In the rush to put together The Perfect Halloween Costume (That Isn’t Sarah Palin Or The Chick Who Carved The B In Her Face), some of you might choose to peruse the offerings of some of the Internet’s costume merchants. And some of you, in this time where pop music seems to land somewhere between “public TV pledge drives” and “the TV Guide crossword” on the pop-cultural radar, might even want to theme your costume themed around some sort of music in-joke. We here at Idolator are here to help you fashion the right pop-related getup, so in the interest of performing a public service, here are seven outfits that you should pretty much avoid at all costs this Halloween. Even if you’re really in need of a last-minute costume on Friday.
The fashion tableau provided by the Coachella audience revealed a lot of things about fashion in 2008: the American Apparel-bred aesthetic of shiny spandex has been embraced by a lot of women; those awful monokinis where the top and the bottom parts are connected by a strip of fabric are inexplicably back; and I can’t look at mesh fedoras without feeling revolted, because they remind me of Spike from Top Chef. And as always, the ironic and semi-ironic t-shirts were out in full force, with four in particular standing out for the way they bludgeoned the idea of “irony” with a cotton-covered truncheon.
Since he couldn’t possibly fill all of that OutKast downtime with guest verses and Hollywood turns, the man born Andre Benjamin, who then branded himself Andre 3000 and who’s now once again Andre Benjamin, has also spent the last few months exploring the world of fancy frocks, hoping to allow the common man (with a little dough) to borrow some of his infamous mix-and-match sartorial style. The rapper-turned-clothier currently plans for an autumn debut for his upscale fashion imprint–think more high-end department store than the place you pick up your remaindered G-Unit apparel–Benjamin Bixby. The line is so named not for the man who was once the Incredible Hulk, but because…well, probably because it sounded like a jolly Dickens urchin. And if your closet is full of throwbacks and manpris, but light on cravats and waistcoats, then it just might be for you.
