A Ho-Alternative Halloween--Collected Ideas

Dear Friends,

Halloween has arrived, so style yourself for the season!  Here is a recap of all the stunning spinsters I have covered on the blog and on Facebook and Instagram.  You cannot go wrong with any of these choices.  Whether you model them just for the night or carry their style, grace, and genius with you all year, have a safe, independent, and happy Halloween!

Coco Chanel 

Visit here for the story of fashion and women's rights pioneer, Coco Chanel: http://funwithspinsters.blogspot.com/2017/10/ho-alternative-halloween-costumes-coco.html

Oprah Winfrey

For Halloween, be a super spinster: be Oprah! Pick one of her many styles over the years to imitate, and carry some Kleenex because you are about to make people cry. You may even want to hand out little toy cars and say, "You get a car! And you get a car! And you!"

Wonder Woman

Consider imitating this great, though fictional, lady. Wonder Woman! You'll have no trouble finding a costume.

Susan B. Anthony 

Ladies, we wouldn't have the vote today without this brave spinster. For your Ho-Alternative Halloween costume, wear a long black dress, a white ruffle at your throat, pin back your hair, and carry a sign saying "Votes for Women!" Maybe you'll convince some women actually to use that right.

 Condoleeza Rice

"I believe in a marriage of equals, that’s how my parents were, and that’s how I would see it." --Condoleeza Rice
This Halloween, aspire to be this lady, the first female, African-American U.S Secretary of State. Wear a trim blue suit, bob your hair, and walk around like the boss you are. If you want a soundtrack, play piano music. Ms. Rice also is a concert pianist.

Diane Keaton

Diane Keaton is one of Hollywood's most successful actresses and one of the few who has refused to be "aged off" the screen. Get the glasses, straighten your hair, dress in black, and smile. This proud spinster doesn't hide from the spotlight.

Tyra Banks

A Tyra Banks costume requires smoky, mascaraed eyes and a lot of attitude. Pick any of her iconic photos to imitate, then walk the runway like the successful businesswoman and model you are! "Speak with your eyes, ladies!"

 

Mother Theresa

You won't find a more admirable spinster than Mother Theresa. If you dress like this fine lady for your Ho-Alternative Halloween, consider passing out candy and treats to all you meet. Spread the love!

Queen Elizabeth I

For more on this amazing lady, read my blog post at http://funwithspinsters.blogspot.com/2017/10/ho-alternative-halloween-costumes-queen.html

Jane Austen
To be this great spinster, wear a long dress fitted around the bust, slippers, and a well-trimmed bonnet. Walk around giving everyone marriage advice and high romantic expectations. If you find Mr. Darcy, message me immediately.

Florence Nightingale

To all my friends in the medical profession, you can thank this spinster for founding the modern nursing profession for women. To marry would have been to relinquish her career, so she never did. She had too many other men to take care of. A Ho-Alternative Halloween costume would include a bonnet, a spotless, long dress, a white apron, and an iron will.

Greta Garbo
Heralded as one of the most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen, Ms. Garbo refused to relinquish her independence in exchange for marriage. "The only good reason for two people getting married is that they can be together most of the time. That is impossible with me so long as I remain on the screen.” If you want a truly fabulous Halloween costume, put on your best attire, apply thick eyeliner and eye lashes, and glow like a goddess.  Take all photos in black and white.

Joan of Arc

She may not have had a romantic end, but this famous spinster lived fearlessly. Religious dreams compelled her to join the Hundred Years' War and fight for France. In the war, she led French troops against the English to great success before her capture. Even in an age when women never went to war, let alone led troops, Joan of Arc was unstoppable in her faith. If you wish to be her for your Ho-Alternative Halloween, don your suit of armor, carry your Bible and sword, and God help anyone who stands in your way.

Rosie the Riveter 
Rosie the Riveter, although a fictional heroine, makes a great model for a Ho-Alternative Halloween costume. Put on your overalls and head scarf, roll up your sleeves, and get hammering. These ladies were the engine of the Arms Race in World War II and are now a symbol of what a group of determined women, married and spinster alike, can accomplish.

Charlize Theron
Well-known for her Academy-Award-winning performance in Monster and for her J'Adore commercials, Charlize Theron shows women that spinsters can be beautiful, successful, and have a family.  Ms. Theron is the mother of two adopted children and is one of the world's celebrated beauties.  Oh, and she campaigns for women's rights and cure for HIV/AIDs, too. 

