Thinking of going as Hatshepsut this Halloween? Or maybe Isis? Time to get on the stick! We found a cool eBay store in Egypt that sells wonderful beaded collars, just like the pharaohs wore (well, not just like the pharaohs wore, but better than the cheapo fabric pieces you get in Halloween stores). But their shipping takes two or three weeks, so you need to order now if you want delivery in time for Halloween. This is the one from our Isis costume:
Same deal with our Queen of Sheba costume. We chose a beautiful Egyptian style necklace from that same store for her outfit, too.
Halloween Season 2011 is upon us. It’s the week after Labor Day, and the stores are starting to stock up on costumes. For us, it’s Year Two of our project to Take Back Halloween! The response to our website last year was incredible, and this year we’re working overtime to make it even bigger and better:
- A picture is worth a thousand words, so this year we’re uploading digital illustrations of all our costume designs. That’s the Queen of Sheba to the right (click to embiggen). We’re focusing first on the designs most in need of visual aids—the goddesses, several of the ancient costumes, etc.
- We’re checking all the product links to make sure the stuff is still available. And if not, we’re hunting for replacements.
- With all that updating and illustrating, we really don’t have time to do new costumes—but we are anyway. Can’t resist. Coming very shortly: Ada Lovelace, Sor Juana, Athena, Demeter, Jezebel…and more!
If you’re in the middle of running down a costume and need help, don’t hesitate to email us. If we haven’t already updated the product links, we may nevertheless already know (from our endless window-shopping) where you can find the item you need.
Happy costuming!
To everyone who has linked to our site and helped spread the word: thank you so much! The response has been absolutely staggering. We are definitely going to keep the site up all year and keep adding costumes.
To everyone who has visited for costume ideas and inspiration: thank you and HAVE FUN! Your costume is going to be great—and you will look marvelous.
Happy Halloween, everybody! Time to relax, free your imagination, and have a blast!
Or at least I am. This coming Saturday I’m going to be interviewed on “The F Word,” a feminist radio show in Vancouver. Here’s the program description:
Oct 30 – ‘Native’ isn’t a costume. Moving beyond sexy nurses and cultural appropriation: The F Word’s Halloween Extravaganza! Featuring an interview with the creators of Take Back Halloween, a radical website that proposes that women have more creative costume options than “Little Bo Peepshow”.
That’s this Saturday, October 30, at 8:00am Pacific time. I think the interview is going to start around 8:20am. Tune in to CFRO 102.7 FM in Vancouver, or go here to listen online.
Thanks very much to the cool people at The F Word Media Collective for inviting me! (I sure hope I don’t mess up.)
We’ve been busy all week adding new costumes. Our Glamour section is up, with several opportunities for you to pile on a bunch of rhinestones and wear a long fancy gown. And it wouldn’t be Halloween without some gore, so we added a Lizzie Borden costume. (Yes, we think she did it.)
Our most recent costume is Themistoclea, the Delphic priestess who taught Pythagoras. We’re assuming she was the Pythia, the priestess who delivered oracles from Apollo. This costume would be great if you’d like to do some divining for friends, which is a traditional part of Halloween festivities. Just grab your laurel leaves and your bowl of water and you’re all set.
Halloween is only 9 days away!
Well, she’s not exactly a heroine, but you can’t deny she’s a Notable Woman. And we gotta have some gore. Lizzie Borden (1860-1927) is one of the most famous crime figures in American history. As the ditty goes, “Lizzie Borden took an axe/Gave her mother 40 whacks/When she saw what she had done/She gave her father 41.” Actually, it was her step-mother, not her mother; and the actual number of whacks was 18 and 11, respectively. More to the point, no one really knows if Lizzie was guilty. She was acquitted at trial, after all. Nevertheless, it has always been difficult to imagine who else could or would have done it.
So if you want to get a little macabre for Halloween, Lizzie’s your woman. The pieces we suggest, from left to right:
1. Victorian costume dress with leg-o-mutton sleeves. This is being sold as a “vampiress” dress, but the late Victorian styling makes it a convenient get-up for Lizzie Borden. Unfortunately it’s rather small, so our next options are for you to assemble your own late-Victorian look.
2. Millicent blouse in black. Button front with leg-o-mutton sleeves.
3. Twill bustle skirt in black.
4. Optional corset. You might consider wearing a corset under your duds. Period-correct foundation garments are what help give the right silhouette.
5. Plastic blood splats. The great thing about these is that they’re plastic film—not liquid. You can stick these to your nice Victorian costume without ruining it. You can also get some liquid stage blood in various forms.
6. The all-important bloody axe! Carry this with you and be sure to tell everyone you didn’t do it. Really.
Hair and makeup: To be accurate, you should wear no face makeup at all. Except maybe blood. As for hair, Frizzie Lizzie is the way to go. If you can tie your hair up into a little top knot or bun, you’re all set.
Shoes: Victorian lace-up boots
Hoo boy! Our first few days have been amazing. We’ve been linked by the Washington Post, tweeted and re-tweeted everywhere, Facebooked, and now covered by Echidne and The Widdershins. (And probably more, but we haven’t sorted through all the trackbacks.) Awesome. Huge thanks to all of you!
We still need to add our Glamour Grrl category, and as we get closer to Halloween, we’ll focus on some costumes that you can pull together super-quick.
