Halloween 2012!

I love Halloween. It’s probably my favorite holiday, after Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I look forward to it throughout the year, and I start thinking about my costume early. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Disney, and Belle has always been my favorite princess (or Disney female in general). So early this year, I decided to basically live my lifelong dream, and dress up as her.

I’m a stickler for details, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Disney costumes. So I wanted to make sure my costume (and hair, and makeup) was as accurate to the film as possible. I’m really happy with the way everything turned out - and I didn’t have to break the bank making this costume, either! I bought a white blouse from Forever 21 a while ago (not for the costume, just for regular wear), and when it came in the mail and I tried it on, I realized how absolutely perfect it was for a Belle costume. The sleeves and the collar were exactly what I needed. 

Obviously, the dress was the hardest part. I searched online on every single website I could think of, and nothing even came close to what I wanted. Even the dresses that were made as Belle costumes didn’t look anything like the one in the film, and they were often made of a cheap-looking material. In the end, I discovered that my mum had a dress that was pretty perfect, if a tiny bit big on me. She was kind enough to let me borrow it!

For the apron, I scoured Amazon for a good half-apron, but all of them were very modern and chef-y. Not the old fashioned feminine style I wanted. As a last resort, I tried Etsy, and voila! I found a used vintage apron that was PERFECT. When it came in the mail, I found it wrapped around me a bit too much (and covered much of the dress), so I cut the ends to narrow it a bit, and make it more like the film.

In the movie, Belle wears brown flats (presumably leather, based on the time period), and I already had them in my wardrobe! Funnily enough, I actually bought them because they reminded me of Belle, even though I didn’t purchase them with the intention of using them for my costume. 

The only part of my costume that wasn’t accurate was my hair bow. I meant to go to a fabric store and buy an appropriate wide blue ribbon, but October flew by, and though I’d been planning the costume for a while, Halloween weekend really crept up on me. I had a white ribbon at home, and I decided that I would use it, even though it wasn’t ideal. I figured I would be the only person at any event I went to that even knew that part wasn’t accurate, haha.

I attempted to make my hair like in the film, but I’m pretty rubbish at hairstyling, so it wasn’t quite right. I did do a center part, curled the ends, and tied it with the ribbon, flipping the ponytail inside out to get more of the movie look. (This really only makes sense in my brain, I think.) I tried to fluff the top bits to make them stick out, and pinned them, so it would look like in the film, but they kind of collapsed on me early on. Oh well, I tried.

My makeup was my everyday makeup - I didn’t have to do anything out of the ordinary there. Brown shadow, black liner along the top lash line, black mascara, and rosy lipstick.

I took pictures with a book as a prop (Pride and Prejudice - “Here’s where she meets Prince Charming / But she won’t discover that it’s him, til chapter three!”), but I didn’t take the book with me, because I didn’t want to have to carry it and worry about it throughout the night. But I think it adds to the “Belle” look, for the photos.

And that was my costume! I even took off my nail polish, for authenticity’s sake, haha. What did you dress up as for Halloween this year? Or what are you going to dress up as? x