You’ve probably been there: it’s 31 October and after weeks of procrastinating you’re clawing through your closet, trying to pull together a clever Halloween costume and wondering if you will need to resort to cutting eyeholes in that old white bedsheet.
Others among us – hair and makeup artists, costume designers, drag queens – spend the whole year thinking about transformation. We spoke with these creative pros, including an artist who worked on The Substance and the organizer of New York City’s famed Greenwich Village Halloween parade, about what makes a memorable Halloween costume, and how even procrastinators can craft a memorable look.
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Our experts
Frédérique Arguello, hair designer and Bafta and Critics’ Choice winner for The Substance
Jeanne Fleming, artistic and producing director of New York’s Village Halloween Parade, the largest in the world
Machine Dazzle, Emmy- and Obie-award-winning costume designer, set designer, performance artist and drag queen
James Nguyen and Alexander Gottlieb, AKA James & AC, costume designers who have collaborated with Chappell Roan and were on the design teams of the Broadway shows Death Becomes Her (James) and Moulin Rouge! (AC)
Mike Marino, makeup artist whose credits include The Batman (2022), A Different Man (2024) and Black Swan (2010). Frequently collaborates with Heidi Klum on Halloween costumes.
What do the best Halloween costumes all have in common?
Fleming: It’s all about performance. Let’s say you buy a Superman costume, which you might think is kind of boring.
But if you spend the whole night with everybody treating you like Superman, the kids are all treating you like Superman, you become Superman. So even the most “boring” costume can be very meaningful for the person wearing it. It’s a night of transformation. You become that thing you choose to be.
Arguello: Rock icons are very fun. There’s great makeup and you can use wigs. There’s David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust with a red mullet wig; Paul Stanley from Kiss with a star on the face. Ben Nye palettes are great for that.
Historical glam looks are my favorites. Cleopatra: heavy eyeliner, shiny turquoise eyeshadow and of course a braided black bob wig with heavy bangs. Or Elvis: use a wig or darken your hair with a color spray. Do not be afraid to exaggerate the hairstyle!
Dazzle: Messing around with cliche characters is a great way to turn things on their head. How about instead of being a “crazy cat lady” go as a “crazy lady cat”: dress like a cat and have a basket of dolls that are made to look like crazy ladies. Cradle a bunch of them in your arms. Taunt them with pickles or donuts. Don’t forget that “costume” implies “performance”.
Marino: I love werewolves, vampires, Frankenstein – all the classic stuff. What really interests me is to take something that we all know and change or redesign it. To do a new take on something is very risky, but I love to do that.
The important thing is having someone who’s going to embrace what we’re doing. Klum is the greatest subject because she’s always made to look beautiful, so she’s like: “This day I’m gonna look ugly and weird.” And she just goes for it: contact lenses, teeth, everything you can imagine.
What is your most memorable costume that you’ve either seen or worn yourself?
Fleming: One of my all-time favorites was a father and son: the boy was probably about four and wearing a big Godzilla mask. As the child walked along the parade route, the father laid out Dixie cups which the son then – as Godzilla – crushed!
Dazzle: I was walking down the street on Halloween once, and there was a guy just dressed in a garbage bag. He positioned himself next to other garbage that had been put out for collection. And he would just jump out and scare people as they walked by, and then he’d scoot down the street and try it from a different spot.
Marino: I have the excuse of doing Heidi’s costume every year basically, so I haven’t worn a costume in maybe a decade. I think the last costume I had was David Lee Roth from Van Halen. I made a David Lee Roth mask with the wig and his outfit.
The makeup artist Rick Baker does really elaborate home builds in Los Angeles for Halloween. Last year he did Planet of the Apes. He replicated all the gorillas and chimps and people from the films, and he, his daughters and his wife put on a whole show every 10 or 20 minutes for the whole day. It’s really elaborate and takes months to build.
What are some good group or duo costumes?
Fleming: I love it when people gather together in groups. This year, the parade theme is “potluck,” so I expect to see groups come as a pizza pie.
