Halloween is one of those holidays steeped in tradition, costumes being one of them. Initially used as distractions to confuse the spirits about the true identity of humans, costumes acted as protection and potentially scared away spirits from trying to do any harm. Yet as the years progressed and the holiday migrated across the Atlantic and into America, costumes became less a means of spiritual protection and more of a means to showcase creativity or costume wearer’s personal preferences. Even by today’s standards, there are some costumes that you just don’t see anymore.
While we may think of a bat as being a classic Halloween costume, it seldom comes across in the same way as in the late 19th century. A gown of black gauze is covered by a cape of satin and whale bone which is used to shape the cloak into bat wings. A bat-shaped headpiece, a brooch, alongside two smaller brooches attached to the fronts of the shoes drive home the bat theme of the outfit.
A Victorian-era legend of Spring-heeled Jack became a common Halloween costume for youth in the 19th century. This urban legend purports to have the ability to leap great distances and have fiery red eyes, attacking young women throughout the decades. Becoming a popularized character in cheap magazines called penny dreadfuls, he was described in the literature and by victims by his pale skin, red eyes, black oil-skin attire, and black cloak.
The sorceress as it is titled is an interesting variation on the ever-popular witch costume. While the description says it is an easy costume, the fitted corset bodice and pleated and multiple-layered skirt seem far from simple. Unlike the classic orange and black, this costume was supposed to be designed with black and red. In the red panels appliqué or free-drawn images of owls, serpents, moons, and bats are added, creating visual interest and detail to the dress. A classic witch’s hat is swapped out for a smaller headpiece wrapped with a snake and a bird.
A child’s costume version of an evil fairy comes up in several books but none are as elaborate for a single night as this one. A full skirt and classic bodice are made with a combination of black and white sateen and adorned with reflective glittery jet-black beads. Similar to the previous bat costume, the whalebone-enforced wings are attached to the gloves, making the wings move more realistically. Silver horns are pinned into the hair, giving the piece a finishing evil appearance.
A pretty colorful butterfly may still be fluttery about modern trick-or-treats, but a moth is something that seems to have gone by the wayside. The complex geometric patterns on the wings mirror that of a butterfly, but the palette is muted with shades of soft browns and grays. While many question a moth as being spooky enough for the night of Halloween, in many cultures, moths represent omens of death and messengers of the spirit world.
While masks were a stand-by classic, the use of inflatable characters increases the sense of fright to the whole costume. Here the triple devil adds an extra layer of evil and surprise to the classic devil costume.
At the turn of the century, the costumes turned away from using expensive materials like satin and velvet and turned to more affordable costumes using paper. Industrialization saw an onslaught of companies advertising their products to consumers, and the Dennison Manufacturing Company advertised its paper in mail-order pamphlets for a variety of holidays. Here a full spread of costumes takes classic Halloween imagery and adds a bit of at the time modern interpretation with the free-floating cobweb with the spider costume and the geometric shapes of the bat wings to be the base of a skirt.
The devil’s hour, the hour of the night where the veil between the living world and the spirit world is thinnest is represented in this costume. Numerical hours of the night are embroidered onto the base of the dress and luminescent beads decorate the upper dress and bodice. A bat wing headband completes the dark elements of this dress for a visually elegant representation of the spooky dark hours.
Another publication of Dennison Manufacturing Company advertises costumes for a black and orange masquerade party. The imagery of Halloween is in modern geometric forms of triangles, squares, and stripes, making for a visually pleasing and intriguing site.
Do you think any of the costumes would do well today? Which costume piqued your interest?