500 Years of Cultural Inspiration
Each year at this time thousands of new Halloween costumes hit the store shelves. Costume manufacturer’s produce these costumes hoping to capture the attention (and disposable income) of the consumer. Many of those new costume designs are based on the latest Hollywood movie blockbuster, a trendy children’s TV character or even the hottest video game of the year. This year it’s Angry Bird costumes. Last year it was Lady Gaga costumes. The year before that it was vampire themed costumes … and so it goes. Seems there’s a never ending stream of gimmicks or trendy costumes introduced each Halloween. However, there’s a segment of the market who prefer the more traditional, classic Halloween costume. These are the costumes based mostly on the past 500 years of cultural inspiration. From princesses to witches to pirates, these costumes have been in existence for nearly 500 years and remain popular to this day.
Here’s an infographic that takes a look back at the costumes of the past 500 years — starting with the 16th Century. This Halloween when you’re out trick-or-treating, take a look around. You’ll be amazed at how many of these costumes are still being worn by today’s trick-or-treaters!
Superheroes-There probably isn’t a kid alive that hasn’t played “superhero” at one point or another in his/her life. With so many great and powerful characters to choose from, it will be very easy to find one that fits into the superhero mold that you imagined when you were a child. Caped and flying through the air, using superhuman strength and powers, scaling walls with ease and overcoming evil at every possible turn is just plain cool, not to mention fun. What’s not to love about being a superhero? 
Rock Stars-With air guitar in hand, many of us as children found our selves deep in the fantasy of being a real Rock Star. We envisioned being up on a stage, rocking out with fabulously loud music blaring out of huge amps, hungry, screaming fans in the audience and a stage nearly set afire with cool pyrotechnics. Rock Stars seemed to live a life of perfect fantasy and more than a few of us wanted to be one. Perhaps many of us still do.
Firemen or Policemen-Considered by many to be the ultimate local heroes, most of us as children played games like cops and robbers, where good always prevailed over evil and the bad guys were hauled away into a pretend jail. Children often fantasize about being firefighters as well—driving that big red truck with the siren a-blazing as it roars down the street. Performing rescue operations was all in day’s work for the brave firefighter, no wonder it’s a favorite pretend imaginative character for kids.
Princess-Nearly every little girl goes through her ‘princess’ phase. Dressed in appropriate royal attire from tiaras down to glass slippers, her regal and elegant appearance brought handsome men to her in droves. Well, that was the theory anyway. Princesses often found themselves in dire circumstances that required some handsome hottie to come by and do the rescuing. Hey, what can I say, even little girls are smart and I guess we all learned young what worked. Being a princess is a sweet gig and it’s no wonder why many of us wanted to be one if only in our imaginations.
Cheerleader- Beautiful, sexy and popular, many girls fantasize about being a cheerleader. Little girls do dance routines, cartwheels and flips in their yards as they dream about one day cheering their team onto victory while their pom poms flip about overhead. From the super sexy professional sports team cheerleaders (Can you say Dallas Cowboys?) to the more traditional cheer girls found at your ol’ alma mater, the cheerleader is a popular childhood dream that might be fun to re-live. A little bizarre, but definitely totally hilarious, grown men have been known to dress up as cheerleaders, too. 