With Halloween just around the corner, many of you are probably starting to get into that hurried, frenzied state over not having a costume idea yet. If you’re anything like me, you are probably finding that you’re having a hard time picking a memorable costume this year. Nothing seems original anymore; everything is so overdone.

Well take my advice, and step back from your search for a moment, because this video will make you think about costumes in a whole new way. The video, posted by Mode.com, is titled “100 Years of Halloween Costumes”, and shows the changing styles of women’s Halloween costumes over the course of ten decades. Taking a look at how fashion has evolved from this historical perspective will really help you think about the costume selection process from a whole different point of view.

This virtual tour of the history of women’s costumes starts in 1915 and continues to the modern year, 2015. It is completely riveting to see how the styles and values of American women have changed over the years. The 1915 costume shows how oppressed women’s fashion was one hundred years ago. The outfit couldn’t be more modest. The model wears a long, heavy-looking frilly black dress, that covers her from head to toe. Women in this time weren’t meant to show off any skin at all, or even their hair for that matter. The model wears a long black veil to cover up her head. At least she also has on a pretty frightening home-made papier-mache mask!

The emphasis on being frightening but modest, continues until about 1945. Though each decade before this, you can see the skirt hems rising ever so slowly, it isn’t until 1945 that we see the first costume that looks like it could actually be worn out today. Pretty interesting.

You feeling inspired yet?

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