Want to be all dressed up with somewhere to go, but your wallet is saying “no-go”? Fear not! Here are my top last-minute Halloween costume ideas for 2024 that won’t break the bank.
Ariana Grande from the “Yes, And?” Music Video
Ariana Grande is unapologetically in her villain era, and I am 100% here for it. She released a banger of an album with Eternal Sunshine, recently hosted Saturday Night Live, and will soon be gracing the silver screen as Galinda in the upcoming theatrical release of Wicked. But Ari started 2024 strong with her banger of a hit “Yes, And?”, rocking an iconic monochromatic look that’s sure to turn heads.
How to achieve the look: Get your most stylish black and white athleisure and top it with the hat from Janet Jackson’s Poetic Justice. Then get a group of your closest friends, have 30% dress like you, 30% slathered in mud or clay, and the other 30% dressed up like the buttoned-up critics (quit foolin’ – I know you have a collared shirt from Zara hiding in your closet somewhere…)
Clean Girl
This TikToker has been making the rounds. Kaeli Mae McEwen, aka “The Clean Girl”, is a pretty blonde who’s pathologically obsessed with cleaning dirty environments. Her latest endeavor to clean the graves of strangers has definitely been making waves.
@_the_clean_girl I Cleaned a Random Grave!
♬ original sound – The Clean Girl
How to achieve this look: Put your hair in a bun (if you don’t have blonde hair, you can purchase a wig) and rock your pinkest top and shortest shorts, then carry around a scrubber brush, a bucket, and a can of that Lysol Scrubbing Bubbles that every bathroom seems to have. Who knows – you could even use the bucket for collecting stray Halloween candy! Bonus points: get your partner or a friend to dress in a fast food uniform and stand beside you disapprovingly (like the real employees who are probably less than enthused about an influencer cosplaying their job for more than minimum wage!)
Stanley Cup Couples Costume
Stanley Cups are all the rage (at least I think they still are, trends come and go so fast…) So why not create a couples costume where the man dresses as the giant drinking receptacle and the woman goes as…herself, because the size comparison of carrying the obscenely large, expensive drinking cup is almost 1:1 anyway.
Or, if you have a little extra time and resources, you can go next level: the woman can dress up as as the basic b!tch accessory Stanley Cup, and the man can dress up as the NHL Stanley Cup!
Madame Web
Before Borderlands, The Crow, and The Joker: Folie à Deux, Madame Web was the cinematic catastrophe of 2024. Aside from the wooden performances and lackluster plot, the most egregious sin committed by Madame Web occurs at the very end of the film, when the titular character’s costume is finally revealed, a few seconds before the credits roll.
The good news? The costume is so low-rent that anyone could pull off the look. Dust off the red jumpsuit that you swore would pull my whole wardrobe together, guys!, create some goggles out of cardboard and spray paint them red, and VOILA! Instant daughter of the woman who was “researching spiders in the Amazon right before she died”.
An Employee at the Infamous Willy Wonka Experience in Scotland
This became a meme in the early part of 2024, where an extravagant experience akin to stepping right into Wonka’s chocolate factory was advertised with AI art but absolutely DID NOT deliver.
What was offered up instead was a sketchy, barren warehouse where a bunch of disillusioned employees doled out bits of candy and juice to disappointed families.
The only positive to come out of this sham of an event was the incredible Halloween inspiration derived from the characters! The Oompa Loompa Girl, the Hapless Host Willy McDuff, and The Stranger all make for incredible costumes whose pieces could be derived from your discarded Spirit Halloween pieces of seasons past.
Jojo Siwa’s Karma Era
Dressed up as Gene Simmons recently? Then you’re in luck!
The former Nickelodeon star’s rebrand may have been a big bust, but it makes for an eye-catching costume this Halloween season. Repurpose that old KISS costume, apply a wack-ton of hairspray and black facepaint, and develop a penchant for unironically telling all who would listen that you are the inventor of “gay pop”.
Hawk Tuah ‘24
The virality of the Hawk Tuah video will likely not outlast this year, but if you wanted to take the relatively innocuous route for political costumes as well as eke out a few final drops of the meme’s relevance, you could iron the words HAWK TUAH ’24 on a t-shirt and pretend to be campaigning for the unlikeliest of running mates. Although, good luck explaining the significance of “Hawk Tuah” to the uninitiated….
Australian Breakdancer Raygun
And finally, no list of topical 2024 Halloween costumes would be complete without the inclusion of Rachael Gunn (aka Raygun), the infamous Australian who breakdanced her way into the hearts, minds and collective conscious of all who were fortunate to bear witness to her funky fresh moves on the Olympic stage.
If you used my Squid Game suggestion from a few years prior, then you may already have a close enough version of the costume to pull this look off — all you need now is a similarly-coloured hat. If you’re striving for more authenticity, just be on the lookout for TEAM AUSTRALIA OLYMPIC REPLICA POLO shirts on eBay.
And that’s it! What other last-minute costume ideas can you think up?
Super Last-Minute Bonus: Domingo / Marcello Hernandez
I don’t normally revise this lists on Halloween day, but a meme has flown in on the 11th hour that’s become an earworm in my brain from the 50th season of Saturday Night Live: