From Samhain to “Mean Girls,” sexy costumes maintain their influence in today’s culture.
It’s that time of the year again: spooky season is upon us! With the crunch of leaves beneath our feet and a chilly breeze through the air, Halloween has made its official annual return. As the favorite holiday draws closer and trick-or-treaters choose their costumes, let’s take a look at the history of costumes – because adults like dressing up too.
The origins of Halloween are rooted in Celtic traditions, mainly the Samhain festival (SAH-win). Samhain took place on the last day of October and was a pagan celebration that honored the souls of the dead and welcomed the harvest at the end of that summer. It was believed that the souls of the dead would come to Earth to visit during this time. Celts would dress up in disguises (sometimes as ghosts or ghouls) to avoid becoming possessed by the dead. Samhain marks the first time costumes served a purpose in history.
In the Victorian era, people celebrated the holiday in many different ways, such as hosting parties where attendees would play games and enjoy a meal. Divination was a popular event at parties, and Victorians would often participate in search of love and wealth. At these events, party-goers would also put on costumes to participate in the festivities. Some popular costumes were bats, witches, skeletons, vampires, and other supernatural beings. During the Victorian period, industrialization led to the mass production of clothes, making fashion more accessible to people of the lower class. With improvements in science, mainly chemistry, women became more fond of brighter colors produced by synthetic dyes. Arsenic was a popular chemical used to create alluring green colors on clothes, which caused serious harm to the producer of the clothes and the wearer. Some ailments included rashes, sores, delirium, and even death. Women who wore clothes coated with arsenic would be referred to as “femme fatales” because their lovers would die of arsenic poisoning after being in close contact with arsenic-laced clothes.
The mass production of costumes became extremely popular in the early 1900s. The first company to specialize in mass-produced Halloween costumes was Benjamin and Nathaniel Cooper, also known as “Ben Cooper.” Ben Cooper made the switch from exclusively manufacturing Broadway costumes to Halloween costumes after they saw how popular it was to dress up as characters from the film. Popular costumes for both children and adults included Mickey Mouse and Snow White.
In the 1940s during WWII, pin-up girls became a huge hit. A pin-up girl is a model who would be photographed in an often suggestive manner for a magazine or production company. This model typically exemplified the beauty standard at the time and was seen in swimsuits or lingerie. The term “pin-up” comes from the idea that men, mainly soldiers, would pin an image of a model on their wall to admire them. Pin-up girls were often used as a form of propaganda, inspiring soldiers to fight for the American beauties they saw in magazines. During the Halloween season, the models were photographed in scantily-clad costumes that left little to the imagination. As the war raged on, magazines as well as the U.S. government began to use Hollywood actresses such as Rita Hayworth to get Americans to support the war effort.
Speaking of Hollywood, the horror genre emerged at this time and became highly profitable. Television producer Hunt Stromberg was looking to add some sex appeal to WABC-TV’s late-night horror movie screenings, so he hired Maila Nurmi, whom he discovered at a Halloween party in 1954 to portray the host of his show. Nurmi named her character “Vampira” due to the character’s vampiric demeanor and costume. She modeled Vampira after several characters, namely Snow White’s Evil Queen. Nurmi also exaggerated her already tiny waist to create an even spookier silhouette. “The Vampira Show” was a weekly series where host Vampira would introduce the movie that was being featured that week.
Although “The Vampira Show” was canceled in 1955 due to creative differences, it is considered today to be a cult classic. The show was unique for its time, as there weren’t any recurring series that combined sex appeal and horror. This unique combination inspired another cult classic series many years later.
In 1981, Cassandra Peterson graced the silver screen as Elvira, the host of the comedy-horror movie marathon series “Elvira’s Movie Macabre.” Peterson hosted the series for its entire duration, donning heavy eye makeup, spiky bangs, and an incredibly low-cut dress. Elvira was the first horror host in history to be syndicated, meaning that the series was shown on other television networks than the original network. Elvira differs from Vampira, however, because of Peterson’s comedic flair and the show’s wild success.
Another actress who heavily inspired the change in Halloween costumes was Julie Newmar, who famously portrayed the original character of Catwoman in "Batman" live-action television series in 1966. Newmar, starring opposite Adam West, wore a tight-fitting catsuit embellished with a large gold belt and necklace, and completed the look with a cat ear headband and seductive eye makeup. The 1960s saw the second wave of feminism, so sexy costumes became normalized due to feminists' sex-positive activism.
In the 1970s, the LGBTQ+ community’s sex revolution inspired many queer people to go out on Halloween dressed as their true selves — often wearing ‘costumes’ that required cross-dressing. Halloween was the one night a year where many queer people could express themselves without fear of social or legal repercussions. Thanks to the LGBTQ+ community’s activism, society’s understanding of modesty changed and expressive costumes became incredibly popular.
In modern times, Halloween costumes have not changed much yet also have changed a great deal. It's easy to see how trends come and go, but for the most part, we still choose to wear the same costumes: supernatural beings, pop culture references, and characters from film and TV.
The argument that women buying into sexy costume culture is misogynistic has been discussed hundreds of times over. When you type “sexy Halloween costumes” into the search box on Google, a majority of the costumes are created with the intention of a woman or a femme person wearing them. There are far fewer sexy costumes made with the intention of a man or a masculine person wearing them.
Despite this, women every year choose to put on sexy costumes anyway. Because dressing overtly sexy in public at any other time of year is socially frowned upon, many women take Halloween as an opportunity to embrace the freedom that comes with dressing in this way. Sexy costumes are seen on women as young as high-school-aged girls (for many, dressing sexy on Halloween is the norm). This phenomenon is commented on in the 2004 teen comedy film “Mean Girls.” In the film, Lindsay Lohan’s character Cady remarks: “In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” And Cady is right – Halloween gives everyone a pass to dress as outrageously as they want and face no repercussions.
Ultimately, I think the reason why we love sexy costumes so much is because it gives us a feeling of liberation when wearing them. Because sexuality is oftentimes still considered a taboo topic, dressing sexually during a “children’s holiday” can give the wearer a sense of rebellious freedom.
Alyssa Guevara is a blog writer for Revolution. This article was edited by Meliha Ural.
Comentarios