Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Whether a great idea turned out bad or you just half-assed it or whatever.

When I was in middle school, I got it in my head that I wanted to be Puss in Boots (I am old, so this was way before Shrek). I was picturing this elaborate costume, where I'd be a lifelike cat dressed in a fancy swashbuckler outfit (thigh high boots, breeches, linen shirt with full sleeves, wide-brimmed hat, all of it). My mom couldn't find patterns to make any of the clothes and I couldn't find any suitable boots and lifelike cat makeup turned out to be beyond my skill level and on and on and on. I should have scrapped it. Instead I ended up with:

My mom's old ankle boots from like 1981
Green tights
My mom's attempt to make paned breeches based off my description, aka a puffy gold satin diaper with strips of pink and green grosgrain ribbon hot glued on
A magenta polyester ruffled blouse with one of those little built in neckties
A plastic cat mask
A witch's hat (I tucked the point in)
A plastic sword

I think maybe one person got it.

my friend and I once had identical tinsel wigs, fake nails, facepaint...

yeah, I don't understand it either, but we were going to go babysit at her church halloween party. When people asked what we were we said we were dysfunctional.

editing to say: actually, I think my bride costume was worse. I was 3 maybe and it was a hand-me-down, and most importantly, I didn't even know what a bride was. I cried when it was explained to me.

Middle school is the age of terrible costumes. Mine was Trauma Queen. Black clothes, mechanized raven, etc. I thought I was so clever.

Simultaneously worst and best: Sexy little red riding hood with a basket full of beer.

I was going for Sabrina the teenage witch, but I just ended up looking like a hooker or something. I think I was 10 or 11.

Also in middle school. My best friend and I spent months shredding up tie dyed t-shirts and cloth and sewing it to bikini tops in randomly elaborate ways. I think we wore black jeans on the bottom? We were something really stupid like rainbow fairies or something. It took about five seconds of scathing glares in the hellhole that is junior high school for me to run into the bathroom and put on a turtleneck underneath my be-rainbowed bikini top.

I think it was upper elementary era.

I wanted to be a punk, of the 80's sort, as percieved by a child of the 80s.

My mom wanted me to be a clown.

So, we compromised, because what choice did we have? I was basically a teenage clown and knew even then how horrible it was, i was even embarassed in the church costume contest.

I was wearing a clown wig some black jacket, jeans or something and black ballet slippers or something. hooker makeup probably.

My fail of totally by myself was a purposefully messed up costume of horrible random stuff in middle school. I was wearing my dad's waders. Which was dumb, I went about 3 houses, turned around and went home to put something else together, that I could walk in.

Instead I threw together in 5 minutes some bugs bunny ears glued to a headband and wore my dad's "what's up doc" of fabulous 80s screen printed shirt he got work working in the hospital or something.

Once when I was in second or third grade, I decided to dress up as Tasslehoff Burrfoot for my school's Halloween parade. I designed my own costume based on what Tasslehoff looked like in my head and what I had at my disposal in my grandparents' house.

Sooooo my costume basically came down to putting my hair in a topknot, wearing an oversized sparkly black knit dress, and carrying around a huge stick as my staff.

1) Tasslehoff is a guy
2) No one else in the second/third grade would have read those books
3) I was kind of a nutso little kid

I loved that costume though, but I admit now that it was not my finest costume moment.

My worst was definitely the year I dressed up as the color black. Mainly because at the first house, when someone asked me what I was I said "I'm black." I'm not, and this still makes me cringe when I think of it.

When I was 8 my mom dressed my older sister as Little Bo Peep and so of course I was her sheep. I was forced to wear a white sweater and white sweat pants and threw on black gloves and knee high black socks and a cow bell. I was so upset because a) I looked stupid and b) I wanted to be Little Bo Peep because her dress was cute! Worst. Costume. Ever.

I think Ive told this story before, but its a good one! The first year my friend was allowed to trick or treat alone her and her best friend went as mimes. The friend wore regular mime makeup, and my friend left the house with nothing (so its not like her parents could have stopped her). Then she put on reverse mime makeup...which turned out to be blackface. aw. she obviously had no idea, but i guess they got yelled at at several houses before she ran home crying.

Aw. I have one like this too... when I was in kindergarten or thereabouts, my sister got to dress up as a pretty pretty princess with a fancy dress and a hat with streamy bits and even a sparkly baton. She got to be exactly what she wanted. My grandmother (who made all of our costumes at that point) decided to dress me up as a pumpkin. A big, fat, three dimensional pumpkin. This was right when I was developing real body issues (isn't that sad? kindergarteners shouldn't even know what it means to "feel fat") and between that and my sister constantly rubbing it in my face that she got to be a pretty pretty princess and I didn't, I spent the whole day crying. In the middle of a big Halloween parade that we were at.

That wasn't a bad costume per se, it was just bad for me. Objectively speaking, my Tasslehoff costume was worse.

This thread needs more pictures.

I went as a turtle one year. Green sweatsuit and a papier mache shell that my older sister made for me attached to chicken wire. I walked halfway down the street and the shell fell off. I cried and got put into my sister's old costume.

In 6th grade I was "not a morning person", which was essentially me in my PJs.


ETA: At least it was better than the girl on the left. In a jacket.