Halloween Costume Ideas That Start With a T-Shirt

Halloween is October 31, the eve of All Hallows’ Day, and the costume problem arrives every year at roughly the same hour: late. The fastest way out of it is a printed shirt and two props, because a shirt already carries the whole idea and props only have to confirm it.

Two props, and then stop

Three rules make this work. Keep the chest clear, since the print is the costume and a jacket zipped over it is a person in a jacket. Keep the props to two or three, because a fourth one turns a joke into a project. And pick something you would put on again in November, which is the difference between a costume and forty dollars of landfill.

The ones that need almost nothing

The Skull Built From Cartridges and Brass Casings Tee is the whole costume on its own. From across a room it reads as a skull filling the chest, and only up close does it break apart into hundreds of cartridge cases drawn from the base, with the teeth made of full rounds stood on end. Add a hood up, dark gloves, and nothing else. It also comes up in our piece on shirts for a Saturday at the range, which explains the rest of that family.

The I Have a Target on My Back, Red and Cream Print becomes a character the moment you add an office to it. A lanyard with a badge, a clipboard, a cold cup of coffee, and a few sticky notes pressed onto your back by whoever gets there first. You are the person every project lands on. The red word in the middle of the print does the introduction before you say anything.

The It’s Not the Plane, It’s the Pilot, Dog Aviator Tee gives you an aviator in three moves: a brown jacket, goggles or sunglasses pushed up on the forehead, a white scarf. The print is a squadron style medallion with a German Shepherd in a leather flight jacket at the center of it, and the last word ends in a paw print instead of a letter, so people walk over to read the whole thing. If there is a dog in the house, the dog gets a scarf too and the costume is finished.

The ones that need a second person

The Married, the Dictionary Definition Tee is a couple costume with almost no assembly. The print is set out like a page torn from a dictionary, headword in a heavy serif, phonetic spelling in brackets, a rule underneath, the part of speech in italics, then the entry itself. One of you wears the definition. The other carries the terms and conditions on a clipboard, a red pen, and a pair of reading glasses, and initials things all evening.

The You Are Not Qualified to Talk to Me, Cream and Red Tee makes a consultant, and it needs a blazer, a lanyard, and a clipboard. Four lines of heavy capitals fill the chest and the color turns to red exactly on the word NOT, which is where a voice would put the stress. Worn straight faced with a pen clicked once every few seconds, it is the least expensive costume on this page.

The Metropolitain de Paris, Vintage First Class Ticket Tee makes the traveler who will not stop talking about the trip. A raincoat, a camera on a strap, a folded city map, and a luggage tag still on your belt loop. The print is a single object reproduced at the size of a hand, an aged cream ticket with scalloped perforations down both sides and the Eiffel Tower faint behind the lettering, and the French on it is left untranslated, which is exactly what a real souvenir does.

What not to do

Nothing that turns a living culture into a costume, which rules out accents, borrowed dress and anything described as a version of a real people. A joke that only works because someone is in the room to be the butt of it is not a costume, it is an incident. Beyond that, two practical notes: a full mask hides the print that is doing all the work, and face paint ends up on a light collar within an hour.

These six sit in Funny Tees, and several of the designs are listed on their product pages as a sweatshirt or a long sleeve as well, which matters if the party is outdoors. Everything is printed and shipped by Amazon.

Or a shirt that is already Halloween

Six designs in the shop were drawn for the night itself, and they need no props at all. BOO-ring, Bored Skeleton Under a Dead Tree Tee is a skeleton slumped against a dead tree, too bored to haunt anybody, with a single hyphen doing the whole joke. I am a Treat, Not a Trick, Jack-o-Lantern Face Tee turns the chest into one carved face and leaves the black of the shirt to be the pumpkin.

The rest of the row is friendlier. Three puppies sit in a carved pumpkin, one of them in a witch hat. A wide-eyed puppy stands in a graveyard without noticing the hand coming out of the ground behind it. And two aliens came for the candy, one hooded and blue, one green and a good deal louder. They are all on the Halloween shelf.

Questions people ask

Does a t-shirt costume really count?

It counts if someone can name it from across the room without asking. That is the only test a costume has to pass at a party, and a print with a legible line on it passes it faster than a rented outfit nobody recognizes. The two or three props are there to answer the follow up question, not the first one.

What if the party is outdoors and cold?

Check the product page for the design you want, since several of these are also listed as a sweatshirt or a long sleeve version of the same print. Otherwise wear a jacket you can open, and keep it open while people are reading you.

When did people in the United States start dressing up for Halloween?

Later than most people assume. An early record of children going guising in North America dates from 1911 in Kingston, Ontario, and the words trick or treat appear in print in 1917 in a newspaper in Sault Ste. Marie. The practice only became widespread across North America in the 1930s.