Brooklyn Life

10 Only-in-Brooklyn Halloween Costumes

Got your calendar packed for Halloween weekend but not sure how to dress for the occasion? We’ve got you covered with some of our best (and mostly easy) Brooklyn costume ideas. 1. A Nathan’s hot dog. Wear a red shirt and pants, a long brown vest or robe with yellow felt pinned down the middle…

by Laura Leebove

10/21/2015 5 minute 0

Got your calendar packed for Halloween weekend but not sure how to dress for the occasion? We’ve got you covered with some of our best (and mostly easy) Brooklyn costume ideas.

1. A Nathan’s hot dog. Wear a red shirt and pants, a long brown vest or robe with yellow felt pinned down the middle for the mustard, and a Nathan’s Famous cap.

2. Former borough prez Marty Markowitz. Wear a gray combover wig topped with a Brooklyn baseball cap. Use a little blush to make your cheeks rosy, and wear a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. Shake the hands of everyone you see.

3. Abbi and Ilana from Broad City. For Ilana: Go for the night she and Abbi go out for a fancy seafood dinner despite Ilana’s severe shellfish allergy. You’ll need a tight, short skirt with a crop top, and makeup to give the effect of an allergic reaction. Slur your words and have your best friend carry you around all night. For Abbi: Go for the day she gets high on Vicodin post-wisdom teeth removal and raids the Gowanus Whole Foods. Wear your hair in pigtail braids, put on some clown-looking face paint, and carry around a couple of Whole Foods bags and a cardboard cutout of her wisdom tooth cartoon pal.

4. The controversial Bushwick yarn mural. Featuring the twins from The Shining and the boy from Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (who appeared 15 feet tall on a wall in Bushwick), you’ll need three people for this one. Two people should be in matching blue dresses and wearing pigtails, and the other should be in a Boy Scout uniform with a coonskin hat. Wrap some yarn around your body — in colors that match the outfits — and walk around holding hands.

5. The Mast brothers. Got a great beard? You and your best bearded friend (or brother, of course) can go out as Rick and Michael Mast, the brothers behind Brooklyn’s best-known chocolate company. You’ll each need either a white chef’s coat or a white button-down shirt covered with an apron. Print out some fake Mast Brothers chocolate labels to keep in your apron pocket — or, even better, pass out chocolate samples.

6. The Warriors. Inspired by the cult ’70s film The Warriors, wear a red vest and nothing underneath, along with a red headband, dark jeans and a large belt buckle. Speak in a jolting Brooklyn accent. Wear fingerless gloves and carry a shiv.

7. Spike Lee. Go as one of the creator of some of Brooklyn’s most famous films (Do the Right Thing, which just got its own street in Bed Stuy, and Crooklyn, whose central home is now a Bed Stuy bed and breakfast — just to name a couple). This one’s easy — you’ll need big, thick-framed black glasses, and a re-creation of Lee’s famous Brooklyn snapback hat.

8. An artisanal ice cream cone. Wear brown pants and a baggy shirt (choose the color(s) based on the flavor of your choice), stuffed with pillows on both sides to look like a scoop of ice cream. Complete it with a sash featuring the logo of your favorite Brooklyn scoop shop, be it Ample Hills, Oddfellows, Van Leeuwen or beyond.

9. A beard oil evangelist. You’ll need a well-manicured beard and mustache (or a fake one) for this one. Walk around with a sample bottle of beard oil — perhaps from local grooming-product purveyor Brooklyn Grooming — and offer other Halloween partygoers a complimentary oiling.

10. A creature from the Gowanus Canal. So many possibilities! You could be the unfortunate dolphin who died in the canal in 2013 or an all-purpose swamp monster — or you could simply cover yourself in trash.