buy the night

Tags: #critiques #essays #artReal costumes for Halloween are better. I should clarify that by real I mean home-made or crafted costumes, made by yourself or with a group of amateur friends. Definitely not lame store-bought things that have some image printed on cheap foam fabric. That’s lower than fast fashion. Custom, work-for-hire built costumes, there I have to say “it depends”. It depends on the originality, the cleverness, and the participation of the wearer in the vision. It’s the same standard as for the amateur variety. Does the costume wearer really own this look? Or are they just putting something on without feeling any connection to the idea. The authenticity requirement for a good costume is drawn from two different Halloween themes, one old and the other new. The old idea is that Halloween is for scaring off the scary spirits of darkness by becoming dark and scary ourselves. The root of the holiday is in the onset of shorter days and longer, earlier, winter nights. We…