Trending Halloween Costumes: Past and Present

Trending Halloween Costumes: Trending Halloween Costumes: Past & Present Past & Present

By: Lucy Erika Ann Magat Staff Writer

Within the past decade, Halloween has increasingly become representative of pop culture, especially with the ever-growing market size for the movie industry. Traditional Halloween costumes, like ghosts and vampires, are now falling behind as the most worn costumes. They are being replaced with main characters from famous movies and shows.

Let’s take a look at what costumes were trending over the past five years and what is expected for this year.

In August 2016, just two months before

Halloween season, “Suicide Squad” was released to the public and its infamous couple, Harley Quinn and the Joker, became the most searched costume idea for that year (and would continue to be popular for the next few years).

In 2017, the horror film, “It,” was released just a month before Halloween. As reported by www.thrillist.com, the main antagonist, Pennywise, was one of the most worn costumes of the year, along with another character from the movie, Georgie. They were closely followed by “Wonder Woman,” whose movie was released in June of 2017.

In late 2017, “Fortnite” rose to popularity as the game reached 30 million worldwide players. This was evident in 2018 when “Fortnite” costumes were on trend with the younger audience.

According to www.allure.com, in 2019, the top spot for most worn costume was taken back by superheroes as the “Captain Marvel” movie released in March of that year. SpiderMan also shared the top spot with Captain Marvel, as Peter Parker came back on screen in July 2019 with the film “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” For 2020, as reported by www.fox8.com, witches and superheroes were tied at the most searched costumes on Google, but the second spot still goes to Harley Quinn, which may be due to her movie, “Birds of Prey,” being released in January 2020.

With this year being a little less severe than last year, in terms of COVID-19 restrictions, there is an expected increase in costume and decoration sales during this Halloween season. Spider-Man is still the most searched costume for children, while witch costumes are popular among adults. A University of St. Francis student, Adesuwa Imafidon, is seeing this trend with children’s costumes. She says, “My younger cousin is ecstatic about the upcoming Spider-Man film, so he has planned it to be his costume already.” She also notes that she knows at least four other children planning to dress up as Spider-Man for this upcoming Halloween.

Search engines also show that the most popular costume this year for pets is expected to be pumpkins. It is also worth mentioning that Netflix has made an impact on Halloween, as we see more people dressing up as characters from “Stranger Things” and “Money Heist”. With “Squid Game” being on track as the most watched show in Netflix history, it won’t be a surprise to see their iconic red guard suits and green track suits worn during Halloween.