Pink Freud Costume

This costume is worn by me, Spencer Katz.

Every year I design my costume to be a historical figure pun. This year, my mother suggested Pink Freud, and I started working out how to best emulate Sigmund Freud with as much pink as possible a few months ago.

To mimic portraits of Freud, I required a few items that were simply unavailable in stores, the most significant of which was an 1800s-style pink three piece suit. To make this part of the costume, I found a cheap 3 piece suit (~$10) at a Goodwill store and covered it entirely in fluorescent pink duct tape. I tried my best to follow the lines of the individual suit items and leave similar seams so that the suit would still behave mostly like fabric. In all, it took almost 7 full rolls of duct tape to cover the entire suit working on-and-off over the course of a month.

On the back of the suit, I copied the Pink Floyd logo in a dark blue fabric paint, but changed Floyd to Freud. Afterward, I added the iconic prism in more fabric paint, white tape, and colored paint pens.

I started growing my beard out about a month before Halloween, but it proved to be one of the more challenging items in the costume, and led to the funniest story concerning the process. Sigmund Freud’s beard was quite full, especially around the mouth, but my beard comes in pre-styled with bare patches under my lips. To fill in these areas, I used Spirit Gum, but I needed hair to stick on. A couple of weeks before Halloween, I went in for a regular haircut with a weird request. When I asked the hairdresser if I could keep some of my cut hair (I had brought a bag!), she looked at me like I had two heads. Nevertheless, I collected enough of my own hair from the barber bib (thankfully, not from the floor) to finish my costume. Once the beard was styled and my hair was parted and gelled down, I sprayed my hair with pink-colored hairspray.

I included some accessories to add to the Freud aspect of the costume, including pink dress shoes from an online tuxedo store, a pair of round costume glasses, and pink bubblegum cigars. I kept extra bubblegum cigars in my pockets and gave them out to my friends at parties. I also added a pocket watch on a chain.

I always keep my costumes a secret until Halloween. Every year, my friends tell me they look forward to seeing my pun costumes, and this year I got one of the best reactions, both on Facebook and at parties. Most people couldn’t figure out what I was right away (although they inevitably liked the pink suit), but once I turned around to show them the Pink Freud logo, they would laugh and take pictures. At a local costume party, I won the prize for the Most Creative costume.

I always try to make my pun costumes both high quality costumes and witty plays-on-words. For this costume, I tried my best to make an authentic Sigmund Freud costume, but with pink elements. I hope you like it!