Halloween!!!

 

 

Witch Mombe - My idea of a Halloween costume

 

Halloween was the Holiday that got me started into costumes.  It also pushed me into acting.  What other Holiday are you encouraged to be something else?  I received praise and gasps on Halloween and I loved it.  I enjoy watching the Travel Channel with the shows on the best Haunted Houses in the United States.  Halloween has become quite a big business in the last decade! 

Growing up in Burbank, Ca next to the studio's we had some fun times.  First for us came the costumes.  My father is a retired set painter.  That means he would make fake walls look like a real place.  For Halloween he would transfer those skills to our costumes.  We had to be trained to wear the cardboard boxes.  They were never easy costumes to walk around in and it was horrible to push your way up narrow pathways, but the reactions of the different people made the pain and agony worth it, plus we would get more candy at the door.

Someone in the family would usually win the costume contest.  My costumes were on the cute and fancy side since my mother could sew.  I didn't start getting the cardboard box treatment until I was in Junior High.  It depended how busy my father's job was.  If he was really busy that year we would have to scramble for the back up robes Mom had made one year and put some blood on our faces to be vampires, but if Dad was free he would make us the most fantastic creatures. 

It began in September when we would gather around as a family and have a brainstorming session.  Mom and Dad would offer suggestions, but they would let us choose what we wanted to be.  Now that was hard for a little kid because it is tough to be clever at 6 years old.  Even if we asked for mundane costumes, we would get the special treatment.  I remember my younger brother wanted to be a mummy and I wanted to look like I was run over by a car.  That year we went to Dad's work after school.  He had a professional make-up person work on me while he tried to wind some aged gauze over my brother.

I can remember two costumes of my older brothers, they are twins so my father had to do double the costumes.  The one that made every one's jaw drop were the robots.  He made my brothers into metal monsters with blinking lights on them.  The other one I really remember because of the people's reaction was one brother dressed as a gas pump, a really detailed gas pump and my other brother dressed as an Arab sheik.  People would see them and laugh and laugh.  This was in the late 70's to early 80's and there was a big gas shortage going on.  I was too young for the political joke, but they won the costume contest again that year.

Here is an example of our love of costumes being passed to the next generation.  Spongebob is in the bulky hard to wear costumes of my youth.  My brother made the box part and I made the Spongebob clothing.  Poor kid could not mange the costume and we never tried agaun.  The fairy costume is how much better we became with using our fabrics and making our designs,  When we first put the wings on her she cried and cried.  We felt so bad!  Who knew a pair of wings could provide so much trama.

I had some really fun and difficult costumes to wear.  One of the best was when I was the computer.  My father put a real keyboard on the box with blinking lights to show I was on.  My face was in the monitor and I would try to talk with a computer voice.  I wanted so badly to win the costume contest but I didn't fit in the car very well, so my parents had to drive really slowly with the hatchback open so I could get to the school.  We ended up arriving late, so I didn't win the trophy.  It was quite heartbreaking for me, but everyone said I had the best costume.  The teachers loved it so much that I was the computer in that years Christmas play.

The list of costumes goes on and on.  Our best year was when I decided to be "Hickory-dickey Dock".  I was very surprised when Dad made me into a grandfather clock.  That was the worst costume to wear, but it was beautiful with fake wood grain on the cardboard sides and beautiful crown molding at the top.  It came in two pieces a box for the body and another box to make the shape of the top of the clock with my face as the painted face of the clock.  It was kind of nice and also really annoying to wear the costume at school.  Once encased nobody knew it was me so I could wonder the school relatively safe from peers.  But when they did find out it was me I was very vulnerable.  The knocking on the side of the box my head was in would drive me nuts!

I did not stop with the costumes.  My father no longer made them for me, so I started making my own.  I do not like making normal, ordinary clothing.  That is very boring to me.  Sure I can make myself a useful everyday skirt, but I do not have the motivation.  Instead I spend $500 making a fur trim "Queen of Hearts" fashion.  And I am very happy with the results. 

That is me as the "Queen of Hearts".  It is hard when you are not a skinny body type to find a costume.  I have no delusion about my body type and I am not going to make a good Disney princess.  I had lots of fun designing the gold and black skirt.  The dress is made from silk and has mohair trim. 

I needed a matching Alice, so my mother created this costume for a family member.  It has little white rabbits as pockets.

When I started making costumes for the theatre.  I made the hero costumes, the pretty one-of-a-kind show stopping costumes and that is mt favorite thing.  Luckily I have a mother who believes in doing an assembly line.  She would often say. "Why make one dress when it is just as easy to make two."  So we worked well together. 

It sure is funny to think that how we grow up with our holidays affect some of our choices in life.    I am not impressed with store bought costumes, Mostly because I could never fit in any, but I do understand the simple fact that not everyone is lucky enough to have someone who can make their costumes.