Easy TV Character Costumes Halloween 2017

If you want to get your Eleven on, just get your hands on a baby pink, smocked Polly Flinders dress, which stores have surely stockpiled over the past year. "There's thousands of them out there," costume designer Kimberly Adams-Galligan tells TV Guide. "Hit a thrift store or a vintage store, and kind of discover how to make it from stuff that's just there, kind of like how I had to do it, as opposed to going to the store and getting the one that's knocked off to look like it."

As for the boys, the key is to avoid skinny jeans and low riders, Adams-Galligan says. "Things were much higher rise, and a completely different cut. No stretch. Zero stretch jeans. Luckily zero-stretch jeans seem to be coming back, thank god."

As for Dustin's graphic tees, Adams-Galligan directs you to vintage stores to dig around. "Because I did. I dug for inspirations for Dustin's T-shirts."

Negan is so last year. For Rick -- or any Walking Dead character -- you need two things. The first is a pair of boots. "Almost every character, especially this [Season 8], wears a good pair of boots, so that's something you can get a head start on," costume designer Elaine Montalvo tells TV Guide. "Anything goes as long as you can run in them."

But boots are of particular importance to Rick, or more specifically, Andrew Lincoln. The actor has been wearing the same pair of secondhand boots he wore in the 2010 pilot because the model has since been discontinued and Lincoln likes the continuity. The problem: They keep falling apart. "We've had them repaired probably 20 times," Montalvo says. "Every time we take these boots to the cobbler, he says, 'This is the last time we're gonna be able to resurrect these boots.' But he somehow does it and we keep sending them back. So any day now they might just fall apart on camera. But right now we're able to get away with it."

The second thing you need to do is age your clothes. It takes a lot of work to make clothes look bad. The DIY route is easy but might take some time.

"First, you wanna wash the clothes several times in hot water and then you'll want to get some dye -- it could be from the drug store -- and the more murky the color, the uglier the color, the better. Brown and tan dye, gray dye - so you can take out the life of the garment," Montalvo says. "And then you wanna get maybe a knife, but you have to be careful using a knife. You want to shred the clothes somehow. Then you can take them to concrete, a sidewalk, pumice stone, sandpaper -- you want to get some texture in the garments."

If you're pressed for time, you can do what executive producer Greg Nicotero suggested they do for the costumes of the uniform walkers in the carnival showdown last season. "He suggested we take those items to a sandblaster -- a company that usually sandblasts boats," Montalvo reveals. "We had never tried that before and we took him up on the offer and found a local boat company and it was definitely new territory for them. They were like, 'Well, let's try it with this shirt.' In like 10 minutes, they got those clothes looking like walker clothes in no time. They sandblasted those uniforms and they looked incredible. It would've taken us two weeks to do that ourselves threadbare."

You could never go overboard replicating Cookie's loud, extravagant look, especially when it comes to fur. "For someone like Cookie who has missed out on enjoying the wealth that she helped Lucious make while she suffered in jail, [fur] is one of the first things she'd go for when shopping," costume designer Paolo Nieddu tells TV Guide.

Underneath the cozy minks, you should go all out on prints. "Animal or polka dot," Nieddu says. "Cookie is never scared to go for it." To top off the look, accessorize with lots of jewelry. "Rings, hoop earrings, a statement necklace and stacks of bracelets almost always finish off a Cookie look -- sometimes all at the same time!"

Lucious' dapper ensembles means not playing by your typical three-piece suit rules. "A signature Lucious look is a turtleneck, or a crisp white shirt, under a jewel-toned suit or blazer, with a killer pair of loafers," Nieddu says.

If you have dough to splurge, the music mogul's go-to labels include Louis Leeman, Jimmy Choo and Louboutin.

Davis, a New England native, had a more earthy style in her downtime, so costume designer Lou Eyrich kept her in autumnal colors. "She wore a lot of mustard and chestnut, olive greens, avocado greens, burnt orange," Eyrich tells TV Guide. "She loved to wear her fur on her shoulders, so if you have a faux fur or can get a faux fur at a vintage store and throw it over a '60s dress."

More so than Joan Crawford, Davis liked wearing pants (Crawford only wore pants twice on Feud, and one of them was her in pajamas) and would wear dresses when she went out. "You could wear Capri pants and a blouse and little kitten heels or flats, like loafers, and throw a faux fur over the shoulder," Eyrich says. "She wore a fresh gardenia over her shoulder a lot and pearls."

Crawford was more of a glamour-puss than Davis and was desperately trying to stay in the game. "I think Joan really cared how the public perceived her and so she wouldn't walk out of the house unless her hair was done, her nails were done," Eyrich says.

Eyrich selected bright, monochromatic ensembles for Crawford, and suggests starting with a fitted cocktail dress. "The key would be a fitted pencil skirt shape and a big necklace with matching bracelets," she says. "Have the shoe and the purse match. And a signature Joan Crawford hat, so if the dress was orange, the hat would be orange. Or peach. She wore a lot of saturated peach. The trick is the colors all match."

You may not be able to duplicate the exact striking shade of red of the handmaids' dresses and robes, but costume designer Ane Crabtree thinks you should be able to get your hands on a red gown fairly easily.

"If you don't have any money and you don't have any time and you don't have a sewing machine, the easiest thing ... is I just take my little booty down to the Salvation Army or Out of the Closet or wherever you are in the world and look for a red choir gown," Crabtree tells TV Guide. "[It's] what I told one of the women from NARAL who wanted to protest. Because it's the basic shape and you could cut the bottom off and fashion a hood if you needed to."

