Fashion

My brother is going as Abraham Lincoln for Halloween this year. (I, obviously, being 21, am much too old for any Halloween fun. Dang it.)

Why Honest Abe? Because he didn’t have any clue what to be and then we saw a cheap black top hat at a Halloween store and I said, “Hey — Abraham Lincoln?” and he agreed and that was that.

He already had a white button up shirt, so we were good on that end. If you’ve ever seen a picture of Abraham Lincoln… well, he’s not that fancy of a dresser. It’s always the basic white shirt, black hat, and bow tie. This makes for a quick, simple costume! All we had to do was head to our local Salvation Army in search of a black suit jacket and a bow tie. We found the jacket alright, but no bow ties – only sponge-bob and purple-polka-dotted regular ties.

I looked up “how to make a tie into a bow tie” and quickly found a video on Youtube explaining how to do it (of course there’s that video).

The rest was easy, throw on the top hat, use brown costume makeup to make a beard (my brother is only 15 – not yet a full-on beard grower.) Wah-la, as the French say. Abe!

Girls can be Abe, too, I think! You can even make it slightly more “cute” by using a dark purple or red hat/bow tie/jacket. Whatever. Or, you could even be slightly creepy and turn this idea into a couples outfit. Mr. and Mrs. Abe, anyone?

Here’s how I would do it:

Black Top Hat ∞ $53 asos.com

White David Dot Shirt ∞ $88 usa.frenchconnection.com

Black Velvet Bow Tie ∞ $80 flannelsfashion.com

Issey Miyake Men’s Double Blazer ∞ $2235 farfetch.com

Glitter Top Hat ∞ $20 windsorstore.com

Mustache Must-Have Necklace ∞ $5.50 claires.com

Bench Women’s Long Sleeve Shirt ∞ $56 houseoffraser.co.uk

Burgundy Alber Velvet Bow Tie ∞ $120 liberty.co.uk

Alexander McQueen Fitted Blazer ∞ $2855 farfetch.com

As they say in Game of Thrones, “Winter is coming.” (You read/watch Game of Thrones, right? Of course you do.)

Winter means bulky sweaters and dark colored clothing. No more white pants, you guys. (Why do you have white pants anyway? That’s a no-no.)

Winter can also be, you know, cold. And dreary. And: “I don’t really care what I look like as long as I’m warm!”

I get that. I’m all aboard that train, so to speak. But there’s no reason you can’t still look good/fashionable/like-you’re-not-dying during the winter months.

That said, I’ll say this next: I want to bring back black.

Black is a great color/all of the colors combined. Yes, there is this idea out there that only Goths wear black. Or, that too much black is too much, er, black.

But that’s just not true! Haven’t you seen pictures of Bob Dylan from the sixties?