Beyond all the prosthetics, famous people simply decided to dress up as each other this year
What’s that coming over the hill, is it a rich person with an FX kit? The theatre of celebrity Halloween, with all its glam squad sidekicks, choreographed social media posts, and toddlers-as-props is a frightening spectacle to behold. Obviously, it’s fun to ogle at bottomless budgets and watch the glitterati transform themselves into beasts, but it’s also a ghoulish reflection of the ways in which we self-curate identity, personality, and image. After all, what better way to feed the churn of today’s attention economy than to shed our skin and assume an entirely new, monstrous identity?
For celebs, Halloween is more than just a content mill. It’s the Super Bowl of self-branding, an opportunity to flag pop cultural allegiances, originality, and (just maybe) a sense of humour. That Kendall Jenner, with a dour rotation of The Row looks and a house stacked with James Turrell sculptures, should find inspiration in Tim Burton’s lesser-known Mars Attacks! is little surprise. Nor that Lizzo, who makes headlines for her viral TikToks, should dress as Yoda, the Jedi master turned internet gag. And, in 2021, the (oc)cult of the celebrity seemingly reached its apotheosis, with many deciding to dress up as each other. This year we had Rihanna as Gunna, Rickey Thompson as Nicki Minaj, Ludovic de Saint Sernin as Megan Fox, and Benito Skinner as Kourtney Kardashian.
Below, we round-up the best in school from this year’s famous person Halloween.
KIM KARDASHIAN AS A MUGLER COWBOT
Kim Kardashian enlisted Thierry Mugler to design her Halloween costume – because she can – which saw the iconoclastic designer merge two of his most referenced works; the tasseled cowgirl of his SS92 Western collection and the sexed-up cyborg of his AW95 couture offering. Rather clunkily dubbed the “cowbot”, which still sounds better than #skendi, the outfit features winged boots, firearm holdalls, and armour-like corsetry. Much could be made of this costume – the cyborgian nature of the Kardashian machine, a robotic-like demeanour, habitual, super-human bolt-ons and upgrades – but perhaps she was just inspired by the other billionaire cowboys which have beamed themselves into space this year.
HARRY STYLES AS DOROTHY
Get Billy Porter on the line ASAP! As Styles continues his second solo tour, the singer threw a Halloween bash at his Madison Square Garden concert in New York on Saturday. With hundreds of lookalikes whirling feather boas around the audience, Harry Styles stepped onto stage dressed as a rosy-cheeked Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Donning a custom Gucci prairie dress, ruby red slippers, and a basket stuffed with Toto, the singer delivered a slack-jawed rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”.
RICKEY THOMPSON AND DENZEL DION
Rickey Thompson proffered three costumes this year, recruiting Denzel Dion as sidekick, embodying nightclub bottle girls, reenacting Nicki Minaj’s verse from “Monster” , and Rihanna’s “What’s My Name”. Lo-fi and filmed about the house, it’s perhaps the most relatable of this year’s celebrity Halloweens. Striking out solo, Dion also recreated Azealia Banks’ infamous machete-wielding dance number, complete with hip-slashed leggings and choreography.
RIHANNA AS GUNNA
Rihanna, who has previously dressed as a sexy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a zombie Tupac, transformed herself into Gunna for 2021, recreating one of the rapper’s recent Instagram posts almost perfectly. A stickler for detail, Rihanna bought the same Dior sweatshirt, Louis Vuitton shades, and knee-high Rick Owens boots, copying Gunna’s “candid” pose, as she pinched a half-smoked cigar between her fingers.
CHLÖE BAILEY AS SHARK TALE’S LOLA
If this pillow-lipped, CGI fish, played by Angelina Jolie in Shark Tale, had Instagram, she would do numbers. Lola, who’d ripple beneath the water with her fin-like hair glistening among the coral, was inspiration enough for Chlöe Bailey, who bodied the siren in diamante-encrusted stripes of fabric, purple eyeshadow, and a floaty loincloth.
