Until this year, I bought my Halloween costumes like anyone else — I often sourced the items from SHEIN, Cider or Amazon, or relied on a pre-packed look from Spirit Halloween. It was cheap and convenient. I could type in a simple query and immediately discover a thousand options, and if I had a specific idea, I could zero in on exact pieces with ease.
But this summer, I finally confronted my own purchasing habits and tried to make a pact with myself to solely source new clothes secondhand. I can no longer ignore these big companies’ environmental impacts, wastefulness and abusive labor tactics.
Trust me when I say I’m not here to act like I’ve always been the perfect example of sustainability. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that a general population that largely critiques fast fashion so easily makes an exception for Halloween despite the waste that follows.
I know many people who would never shop from Temu or Fashion Nova 90% of the year, but when it comes to Halloween, they make an exception. In this day and age, sitting in a lecture during the months of September or October really just means watching someone search “sexy puss in boots costume” on Amazon two rows ahead of you.
Because of the college culture of multiple costumes — one for each day of Halloweekend — people buy triple the amount they usually would. And they’re not buying these costumes to wear again, even if that’s what they’ve convinced themselves. I certainly haven’t worn the beige peasant blouse I bought to be Princess Aurora two years ago. So most of these fast fashion grabs either end up in a landfill or clog up a thrift store. Most thrift stores receive so much clothing that they physically cannot sell it all and end up shipping it out to other countries. Various countries have literally enacted bans on imported secondhand clothing because of the massive amounts of waste it creates.
To be clear, buying pre-packaged costumes from stores like Spirit Halloween is just as bad, if not worse, since those costumes are impossible to wear for any other occasion and are made so cheaply that they contain toxic substances. Even if you don’t care about poisoning the earth, I’d hope you at least care about poisoning yourself.
So why can so many people, many of them college students, suddenly justify these harmful spending habits when it comes to Halloween? Most of what I hear from people in my life is either the convenience or the cheapness. They swear they can’t afford to buy costumes anywhere other than these online stores — then turn around and spend $50 on a single haul. Or they simply cannot find the time in their busy schedules to go somewhere brick-and-mortar.
Well, good news for all those afflicted by these conundrums! Thrifting is often just as cheap, if not cheaper than, online shopping — especially when you consider the delivery fees. But even if you cannot force yourself to go hunt for items out in the real world, online resale sites like Depop still offer a more sustainable solution. This year, I bought part of my costume on Depop — a little green dress to be Tinkerbell. Add in a pair of wings I’ve had for years, and boom! A Halloween costume composed of only secondhand items or items I already had.
Of course, you can also look at the many items of clothing and accessories that you already own for inspiration. Maybe that plaid skirt will make you the perfect Heather Chandler. That bright yellow sweater would work perfectly for Arthur the Aardvark, if you’re into that sort of thing. We all already possess so much that we often forget our own resources.
This is where sourcing your costume more sustainably becomes a lot more fun and rewarding than getting a red corset and calling yourself the “kiss” part of a “kiss, marry, kill” trio costume. There’s so much more room for creativity when you’re hunting through a thrift store or diving into the back of your closet, and then so much satisfaction when you watch it come together. Get back in touch with your hunter-gatherer roots and scavenge a little!
At the end of the day, I’ll never be the social justice warrior laying into my friends for making a couple of fast fashion purchases a year. I really do understand when you need something specific you cannot find anywhere else, or when your schedule is so packed that fitting in a thrifting trip is just too much. But I wish more people would see Halloween as an exciting opportunity to build a costume with pieces they love instead of a rush to grab crappy, plastic-laden tube tops or boxed Ken costumes that will inevitably end up in the landfill.
Brynn Murawski is not excited to walk around in the cold in a little dress this Halloweekend. She’d love to hear about your creative costumes (or anything else) at [email protected]
