I am Margot Tenenbaum

Halloween for me is usually a mix of stress, excitement and ultimately, procrastination. Its funny because in everyday life, I try to be the opposite of a procrastinator; if something needs to be done, I usually get down and do it simply to save myself the anxiety I’ll ultimately end up feeling at around 3-4 am. However for some reason, no matter the promises I make myself, I always end up having to pull together a halloween costume the day of, hours before heading out the door.

This year I planned to go as Carrie Bradshaw from the opening credits of Sex and the City, with her tulle skirt and pink tank top – I bought the fabric and everything! However, even after the fourth or fifth layer of tulle that I sewed on, the skirt still looked practically see through. And maybe things are just more expensive where I live, but after the fourth yard of tulle this was turning into costly skirt for the hour or two I would wear end up wearing it. So as always, I ended up creating a spur of the moment costume out of a mix of thrifted/vintage/diy pieces that I found around the house. Although, I find that that is usually what makes up the best halloween costumes anyways!

After rummaging through some of my great grandmother’s hand-me-downs up in my attic, I found a collared white and blue stripped dress and a vintage fur coat, and decided on dressing up as Margot Tenenbaum from Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. The film is visually stunning, with fantastic costumes, great actors, and is set in NYC – I would highly recommend.

The look was actually quite simply to recreate; a stripped dress, fur coat, brown bag, white gloves, loafers and super heavy eyeliner – most of which I had lying around the house! For the red barrette, I painted a plain silver one with some nail polish, and then straightened my hair to finish the look. Overall, I think it turned out great and it was so fun to wear.