Looking for a Halloween costume that you want to wear that isn’t expensive can be difficult. Choosing what you want to wear for the big spooky day can be especially hard if you want to be as sustainable as possible. Most Halloween costumes usually retail for $30-$100. Yikes! Who wants to pay that for an outfit you may only wear for a few drunk hours of your life? It doesn’t help that costumes are made out of cheap materials that are harmful to the environment as it takes a bazillion years for synthetic fabrics to decompose. Worry not, though! There are some ways to look banging on Halloween without spending your whole paycheck and taking too much of a toll on mother nature.
A good way to save some cash and be nice to the environment during Halloween is to be a costume repeater! This year, since Halloween falls on a Thursday, there will probably be opportunities to dress up the weekends before and after Halloween. It’s okay to wear the same costume two weekends in a row. This can also mean re-wearing a costume you wore a few years ago. In all honesty, people aren’t going to remember, or care for that matter, if you copy an outfit, especially if you didn’t post it on Instagram.
The number one place I recommend going if you live in Richmond, like me, is Ashby. This mom and pop shop sells curated secondhand finds at great prices. And you guessed it; they sell Halloween costumes! Shopping here or any thrift store for a costume is a great way to give a costume a longer lifespan than it usually would have.
You can also thrift around for pieces that could make up a costume. Just because a clothing item’s original intent wasn’t to be a costume doesn’t mean you can’t flip it to be one with that innovative mind of yours!
Being sustainable and spending little money on a Halloween costume simply comes down to being a little creative by working with what you already have! Search your closet for items that could piece together a great costume. I’m sure you have something. Shopping your own closet is super fun and can lead you to find some gems you forgot about.
If you have some pieces you don’t wear much and are considering getting rid of; you can flip that item and turn it into a costume! This is an easy way to give your pre-loved clothes a second chance at life. Since clothes we might have laying around the house might be a little plain for a Halloween costume, a simple but very effective way to really bring home this type of costume could be by doing some killer makeup.
It is always great to think of your environmental footprint when buying, no matter what that item may be. This Halloween, it could be a good idea for you to save some money and be environmentally conscious when you are choosing a costume.