Feel No Shame. Re-Wear Your Halloween Costume From Last Year

I can’t imagine that he spent more than $20 on this costume. That’s noteworthy when you consider that we have friends who will spend on costumes in the course of their lifetime what we spent on our first cars. Which is to say nothing for the man hours. For the comic-convention-going cosplayer, running the ever-growing gauntlet of costume events without looking like a party pooper is a labor of love. For the casual Halloweenist, however, it’s a tedious obligation. That’s why the lifetime costume is one of your great life hacks.

Chris Koentges has a piece over at The Atlantic extolling the virtues of re-wearing the same Halloween you wore last year, and all the previous years before that. Sure, it’s a money-saving tactic, but if you’ve got an interesting costume, like Koentges’s “A Berber from the Atlas Mountains” costume, which he picked up while traveling in Marrakech, you might as well wear it more than once.

I don’t usually dress up for Halloween, but when I’ve attended costume parties in the past, I’ve dug through my closet to see if I could scrounge up a free costume—or free-ish, at least. One costume I put together that was a hit at a party was cutting out a photo of Angelina Jolie from a magazine, taping it to a T-shirt that I wore with a hoodie and cargo shorts, and styling my hair into a fauxhawk—instant Maddox Jolie Pitt costume. Another easy costume was putting on a safari shirt, shorts, a ball cap and backpack with helium balloons tied to it—instant “kid from the movie Up” costume. It was very recognizable and fun (want a balloon? take one!), and yes, I’d wear it again.