As Halloween rapidly approaches, campus has come alive with students scrambling to pull together last-minute costume ideas — juggling group and solo appearances on their search for fun, original themes.
Emily Christel ’24 and Sarah Smith ’24 told The Herald they feel their costumes need to be both creative and niche — but “not too niche,” Christel said. The two will dress as characters from the TV series “How I Met Your Mother.”
Heon Lee ’26 and Brayden Goldstein-Gelb ’25 said that they plan to dress up as a vampire and Oscar the Grouch, respectively. Linda Kebichi ’25, meanwhile, said that she was going as a cow because it is her favorite animal.
Some students have several costume ideas they’re toying with.
Neni Alvarado ’26 said she wants to dress as a “cowgirl, angel, devil and The Joker,” all across different Halloweekend appearances. And while Kylie Brewer ’24 plans on dressing as a vampire, boxer and jack-o’ lantern, Meghan Spangenberg ’24 said that she wants to be Mia Wallace from the movie “Pulp Fiction” and an “academic Barbie.”
Helena Stacy ’24 said she’ll dress as an International Boxing Association boxer and a bartender, donning a TikTok-inspired costume. Since coming to Brown, Stacy said she has become “a lot more comfortable expressing (herself) in ways that don’t align with (her) day-to-day appearance.”
Several students told The Herald that they plan on participating in group costumes.
Aicha Sama ’24 will be dressing as Princess Tiana as part of a group donning Disney princess costumes, accompanied by her friends as Ariel, Rapunzel and Snow White
Conor Naccarato ’24.5 doesn’t plan on dressing in costume for now, but would consider it if they had a “perfect” outfit.
“I’d be Joan of Arc,” Naccarato said. “I’d do full-body, real chain mail.”
Logan Torres ’24 told The Herald that he felt like other people had planned “thirteen costumes” while he didn’t “even have one.”
Students have also spoken about the changes their Halloween experiences at Brown have gone through. Luke Patusky ’24 said that the fact that he plans on dressing up at all this year is “a pretty big change.”
For Sofia Funk ’24, coming to Brown has meant that her “desire to dress up as something” and the stress she felt coming up with a costume idea have “decreased in weird ways.”
“I used to be very invested,” she said. “It was very much a scrambling two days before kind of thing and it was the only thing I cared about.”
Jack Tajmajer is a Metro editor who oversees the Beyond Brown beat. He is a Senior from Bethany, Connecticut and Bethlehem, New Hampshire studying Political Science and Economics. His mother operates an alpaca farm and he tried a blueberry for the first time at age 17.