LIZZO AS YODA
Swaddled in a shearling robe and a pair of UGGs, Lizzo performed as Baby Yoda at Spotify’s Ghost Town Halloween party over the weekend. Painted head-to-toe green and with prosthetic ears, which would rival even Burberry, pundits didn’t quite know what to think when the singer came barrelling down Hollywood Boulevard, waving her arms in the air. “I am Lizzo,” she struggled to convince strangers, before posting their interactions to TikTok.
MEGAN THEE STALLION AS CRUELLA DE VIL
Thee original baddie, Cruella de Vil, served as inspiration for Megan Thee Stallion this year. The rapper wore dalmatian print boots, acrylics, a mallen streak wig, and a spotted rhinestone-encrusted corset. As she took to stage in Philadelphia, Megan slipped off a fur-lined trench coat, joining a litter of monochrome speckled dancers to perform her Halloween anthem, “Something for Thee Hotties”.
CARDI B AS MORTICIA ADAMS
Never one to shirk on a look, Cardi B recruited Natalia Fedner to create an open knit, BBL dress, with the rapper portraying Morticia Adams. As she posed, alabaster pale, between two hursts, Cardi’s production value came for blood, with her Instagram posts looking like promo material for a horror movie, or music video stills. The shimmery, slinky dress was actually forged from a patented metal “chainmail” material, which has become Fedner’s trademark and a favourite of the past season’s sinuous, cobweb look.
LIL NAS X AS VOLDEMORT
In full face prosthetics and FX makeup, Lil Nas X yanks at the train of a dusty robe, while flicking a spindly wand into the camera and croaking “Potter!” The tragi-camp value of Harry Potter’s archvillain has made Voldemort perfect social media fodder over recent years. See also: Shrek, who Lil Nas often cosies up to. The rapper captioned his Warner Bros-worthy upload with “he who must be called by your name,” transforming the wizard into an unwitting ally of the LGBT+ community, while serving as a reminder of Lil Nas’ record-breaking single.
KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN AND TRAVIS BARKER AS SID AND NANCY
The past year could have easily have been one performance exercise in Halloween for Kourtney Kardashian, who has slowly been turned to the dark side with a little help from fiancée Travis Barker. See more of her descent (or ascent?) into Hot Topic girlfriend here. The duo assumed the characters of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen from the 1986 flick Sid and Nancy, which followed the Sex Pistols’ basist and his troubled girlfriend as they venture on their first US tour. Later on in the weekend, the couple channelled Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette in True Romance.
BENITO SKINNER AS KOURTNEY KARDASHIAN
Hosting Spotify’s Halloween party in Hollywood, Benito Skinner, otherwise known as @bennydrama7, went as Kourtney Kardashian, recruiting Mary Beth Barone as his tattooed Travis. The influencer-comedian also tapped Christopher Palu to remake the leather Oliver Theyskins dress, which Kourtney wore to the VMAs. With his face framed in bad girl tresses of hair, it was as much an ode to the Kardashian as it was Skinner’s Kourntey goes punk video, which went viral this summer.
LUDOVIC DE SAINT SERNIN AS MEGAN FOX
Speaking of “goths”, French designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin called on Casey Cadwallader to pull the exact Mugler dress that Megan Fox wore to the VMA’s to portray the actor this halloween. With a wet-look wig and plenty of contouring, de Saint Sernin embodied Fox’s re-entrée into popular culture, although he probably should’ve gone as Machine Gun Kelly saying “I am weed”.
KENDALL JENNER AS MARS ATTACK’S MARTIAN GIRL
With Guido Paulo-esque volume, Kendall Jenner’s Mars Attacks wig added a good three feet to her height, while a pointed breastplate did the same horizontally. Styled by Dani Michelle, the model wore a swirly Maisie Willens slip to take on the character of Martian Girl, whose vertiginous hairdo obscures a gruesome alien head beneath. Played by Lisa Marie Smith in the campy 1996 film, which parodies all the B-movies of the 1950s, the croissaint-headed protagonist joins Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Glenn Close, and Tom Jones in an attempt to take over the US congress.