We All Wear Costumes. What’s Yours?

We all wear costumes every day.

Not just on Halloween.

• Those outfits we wear for an interview, business event, speaking gig, first date, or rave.
• How you show up on ZOOM or Teams (pants optional).
• Bold new hairstyles, colors, or makeup.

What we wear can shape how others perceive us and change our moods.

Black (which comprises most of my wardrobe) is considered a positive color in many ways. The study of “enclothed cognition” revolves around fashion and mental health.

This fall season, I bought a few new “staple pieces” to save time getting dressed every day.

Check out my online store to see what I slip on most mornings. 

As the tech bros have discovered, a work uniform can reinforce your personal brand, reduce time dressing and packing, and save you money. 

Kids’ fantasies often show up in their costume choices.

In the photo in my feature image, I was Honey West (a woman secret agent). Even then, I was a little badass who liked gathering intel and taking down the bad guys.

As adults, some of us take our Halloween garb very seriously. Adult costumes make up about $2 billion of the market, compared with $1.5 billion for children and $0.92 billion for pets.

Adultoween has apparently become a “cultural movement.”

Below is a brief history of costumes from 1956 (my birth year) to 2026, along with the most popular candy.

Pop culture and Halloween characters may have changed, but the desire to be someone else…even for just a day…is timeless.

But those costumes come off after you finish the last candy corn. You need to be the real you the other 364 days.

No Spirit Halloween special can ever really cover your soul. Just like wearing those 1960s plastic masks, hiding your face for too many hours makes breathing really hard, too!