To be this stunning spinster for Halloween, rock one of her many looks--disturbed and dangerous from Monster, sexy in gold for J'Adore, or wicked and poisonous in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Happy Halloween!

Cheers,

Super Spinster

Ho-Alternative Halloween Costumes--Queen Elizabeth I

Dear Friends,

This Halloween, don’t be a lady of the night.  Have some class, and show off your knowledge of history’s most remarkable women.  Consider the following series of ho-alternative Halloween costumes inspired by a few of my favorite spinsters.  You’ll be proud to imitate these ladies, and your friends will admire your creativity and éclat. 

Elizabeth I

Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I in the 2007 film Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Only two years after Elizabeth Tudor was born in 1533, her father beheaded her mother.  Rather, King Henry VIII ordered Queen Anne Boleyn beheaded for treason and adultery.  He accused her of sleeping with her brother and practicing witchcraft.  Whether Anne Boleyn actually committed these crimes, we may never know.  But, the shadow of her death shrouded the young Elizabeth's childhood and taught her that marriage could mean disaster.  Better safe and single than beneath the thumb of a jealous, dangerous man.  

Upon her rise to the throne in 1558, Elizabeth refused to marry. She rejected lords, dukes, earls, and princes.  Rumors of an adulterous affair with Sir Robert Dudley and the murder of Dudley’s wife undermined Elizabeth's “virgin” persona, but none of the rumors could obscure the fact that Elizabeth ruled alone.   

Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth I in the 2005 TV Miniseries Elizabeth I

While Elizabeth ruled, England enjoyed decades of peace.  Her reign is now known as England’s Renaissance and “Golden Age.”  Art, literature, and music flourished.  Shakespeare wrote many of his greatest plays under Elizabeth's patronage.  To Shakespeare and artists like him, Elizabeth was a goddess.  Shakespeare’s Queen Titania, queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a homage to Queen Elizabeth.  Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene in her honor, an epic connecting her royal blood with King Arthur and her power with the supernatural.  Artists worshiped her and so her people believed their queen more deity than woman; and that is exactly how Elizabeth wanted it.

Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I in the 2007 Film Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Elizabeth's genius lay in marketing.  Where did these men get the idea to call her “Fairy Queen” and “Virgin Queen”? Why, from the queen, of course.  In a world of princes and kings, Elizabeth used the media of her time—poetry, theatre, art, and song—to portray herself as strong, beloved, clever, and immortal.  She had married herself to her country, and the man who tried to take it from her would dearly regret it.

Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth I at Tilbury in the 2007 Film Elizabeth: The Golden Age

When Spain launched a naval invasion against England in 1588, Elizabeth rode to her country’s southern coast and saw the vast Spanish Armada floating offshore.  Amidst her soldiers, she is said to have sat on horseback, a warrior queen, who cried, “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king!”  She acknowledged what they all knew—she was female and an unlikely general—but with the turn of a sentence she transformed.  She proclaimed herself brave enough to stand with her outmatched army and tough enough to cut down any Spaniard who stepped ashore.  Appearances were nothing.  Strength lay in her love for her people and her willingness to do anything to protect them.  By the grace of God, the Spanish Armada sunk off the coast in a terrible storm, and Elizabeth returned from the field confident in her divine right to rule alone.

It is difficult to say whether Elizabeth really wanted to marry.  With Elizabeth's rumored love of Sir Robert Dudley, it is hard to believe she didn’t marry because she never fell in love.  She likely did.   But for her, to marry was too great a risk.  A husband could take her throne and subordinate her.  He could want her for her power and not for herself.  And no one could protect her people like she could.  If that meant no man ever sat beside her, so be it. 

Joseph Fiennes as Sir Robert Dudley & Cate Blanchett as the Princess Elizabeth in the 1998 Film Elizabeth

It is rumored that in the last hours of Elizabeth's life she stood in her chambers, refusing to sit and succumb to death.  Even as the shadow of death that had claimed her mother sixty-seven years before slunk toward her, Elizabeth fought to stay.  Her life had been in service to England, and despite such a great burden, she never wanted it lifted.  At last, on March 24, 1603, aged 69, England’s then longest-serving monarch, its “Virgin Queen”, and its greatest patroness of peace passed from the human world into the supernatural forever.  She now lives in society's collective imagination, a beautiful, unshakeable queen star-crossed in love but loved by her people.  She remains the "Fairy Queen" of English history and the imperfect woman who had the heart and stomach of a queen.

Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth in the 1971 TV Miniseries Elizabeth R

For more on Queen Elizabeth I, try the book Elizabeth by David Starkey.  You may also enjoy the film Elizabeth (1999) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) starring Cate Blanchett, the TV Mini Series Elizabeth R (1971) starring Glenda Jackson, and the TV Mini Series Elizabeth I (2005) starring Helen Mirren.

For your Elizabeth I costume, try Ebay.com or Amazon.com.  Just make sure you get a ruff, white face paint, a red wig, and a lot of jewelry.

Happy Halloween!  Return soon to read my next suggestion for a Ho-Alternative Halloween.

Cheers,

The Super Spinster

Ho-Alternative Halloween Costumes--Coco Chanel

Dear Friends,

This Halloween, don’t be a lady of the night: be a heroine.  Delight your friends with your knowledge of history’s most remarkable women.  In this Ho-Alternative Halloween Series, I've collected the stories of my favorite spinsters with costume suggestions for each.   You’ll be proud to imitate these ladies, and your friends will admire your creativity and éclat. 

Coco Chanel

Born in 1883 in France, Gabrielle (“Coco”) Chanel is one of the most iconic fashion designers of the twentieth-century.  Raised in a convent after her mother died and her father abandoned her, Coco was inspired by the geometric, Romanesque architecture of the convent and the black and white of the nuns' habits.  From there, Coco developed her slim, monochromatic, masculine clothing that shocked and inspired French fashion.  Refusing to wear the corsets, layers of ankle-stretching skirts and voluminous hats of ladies at the time, Coco wore loose-fitting trousers, rode a horse like a man, cut her hair into a bob, hung layers of pearls around her neck, and went to the beach and got a tan. Working women soon followed her, wearing fashions that actually allowed them to do their jobs and maintain a daring yet delicate femininity.

"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." — Coco Chanel

But transforming the fashion world was not enough.  Coco broke centuries' old perfume traditions.  Before Chanel, women wore simple rose water or floral scents (one flower at a time, please).  The renegade Coco, already shocking to the male-dominated fashion world, hired chemists to create new, complex scents.  She combined flowers with tobacco and musk and other ingredients unheard of in parfumerie.  The result was Chanel No. 5.  It filled perfumeries and department stores, shocking and delighting customers with its unique scent and sleek square bottle.  Chanel No. 5 and its descendants are worn and loved today, and women have long since abandoned the overly simple scents of yesterday.

"Fashion fades, only style remains the same." — Coco Chanel

In her personal life, Coco found love, lost it, and carried on.  Around 1908, she fell in love with Captain Arthur Edward “Boy” Capel, a wealthy, cultivated Englishman.  He introduced the peasant-born Coco to the Orient, to literature, and to new worlds of design.  He also financed her first boutiques.  Aching to free herself from the need to marry (a requirement for most women), Coco worked with Boy to start what would later become the Chanel empire.  Thanks to him, the peasant-girl-Coco became Coco Chanel and the force behind modern women's fashion.  When Boy died in a motorcycle accident in 1919, the attendees at his funeral said they saw Coco cry for the first and last time.

"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty." — Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel never married.  She had a brilliant career and worked hard to realize her dreams.  No doubt, many men would have married this glittering empress of fashion, but Coco remained a proud spinster.  She had revolutionized not only women’s fashion but also modeled a woman’s right to make something of herself, to raise her voice among a male-dominated industry, and to settle for love, liberty, and nothing less.  The epitome of elegance, Coco once remarked, "Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future."

For more on Coco Chanel, watch these fabulous video clips about her life and her brand: http://inside.chanel.com/en/gabrielle-pursuit-passion. 

For your Halloween costume, pair a knee-length nip-waisted dress (simple color), a tweed or wool jacket, Oxford pumps, a sleek, unadorned hat, multiple strings of pearls, and of course, some perfume.  As Coco said, “Une femme sans parfum est une femme sans avenir” (“A woman without perfume is a woman without a future.”)

Happy Halloween!  Return soon to read my next suggestion for a Ho-Alternative Halloween.

Cheers,

The Super Spinster