Last night, at my first Halloween party of the season, I went as the classic, time-honoured cop-out: a black cat. I’d like to say it was a statement. In truth, it was a compromise: cute and feminine, yet cheap enough that I didn’t have to make any prior plans or purchases, and nowhere near alternative enough to need explaining. For the last several Octobers, I have been torn between the sexy costume that’s easy to buy and the clever one that I can’t quite afford, in both money and time.
It’s a dilemma that starts on the shelves. Every year, online budget retailers like Shein and Amazon stock their ranges with pre-packaged, hypersexualised outfits, cheaply made and algorithmically marketed to women across all income brackets. And the high street isn’t much better. Penney’s and H&M cost a little more, and tend to attract a little less sneering, though the quality and ethics are often equally as questionable. If you ask me, the key question is why the same costume earns harsher judgement depending on where it was bought.
At the other end, the costumes that earn the most social credit are ironic, referential, or niche: an obscure literary figure, an indie film homage, a subtle pop-culture in-joke. All of these require some cultural capital to get the reference, disposable income to source the right pieces, and spare time to assemble them. Originality, in other words, has become something of a luxury good.
So, what are Trinity students wearing this Halloween? A sizable chunk aren’t buying anything new. In an informal poll including 40 of my peers, 30 per cent said they’d skip the shops entirely, relying on things already in their wardrobes or borrowing from friends. Of the majority group who will buy at least one new item, 75 per cent plan to shop with online fast-fashion sites or high-street retailers in and around Dublin. The rest will opt for charity and thrift shops.
The poll also revealed a noticeable gender gap. 76.5 per cent of women said they’d be buying new, compared to 50 per cent of men. That’s unlikely to shock anyone, given that women are routinely expected to put more effort into how they look, and Halloween costumes raise the stakes. But it matters, because the group who are under the most pressure to participate in the costume economy are also navigating an industry which offers them a narrow set of high expectations.
Thrifting, meanwhile, has become something of a status symbol around the College and beyond. It’s seen as niche, artsy and virtuous, and while it may be cheap in euros, it’s costly in time. Hunting for the perfect blazer or vintage coat takes hours that many students, especially those juggling part-time jobs, simply don’t have.
Leyla Ní Choimín, a second-year representative of Trinity’s Fashion Society, says the appeal is “definitely a bit of both.” Almost everything she owns is from Vinted, in part because of the price, “but you can’t deny that it’s ‘in’ to shop secondhand.” Still, she acknowledges the silver lining: even if it’s performative, a costume made from secondhand clothes is “still better than doing a Shein order.”
It also takes a vision. Thrifting a costume means consciously deciding what you want ahead of time, and being adequately prepared to brave racks upon racks of mismatched clothes to find it. Fast fashion sites and our social feeds operate the other way around, often telling us what we want, before we want it.
So, is Halloween becoming an annual reminder of how we’re outsourcing our creativity to an algorithm? Maybe. But, at the end of the day, a Shein order shouldn’t be read as a verdict on a person’s character or originality. For most, it’s far less a preference than a hand forced by limited options. And yet, that is precisely how it becomes interpreted. Such choices can quickly become markers of poor taste, where what is affordable can easily become what is labelled as “trashy”.
English sociologist Beverley Skeggs, in her study of working-class women in England, described the constant struggle to avoid being labelled as “common”: an idea that combines a lack of taste, cheapness, and sexual excess. For the women without the financial means to participate in the style of consumption associated with respectability, the pressure to appear tasteful can be difficult to escape.
At Halloween, this conflict plays out before our eyes on the sale rack. The thrifted costumes of blazers, knitwear, and vintage coats tend to come with more fabric, as well as cultural praise. Conversely, the €15 Amazon costume reads as a failure twice over: too revealing, and too obviously purchased. Halloween provides us with quite a revealing stage where we can see these class distinctions at work.
Perhaps what we’re all chasing, regardless of what ends up in the basket, is a chance to be someone else for a night. After all, Halloween began with transformation at its core. In Ireland’s pagan festival of Samhain, people wore frightening costumes to repel dark forces. While we’re hardly warding off spirits by dressing up as a sexy cop or a black cat, the night still changes us. There’s a particular satisfaction in turning pieces from Oxfam, your flatmates, or your own wardrobe into a gem of a costume, and it’s fair to wonder whether the fast-fashionification of Halloween has taken some of that magic.
Maybe next year I’ll plan far enough ahead to pull off something thriftier, more unique and referential. Realistically, you’ll probably find me in the same black minidress and Halloween HQ cat ears — a compromise, perhaps, but one I can live with.
