A closet full of clothes and nothing to wear.

August 9, 2007 5:40 PM

Enlighten me with your costume ideas.

I'm going to a week-long costume party. It will be in a very dusty environment, so I'll need to wear goggles and a dust mask practically at all times.

I have a costume budget of about $200, and I'm budgeting about sixteen hours of labor time. I would like to have at least three to four costumes. I already have:

* 150 LED throwies (small 3v lithium batteries, neodymium magnets, 10mm LEDs x 10 x 5 colors, plus another 100 RGB flashing LEDs)
* 2 white el wire kits, 10' and 15'
* white lab coat
* paintball mask with integrated goggles
* red spandex shorts

How can I best exploit the items I already have, and what other stuff should I buy to make three or four wicked awesome costumes? Ideally two would be suited for daytime and would not make use of the lights, while the other two would be for cold weather and would use the throwies and el wire to make the costume very visible in the dark.

Difficulty: there is no limit to how inappropriate or weird the costumes can be (for example, assless chaps wouldn't have any shock value), but it should be semi-practical to wear for a long time or else be ridiculously cool-looking. Bonus points if it's funny.

posted by mullingitover to Society & Culture (12 answers total)

If you're going here (the only week-long rather dusty costumed event I can think of...), check out these safety guidelines so your costume doesn't make it tough to drink enough water. It would suck if whatever you were wearing was so heavy that you didn't want to/couldn't carry enough water with you.

Perhaps integrate a hidden Camelbak into the costume if you really, really want to, say, be sealed into a plexiglass tube full of oyster shells or something.
posted by mdonley at 5:51 PM on August 9, 2007

My first thought with the goggles and dust mask requirement is a Tusken Raider - bonus is that wrapping yourself up in layers will easily meet the "cold weather" requirement. This website is pretty thorough on putting together a Raider costume.

Similarly - get yourself some BRIGHT blue contacts and you can integrate that dust mask (and water bladder!!) into a Fremen costume
posted by nelleish at 6:03 PM on August 9, 2007

if the venue is all desert-y, green is going to really pop. Making a shirt and pants out of that plastro-turf stuff (like 2 bucks a yd^2 at your lowe's menard's or wherever) will be really cheap. I can attest to its comfort; the stuff breathes and doesn't itch. Additionally, you could embellish with any real or fake plants you desire.
posted by kickback at 6:12 PM on August 9, 2007

Well just put all that stuff on and you'll be good to go, no?

It can get cold out there and is dark so consider rigging one of those EL wire strands on the back of a warm coat so that you can be seen.

White lab coat is easy to work with--you could build a daytime schtick around it, get some scary looking tools or instruments and pack small bottles of "medicine." That's one approach.

Not sure what fashion or configuration your LEDs are in, but they sound possibly more useful for a bike, or perhaps a hat.

I find a nice thrift-store suit jacket to be indisepensible in the evenings--it add a formal flair and has pockets.

One historically proven strategy is to take your budget and go buy a bunch of parts--go nuts, don't necessarily think about "outfits" unless something jumps into your head. Get some fabric, a sewing kit, lots and lots of safety pins. Certainly duct tape. Put it al in a bin and you've got instant costume factory when you get inspired by the moment.

Ah, playa couture . . .
posted by donovan at 10:26 PM on August 9, 2007

Oh, and kickback's astro turf suggestion is one part rad and one part bad idea--astro turf is SUPER MOOPy . . . frays and falls apart and you do not want to be leaving a trace. I can imagine some strategies to seal the edges (melt them?) but in general it's probably gonna e a tought material to use for an outfit
posted by donovan at 10:29 PM on August 9, 2007

Making an EL wire Fright Wig seems cool. Mad Scientistesque. Mustache too?


You should burningman tag this.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:46 PM on August 9, 2007

I've always wanted to be a Plague Doctor.
posted by alexei at 2:38 AM on August 10, 2007

also: lots of ideas here. browse through all the old threads:

http://playaliciousplaywear.tribe.net/
posted by apostrophe at 7:04 AM on August 10, 2007

Didn't the Gyro Pilot in the Mad Max films wear a lab coat?
posted by Pollomacho at 7:30 AM on August 10, 2007

Do you paint? If so, paint a scene on the lab coat. It's a perfect canvas.

Anyway, what are you into? Try to base your costumes around your interests or passions. For example, my boyfriend and I love old school video games so I'm making him a Yoshi costume, and I made myself a Sonic the Hedgehog costume. Do you have any heroes from movies, music, or fiction whose look you could recreate, or bastardize?

Think about color combinations you love, especially non-traditional ones (grey/orange, hot pink/green, yellow/orange, etc.) and incorporate them.

Scour ebay for accessories - goggles, helmets, boots, belts, pins, etc.

Good luck!
posted by infinityjinx at 9:36 AM on August 10, 2007

I'll second whoever else mentioned the warm coat - you're going to need a fur coat or a thick jacket of some kind - it gets around 40 degrees out there at night. I don't know about you, but around 5 am I always end up shivering and cursing my prioritization of fashion over function.
posted by pokeydonut at 12:27 PM on August 16, 2007

Also, with the theme being The Green Man this year, you could use the lab coat as part of a dentist outfit and carry around pliers asking if anyone has an inconvenient tooth.

/crickets
posted by pokeydonut at 12:31 PM on August 16, 2007