The white winged bonnets might present more of a problem, so you'll have to get crafty. "I've seen beautiful ones on Instagram made out of paper or felt," she says. "You know, there's a Michael's in every corner of the world now it seems, so you could make your own hat out of maybe possibly very thick felt without having to make crazy construction like we do on the show."

If you want to buck the trend and not dress up as the handmaids, Crabtree suggests finding a teal '50s dress to transform into Serena Joy, old priest costumes to become the aunts and a vintage black suit for Commander Fred. "Make it match and add black roping around the shoulder, add a white star -- everyone's going to know you're the Commander," she says.

Choose your own David Haller adventure: Clockworks patient or post-Clockworks patient. The Clockworks uniform -- a sporty track jacket -- sounds simple enough, but they were all custom-made and dyed in-house to that offbeat shade of burnt orange. "My biggest tip is that the collars on all the men's Clockworks track jackets are much bigger than regular track jackets [so they're] easier to hide in," costume designer Carol Case tells TV Guide. "Make sure all of the accessories are yellow -- the Clockworks code for moderately ill -- even socks." You can purchase the shoes, though, from a Canadian company called Native.

For David's post-Clockworks wardrobe, look for some vintage well-tailored pieces in grays and blues. Case chose the color palette to contrast with the colorful Clockworks uniforms, and to "signify his escape from the mental prison he had been in." She drew much inspiration from '60s and '70s mod fashion. "We ended up with a very textured and tailored look of no specific period and the graphic tees that quickly became his staple," she says. "The illustrations of him in the original comic books are very stylized, so I was looking for a stylized look that wasn't a superhero."

Costume designer Michele Clapton wants to give "fans a challenge" with Dany's white fur coat. Depending on what kind of fake fur you can get your hands on, she suggests a couple ways of going about replicating the Mother of Dragons' look.

"I think they should get fake fur and cut into it like we did in the back. If you've got a short fake fur, you can cut into it and paint into it and create a similar look without going into the extent of braiding it and cutting every single piece," she says. "If you get a fake fur with a dark base and light hair on the end, when you cut in, you actually get the lovely look. It's quite interesting."

Copying the curved shoulders will be trickier. "I would probably use a wire if I were a fan. For me to do that, it's a very clever cut of fiber I use after many years of learning how to do it. For fans, there are many ways to cheat it with wires and you can create that shape."

The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms has restricted her palette to black and silver, so Clapton advises looking for a long black dress or coat. For her famously well-draped shoulders, you may have to invest in some hats.

"If you want the shoulders, you'd have to sculpt the shape and then spin felt over it and paint it with a stiffener and then stitch it," Clapton says. "It's an incredibly lengthy process. Maybe [fans] should get two black hats and cut the tops off and try to stitch them to the felt. Sometimes the simplest things are often the most difficult."

Euron Greyjoy 2.0 returned looking like a cross between Pacey Witter and Captain Jack Sparrow. The key to the look is purposeful carelessness, Clapton says. So grab your nearest V-neck shirt, floor-length scarves and leather pants and jacket you wouldn't mind slicing up.

"I wanted it to look like he just slashed the leather to pieces because the Greyjoy sigil is a slash, even in their armor," Clapton says. "So you should look a little reckless. It's a form of madness -- that was the idea of the cuts in his jacket. I also wanted him to be the antithesis of Jaime. Everything about him should annoy Jaime Lannister -- his buttoned-up arm. He sees this man and I want him to instantly hate everything about him. So just remember that: annoy Jaime Lannister."

Costume designer Terry Dresbach is curious to see which Season 3 Claire fans will dress up as this year: the 20th century one of the 18th century one. "I have a feeling they'll go for the 20th century," she tells TV Guide. "I have a feeling we'll see a lot of that green dress with the pin."

To achieve that look, Dresbach advises you to raid vintage stores or your mother's closet. "So much of our audience recognizes that that was what their mothers wore," says Dresbach, adding that Claire's pajama outfit in Season 2 was based on her own mother's PJs. "Women see that and they get teary and emotional because that's their mother. They choose to wear it for that reason. You have some people who remake our most elaborate costumes and they're hand-painting and beading things. And then you have people who get pajamas because it connects to their moms."

The decades-spanning drama gives you a lot to work with, and Rebecca arguably has the most far-ranging style, from stay-at-home mom and world's biggest Steelers fan to fortysomething aspiring singer and a sixtysomething grandmother.

"I could do pregnant-with-triplets Mandy, or someone could do a Steelers jersey," costume designer Hala Bahmet tells TV Guide. "And someone could do a Bohemian Rebecca with a crochet top and then I suppose a skirt with boots."

You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone else on TV with a more vibrant and colorful closet than Mindy Lahiri. But according to costume designer Salvador Perez, her dynamic look almost didn't happen. "I was always told to pull back the color, make it more muted, so when I met Mindy Kaling, I found a kindred spirit who loved my vision and encouraged me to be bold and colorful," Perez tells TV Guide.

The most important thing to keep in mind to transform into Mindy is fit. "Mindy's clothes are all about impeccable tailoring," Perez advises. "That's why all the color and prints look so sophisticated on her. Otherwise she'd look like a child." Also don't be afraid to go a little extreme with it. "Cosplay should always be an exaggeration, so mix prints and colors, add fabulous accessories, carry a bear claw and a big purse filled with sour straws!" he says.

Perez, who custom-made Mindy's final two outfits -- "two of the most lavish outfits we've ever made" -- abides by such brands as Dolce & Gabbana, MSGM, Lela Rose, Peter Pilotto and Mary Katrantzou, but if that's outside your price range, go for anything with a bold aesthetic. "Mindy Lahiri was such a wonderful character to design for," he says. "She was bold and fearless and wasn't afraid to be dramatic with fashion."