Close your eyes and imagine that you could be any animal that you wanted to be. What would you choose?
Costumes are a blast, because they allow you to act out some of these fantasies. You can completely turn yourself not only into a different person, but into a different form of life altogether.
Photo by: Edward Simpson
I remember one year on a particularly dull Halloween going trick-or-treating and having one door open with a huge roaring gorilla.
The kids screamed and ran away!
But I found myself wondering what it would be like to actually be the gorilla on that fateful night instead of just wearing a gorilla costume.
A sit-com portrayed a similar scenario. A couple of friends were camping when one of them came back dressed as a black bear. Needless to say, he successfully terrified his friend.
I wonder what it felt like to be a black bear.
Animal costumes come in many different varieties. There are the simple mouse ears and tail, or cat ears and whiskers. Not too much creativity would be needed to create a bat costume.
Then there are the elaborate full-body costumes where you can completely take on the identity of the animal from head to toe. Costumes can be an attempt at being scary and realistic, such as gorillas, grizzly bears, or panda bears. Or they can be an attempt at silliness, such as birds, giant rats, and bunnies.
Children are even easier to dress as animals, because the aim in a children’s costume is to be humorous, not to be scary or realistic. Children dress in tons of animal costumes, such as ducks, raccoons, alligators, frogs, and dogs. I imagine there has been a child’s costume for pretty much any type of animal. Children can even dress up as insects (ladybugs, bumblebees) and get away with it.
Dressing up as an animal is a great way to enter the land of fantasy. What animals do you like to dress up as?