It’s our first blog post, so we’ll start by tipping the hat to all those blogs and posts that inspired us to start this site:
- College Candy
- College Fashion
- Echidne of the Snakes
- FatGrrl
- Feminist Mormon Housewives
- Filthy Grandeur
- HillZoo
- I Blame The Patriarchy
- Jezebel
- Ms. Magazine
- Rachel Simmons
- Salon
- The Sexist
- Sociological Images
- Stiletto Revolt
Here’s to a less craptastic Halloween!
Such a pretty yukata! So delicate, so charming. And such a lovely young maiden…too bad she’s a DRAGON.
The story of Kiyohime is the original Fatal Attraction. She fell in love with a handsome young Buddhist monk, and when he spurned her, her rage was so great that she turned into a ferocious dragon. We suspect the monk had it coming to him. The two images above are both 19th century Japanese prints depicting crucial moments in the story. On the left, Kiyohime is in pursuit of her lover but hasn’t yet turned into a dragon. On the right we see her in the terrible moment of actual transformation—and it’s definitely terrible, because we have no idea what’s going on with that kimono. Our costume concept is the next stage: she still has her kimono on, but her head and body have already turned dragony.
We suggest wearing a yukata or kimono over a zentai suit, with a dragon headpiece and a tail:
1. Cotton yukata with obi. Very innocent and sweet.
2. Wine-colored zentai suit. Of course you probably already have a zentai suit (doesn’t everyone?), but in case you don’t have one in the right shade, here’s your ticket. Wear this underneath your kimono.
4. Dragon tail. The elastic belt can hide under your obi.
Some sun goddesses are motherly types. They shed their nurturing light on the earth, helping the plants grow and the people thrive. Not Bila. She preferred to burn people up. Every day she would send out her dingo dogs (this was back in the Dreamtime) to hunt down human victims for her great bonfires. Eventually Lizard and Gecko decided to put a stop to this—apparently they were fond of humans—and so they attacked her. Bila turned herself into a fireball and fled, leaving the world in darkness. Oops! Lizard and Gecko then had to figure out how to get her back, which they did by hurling a boomerang into the sky. Somehow the boomerang drove Bila back onto the horizon, and now she travels across the sky every day in the form of the burning sun.
There is no standard depiction of Bila as far as know, so the costume design is sort of abstract. The pieces we suggest:
1. Hand-drawn batik sarong featuring a gecko design and sun motif. This is for your top layer. We suggest wearing it as a strapless dress, just like on the mannequin in the picture.
2. “Holy Fire” dance skirt. Note this is just the skirt, not the top. It’s a ten-panel orange chiffon circle skirt with flame-yellow inserts. Wear it underneath the sarong for a fiery look all the way to the floor.
3. Spiky flame wig. It’s silly,but we love it.
4. Small fair-trade boomerang. These boomerangs are only about 8 inches across, so you could hang one around your neck as a giant pendant. Just tie a cord to the middle. These are hand-painted by Australian artists in the Central Desert region.
5. Plush dingo to carry with you. Or you could just bring your own dog.
Illustration credits: For the background of our abstract costume illustration we used part of a painting by Jabaljarri, a Jawoyn artist (northern Australia).
Miriam Makeba (1932-2008), the beloved South African legend, was famously known as “Mama Africa” for her music and her courageous opposition to apartheid. Throughout her long career Miriam was always stylish, wearing everything from boubous to isicholos with panache, but for our costume we’ve chosen her 60s-era look: western-style gowns paired with tall African-style hats.
Finding a gown is easy; it’s the hat that’s hard. We haven’t been able to locate a good source for costume purposes (real hats are very expensive), so we’ve come up with a thrifty alternative: a chef’s hat! Not the poufy, floppy kind, but the tall stiff cylindrical kind. They’re available in solid black, they’re shaped exactly like the hats Miriam was wearing in the 1960s, and they’re only ten bucks. Can’t beat that. Add a great dress, bold hoop earrings, a glittery microphone, and maybe a pair of shades for that 60s look.
Costume pieces from left to right:
1. Black chef’s hat, 9 inches tall.
2. Gold strapless gown.
3. Large gold-plated hoop earrings
4. Gold glitter microphone.
And if you can sing “Pata Pata,” you’re all set.
Nu Wa (also spelled Nu Gua or Nu Kua) is the ancient Chinese creator goddess. She’s usually depicted with a dragon body—sort of like a mermaid, but with awesome powers over the universe. Nu Wa spent seven days creating the animals, beginning with chickens (!) and ending with humans. (Day one: chickens. Day two: dogs. Day three: sheep. Day four: pigs. Day five: cows. Day six: horses. Day seven: humans.) Our costume illustration shows two views of the goddess. The image on the right is from an ancient tomb painting; it shows Nu Wa (holding a bow compass) entwined with her mate, Fu Xi (holding a carpenter’s square). Very, um, snaky. We’re going with the image on the left. Though we love the drafting tools.
Our goal here is to approximate a Tang Dynasty silhouette: sleeveless underdress, wide-sleeved robe, and a wide belt cinching it all at the waist. The pieces we suggest:
1. A mermaid dress! This one is really pretty. It looks like scales—very dragony—but in a nice way. Notice the smocking across the middle? That’s exactly where your belt will go, just above the dripping pearl thing.
2. Navy dragon robe. The dragon print on this robe is perfect! Wear this over the dress, making sure to keep it pulled open at the front so the nice mermaid costume will show. The belt (#3) will hold everything in position.
3. White cinch belt. This goes over the robe and holds everything in place.
4. Dragon tiara. Depending on how your wearing your hair, you may want to accessorize with a dragonish tiara.
5. Bow compass. You can draw circles for people. You can also scare the living daylights out of people if you wave this thing around at a party.
