Story and photos by Sudabeh Sarker
Styling by Jazlyn Tabar
For our devil and angel couples costume, we went into each thrift store with an open mind, grabbing anything that had potential. Based on what we found in the beginning, we thought we were going to go with a silky white church robe and have a sexy bra top and skirt underneath but we found this amazing see-through white blazer that was angelic and edgy at the same time.
By the end, we had all these amazing pieces, but they didn’t necessarily go together. They were all varying shades of white and we would not have our angel wearing shades of off-white with cream.
Ultimately, we made some adjustments by cutting up a few pieces and adding a ton of safety pins. Our final product for the angel costume was completely worth the last minute costume DIY. The great part about thrifting is there’s less guilt when you rip apart a newly purchased tank top.
Finding a proper devil costume for our male model was far more difficult. Not only was the men’s section twice as small but each rack was filled with boring clothes with little variety in texture and color. I guess if the devil wore business casual clothing and had a 9-to-5 office job, this would be fine.
However, we were thinking more along the lines of an evil, hell-dwelling demon. We even started our search with the idea of having fishnets and boots as part of our look, but once we saw our options, we immediately lowered our expectations. We did find a cape but later ditched it for a rich, red velvet jacket. After finding the jacket, we tried to find velvet pants to match. Unfortunately, finding pants that fit both the criteria for our costume and the right size for our model was impossible. By the end of our hunt, we didn’t find as many pieces for our devil as the angel, but the jacket was such a statement piece that, with some horns, red makeup, and simple black jeans, it worked out great on its own.
Early 2000s fashion is back in full swing, so finding a complete Bratz look wasn’t very difficult. The hardest part was deciding which outfit to use for our final photo shoot. There was a variety of outfits and styles available but our only focus was to find the most aggressively early-2000s clothes we could find. Every single piece was purchased from Buffalo Exchange which, as of now, is filled with clothes straight from Paris Hilton’s wardrobe. Yes, Buffalo Exchange is not as affordable as Goodwill, but the selection is a lot easier to sort through. In the end, we had to choose between a sequined, skin-tight jumpsuit with cutouts at the hip and a silky black halter-top, bell-bottoms and a sequined newsboy cap. We ended up going for the latter.
