There are two types of people in this world:
1.People who keep a Halloween Pinterest board with the 28394083290 perfect costume components that they’ve been carefully crafting for months, based on an extensive iPhone note titled “Halloween Ideas” that they update year-round whenever inspiration strikes.
2. People who wait until the day of Halloween to start rifling through their closet for the random things they can throw together into a last-minute costume.
Knowing fully well that most people are the latter, we’ve decided to help you all out with some topical, (relatively) easy to put together ideas for this year’s costumes. Here are 16 last-minute costumes to wear this Halloween:
1
The little girl from Bomba Estéreo's "Soy Yo" Music Video
A star was born when Bomba Estéreo dropped their “Soy Yo” video, introducing us to pint-sized heroine Sarai Isaura Gonzalez. You wouldn’t know it from her precocious, plucky performance – think a swaggier version of Little Miss Sunshine – but it was the 11-year-old’s acting debut. Channel her with an awkward hair-do, some oversized glasses, and jort overalls. Don’t forget the sweet dance moves.
2
JuanGa
Our hearts were left with a gaping, El Divo de Juárez-sized hole after Juan Gabriel’s untimely death this summer. Pay homage to the legend on Halloween with an outfit that captures his iconic, extravagant – and often bejeweled – style.
3
Sad Girl from 'Mi Vida Loca'
The chola lifestyle and its ride-or-die ethos had never been brought to the screen with such affection and authenticity as when Kentucky-born director Allison Anders rounded up a group of girls from the Echo Park Locas gang and let them do their thing in the cult classic movie ‘Mi Vida Loca’.
Channel character Sad Girl with a teased up bouffant-style bangs, knuckle-tats and plenty of dark lipstick.
4
Lin-Manuel Miranda as Hamilton
Hamilton was unstoppable in 2016, and it felt like Lin-Manuel Miranda was everywhere – from Broadway to the White House to SNL to winning a MacArthur genius grant and sweeping the Tonys. To make a convincing Hamilton, all you need is a ponytail wig and the ability to dance, sing, rap, and freestyle at the drop of a dime.
5
Couple Costume: Bad Hombre & Nasty Woman
“We have some bad hombres here,” said Donald Trump while answering a question about immigration during the third presidential debate. By the time he’d dubbed Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman,” the meme machine was already churning, with hundreds of clever tweets, t-shirt designs, buttons and more giving people a way to reclaim the insults and turn lemons (a vile candidate) into lemonade (meme gold).
If you’re a twosome this Halloween, consider channeling the scariest, spookiest, most horrific thing to happen this year – the 2016 presidential campaign – with this Michael and Janet-inspired Bad Hombre & Nasty Woman costume.
6
Paquita la del Barrio
Paquita la del Barrio is the perfect costume for anyone who wants to spend Halloween running around singing “CHINGA TU MADRE INÚTIL” all night.
7
El Pibe
Colombian midfielder, Carlos “El Pibe” Valderrama, would be a great football star even if he’d never been born with that bright yellow mane. But the hair doesn’t hurt though.
8
Mafalda
Iconic cartoon character Mafalda – the super sassy, soup-hating 6-year-old girl who uses rhetoric fit for an activist – was woke before being woke was a thing.
9
Throuple Costume: 'Dos Mujeres, Un Camino' Cast
La Tesorito + Bibi Gaytan + Erik Estrada. If this classic telenovela love triangle is wrong, we don’t wanna be right.
10
Laurie Hernandez
16-year old Team USA gymnast Laurie Hernandez won our hearts at the Olympics this summer, and she’s basically guaranteed to take the top prize on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ because who can resist this:
11
Botero Painting
Latin American master painter Fernando Botero, who has a term for his very own style – “Boterismo” – is known for his sensuous, rotund figures. Capture this ballerina in all her full-figured glory for Halloween.
12
Couple Costume: El Chapo & Kate del Castillo
2016 had barely started when the stranger-than-fiction saga of Mexican actress Kate del Castillo and drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán came to light –thanks to a fatuous Rolling Stone interview with the drug lord conducted by none other than actor Sean Penn.
In the media firestorm that followed, we learned via leaked BBM messages that El Chapo seemed to be harboring a serious crush on del Castillo – even though she friend-zoned him pretty hard.
If you’ve got an unrequited crush, recruit them for this tandem costume of Guzmán and the woman who played La Reina del Sur.
13
Loteria Card
A classic.
14
Sexy Walter Mercado
When Halloween rolls around, stores begin stocking a deep roster of “Sexy ____” costumes (i.e. Sexy Bunny, Sexy Cat, Sexy Police Officer, Sexy Pikachu). We propose thinking outside the box and adding some new figures to the rotation, because who needs to see another sexy tigress or whatever?
Sexing up Walter Mercado may seem redundant (how could he get any sexier amirite) but where there’s a will, there’s a way.
15
Couple Costume: Netflix vs Blim
This year, Televisa launched its own notorious streaming platform, Blim, to compete with Netflix. We all remember the meme-stravaganza that followed. For a good chunk of 2016, “Netflix vs Blim” became a trending topic that brought us the best in Mexican digital creativity while hilariously parodying the inferior quality of Televisa’s lowest-common-denominator serial schlock.
If you’ve got a frenemy, this is the perfect twosome costume.