veil made of any sheer material.

 

  1. Frankenstein’s Monster

Dr. Frankenstein’s creature has yellow skin showing “the work of muscles and arteries beneath”, and a “shrivelled complexion and straight black lips”. You can go for the classic bolts-in-neck look or make it true to the book by faintly tracing veins, wrinkles and stitching across your face. The monster finds his clothes in the woods but you might be better off finding something in your own wardrobe!

 

  1. Coraline

There are a range of characters you could go for, but getting the signature look just involves drawing buttons over your eyelids.

 

  1. The Phantom of the Opera

Wearing a shirt and/or suit will do for this look. What you really need to complete it is a white mask, or some face paint to recreate it.

 

  1. Dementor

Grab a length of dark, drapey material for this costume, with a hood attached. Add a pink cardigan and you can double as Professor Umbridge!

 

  1. Alice in Wonderland

This surreal story has a host of characters to emulate. Two possibilities are the Cheshire Cat (you will need striped clothes, cat ears, and a grin) and a playing card (a white t-shirt onto which you can draw the value).

 

  1. Edgar Allan Poe

This writer’s signature look includes a white shirt with a dark suit or coat, a scarf, bushy eyebrows, a moustache, and a vaguely displeased look. Bonus points for adding a raven.

 

  1. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

This book features a range of fantastical characters you can bring to life. Wear thick gloves to recreate Emma (the girl with pyrotechnical powers), or go all striped like Hugh, the boy who can control bees. Invest in some white contact lenses to go as a hollowgast.

 

  1. A Clockwork Orange

Wear all white clothes, dark boots and a bowler hat. Grab a walking stick if you have one, and add some colour on one eye to emulate Alex DeLarge or any of his three friends.

 

  1. Count Dracula

All you need for this costume are some vampire teeth and fake blood. Add a cape over a shirt and/or suit and let your dark circles show to fully commit to the look.


Image Credits: Romy Alcoriza / Flickr

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