Nguyen: We were Charli xcx and Billie Eilish last year, which felt very part of the zeitgeist because the Guess music video had come out.
You just have to capture the spirit of Charli and Billie, which is sort of, like, messy and gritty. I had a pair of black stiletto heel boots in my closet that fit the vibe. We had some belts in our closet that I stacked, and the rest of the pieces were from Asos and Dolls Kill.
Arguello: Mythical Hollywood couples always do the trick. Think Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, or Lucy and Desi Arnaz. You can add some fake blood to the makeup. A little mix of classy and gore always works.
What’s a good last-minute costume for the procrastinators among us?
Dazzle: I am a fan of DIY things. What about mixing two unlikely things together like yoga and zombies? Dress like an undead Lululemon costume, all gross and wet with shredded clothes but carrying a decaying yoga mat. Go on to the sidewalk and do yoga poses and have extra body parts. The yoga mat should look sticky, like maybe there’s some mold growing on it or something.
Does your partner have any pet peeves? Think about going to Halloween as your partner’s worst pet peeve. Or as your greatest fear.
Find the balance between exaggerated and understated. Halloween is a great time to experiment with all the layers of your personality that don’t get to come out that often.
Gottlieb: Never underestimate what’s in your own closet. For example, everyone has, like, a leotard and pair of tights. You could always go as Farrah Fawcett or an 80s workout dancer.
Arguello: The Morticia look. We all have a black dress, just use pale makeup foundation. The only thing you need to get is a long black wig.
Marino: Just get a mask. There are so many good, professional-level ones out there for like $40. Yoda, Darth Vader … or just paint your face. Mehron Makeup makes amazing kits and there are artists like Mimi Choi who do amazing, inspiring tutorials.
Fleming: One reason I do the parade is because I like for people to have the experience of what it is to be an artist, to lose sense of time to make something. I said to someone, ‘Come as a cupcake.’ What I would love for them to do would be to try to figure that out in their own house.
Are there any good store-bought costumes out there that you would recommend?
Gottlieb: I love when people take store-bought Halloween costumes and make them something different. Like a sexy nun but then you’re covered in blood or cockroaches.
Or [Pennywise] from It. I love when people carry that balloon around and they’re in that scary makeup. It scares the hell out of me and I would never do that, but I think it is really fun.
When the Wicked movie came out, there were so many Glindas and Elphabas and it’s so touching. It shows the power that costumes that people see on screen have on people.
Dazzle: Avoid store-bought costumes and avoid commercially recognizable characters. They are boring. Show us something we’ve never seen before. The key is transformation. Make something that you’re proud of.
What do you expect to see this year?
Fleming: The parade theme for this year is It’s a Potluck! We have shown examples of costumes from the past that would fit this theme: folks dressed as sushi, jars of ketchup, fruits, a table set for tea. All of them are fun and wonderful.
Gottlieb: Lots of Glindas and Elphabas. And that couple from the Coldplay concert.
Marino: What is the HBO show with the big plant people? The Last of Us? Maybe some crazy zombies with veins and flowers and crazy shit all over their heads. Hopefully somebody does a rotted zombie Superman or a zombie Batman.
What are you wearing this year?
Arguello: Maybe Jonathan Davis from the band Korn, with the dreadlocks, and Adidas jogging outfits – or a purple, glittery jacket – he used to wear in the early 2000s.
Dazzle: I’ve thought about repeating a costume – partly because it’s better environmentally. Last year I went as pigeon shit. They unveiled a pigeon sculpture on the High Line, sure, called Dinosaur. When I found out, I was like, ‘Oh my God, can you imagine the shit that comes out of that thing?’ And on Halloween, I dressed in my costume and I went to the sculpture, and I did a whole photo shoot.
Fleming: I don’t wear a costume because I’m working and need to be spotted easily in case anything goes wrong. I wear a hot pink leather jacket, which I got 20 years ago, and I have purple hair, so it’s easy to spot me.
Nguyen: We have not even thought about it. We are the procrastinators.
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Danielle Renwick is a senior editor for the Guardian US.
