Costumes have played an essential part in Halloween gatherings all around the world for centuries. Modern and pop-driven people have a broad range of costume possibilities, both basic and intricate, limited only by their ingenuity. However, like with many customs, the roots of the Halloween costume are frequently lost to the passage of time. The historical origins of the Halloween costume have been shrouded in obscurity, which few understand or appreciate.
Historically, Halloween stems from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived approximately 2,000 years ago in England, Ireland and Northern France, celebrated Samhain as part of their “New Year” celebrations. The start of the Celtic New Year and the ‘dark’ and cold winter on November 1st was deeply linked with death.
The Celts thought that on the night before their New Year (October 31), “the border between the realms of the living and the dead becomes smudged,” allowing souls of the dead to return to Earth for a limited period of time.
Druids (Celtic priests) would frequently burn enormous bonfires for the purpose of animal sacrifice since the Celts thought these spirits caused mischief. While performing the rituals, the Celts felt it was important to “disguise" oneself from these spirits by dressing in costume. These masks were most likely made from animal skins or heads.
During the medieval period, Christianity embraced October 31 in order to reinterpret pagan traditions as its own. The term “Halloween" is derived from “All Hallows Eve," or the day preceding All Saints’ Day (November 1). However, many folkloristic features of Samhain were adopted and handed down, including costumes only with minor alterations.
During the 11th century
Because 11th century Christians chose to pray for the spirits of the dead instead of hiding from them, Halloween developed to be more about dressing up in costumes for the sake of ritual. Surprisingly, eleventh-century choir boys dressed up as female virgins for Hallow Mass as part of those rituals.
Halloween costumes during the early part of the twentieth century were frightful, taking a cue from the holiday’s pagan and Christian foundations. According to Lesley Bannatyne, an author who has done extensive research on the antiquity of Halloween, people typically chose gloomy, serious costumes rather than the pop culture-inspired which are in trend nowadays.
Changing costume styles between the 1600s and the 1800s
During the 1600s, people continued to dress up for Halloween as saints or divine beings. They went door-to-door in a practice known as “souling." Folks dressed in spiritual clothing would approach residences and perform religious songs or poetry (mumming) in exchange for spice-filled “soul cakes" and treats.
Halloween beliefs, customs, and costumes came with the first wave of Irish and Scottish immigrants to the United States in the 18th century. “People in rural America really embraced its pagan roots, and the concept of Halloween as a gloomy event, based upon death," Nancy Deihl, fashion historian and head of New York University’s costume studies MA programme told CNN Style. “They donned terrifying get-ups fashioned at home from whatever was on hand: sheets, makeup, makeshift masks," She went on to say.
The Victorian Era gave us some very interesting Halloween costumes
By the 1920s and 1930s, individuals began organising yearly Halloween masquerades for both adults and children. Those same decades witnessed the birth of pop culture-inspired costumes, as well as the first big costume manufacturing firms. By the mid-1940s, local and national officials sought to reframe the holiday – and dressing up for it – as a pastime for younger children.
Adults began dressing up for Halloween again in the 1960s, according to Deihl. Their approach was frequently more entertaining than frightening, and they would eventually be inspired by “Star Wars" or Indiana Jones as much as dark forces or ghouls.
But there was still a place for terrifying costumes, thanks to a wave of splatter-horror films that began appearing in the 1970s and 1980s, from John Carpenter’s Halloween to Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Today, Halloween has been transformed into a big capitalist celebration oriented more around expressing people’s fantasies rather than its roots in Christianity or pagan tradition, Deihl believes.
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