My fondest memory as a child is going with my mother to Cappa’s to pick out material and accessories for my Halloween costume . My mother used to sew my costumes . Cappa’s was a theater type store that sold different accessories for people looking to dress up for acting or dance productions and holidays.
As a girl my costumes were stereotypical type stuff .. cat, flapper, nurse , princess and the infamous bunny outfit ( I’ll explain later ) .
The arguments on what I was going to be occurred year after year . My mother would say “why would you want to be something scary? “ “Girls aren’t suppose to be scary” and “ew why would you like those types of movies””?” “ girls shouldn’t like those types of movies “.
Did society teach us that horror movies are only ok for girls to watch as they screamed and cuddled into their boyfriends for protection ?
I was a young adult during the “ gothic “ era. I was fascinated by the movie 1994’s The Crow . I loved the darkness of it . Flannel shirts, mesh , latex and leather outfits flooded the fashion scene after that movie came out. Brandon Lee made guys wearing make up hot.
1998’s Blade and the dark intrigue of sexy vampires inspired a sexy militant gothic attire. 1996’s The Craft was my first introduction into catholic school girl attire gone bad . Crosses, chokers , Bahamian dresses with leather jackets and combat boots .
Everyone wanted to be part of the witch girl gang .
1992’s Bram Stroker’s Dracula and 1994’s Ann Rice’s Interview With A Vampire made girls fall in love with vampires and beautiful Victorian dresses with corsets and waist cinchers squeezing the luxurious satin fabrics with sparkling bejeweled statement necklaces were the epitome of femininity and sexiness .
Fashion icon Alexander McQueen’s runway shows from the 90’s featured bondage straps, metal mesh and corsets. Where pain and pleasure collided . Where good battled evil inspired fashion concepts paying homage to numerous horror movies and authors .
Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick were his inspirations to name a few.
The actors in these 90’s movies were attractive and the seductiveness of the dark side intrigued women to want to see more horror movies and this definitely made it more mainstream to dress up like these characters in everyday life not just Halloween .
However , for me , growing up in suburbia I still had to keep my Halloween outfits on the girly side . I remember trying to branch out and dress up as a bat and that didn’t go over well . I found that guys still wanted to see the pretty playboy bunny outfits as opposed to the scary bat girl .
Fast forward to years and years later I’m working at a nightclub and the owner announces that we are having our meeting to discuss the Halloween theme for the upcoming weekend .
I am so excited because we get to dress up 3 days in a row . The owner says you can pick the theme for the first 2 days but on Halloween we are doing a zombie theme . I remember being so upset thinking that we have to dress up scary and we aren’t going to make any money . Then I stopped myself and thought this is my time to shine . Halloween is my favorite holiday I can finally express my love of horror and be completely unapologetic about it .
I fully embraced the zombie theme and to this day I continue to push myself to come up with more gruesome shocking outfits.
Now back to the bunny outfit i was forced to wear as a child . It was a one piece white fleece outfit that zipped up the middle and my mom made me carry a giant carrot that someone had won me on the Wildwood boardwalk. It was horrifying . In later years I remember watching House of A Thousand Corpses and there’s a scene where the girl is trying to escape the killers and she was dressed in a pink bunny outfit .
I had instant flashbacks ! Run rabbit run !
That bunny outfit was more terrifying then any Freddy Krueger outfit anyday.
Flash forward to New York’s fashion week 2018 with Gucci , Prada, Versace and Marc Jacobs all paid homage recently to the 90’s horror fashion. Neon, chokers , underwear as outerwear ,big belts and big bags were all featured . Latex is now found everywhere . I had to go to the sex shop on south street to buy latex outfits back in the day .
What I’ve learned through the years is that horror has taught us girls to think outside of the box . It pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable in society .
Not every girl wants to be dressed up as Snow White. It’s ok to love and embrace the darker side .
No matter what inspires you ?SLAY IT MY HORROR QUEENS?
