Dress by J. Crew. Coat brand is unknown.
Photos taken by me.
The best way to find a unique costume for Halloween is to find a character with a distinctive and interesting look. And this is where the fashion part comes in -- dressing up as someone with an iconic fashion sense will make a costume 10 times better than anyone else's. That's why dressing up as Margot was so fun. Her memorable fur coat, Lacoste polo dress, blonde bob, and heavy eyeliner create a look that cannot be recreated through anyone else, unless that person is intentionally dressing up as her. When you google "Margot Tenenbaum makeup", photos from fashion shows with heavy under-eye eyeliner will show, and when you google "Margot Tenenbaum style", images of models dressed in luxurious fur coats and striped dresses will appear. Even if you haven't seen the movie, you probably recognize the look, so this proves how iconic this character's style is. This made my job fairly easy. Although I did not have a tan fur coat or an actual Lacoste polo dress, I could still find a white one, put on a similar striped dress, and just do my makeup and hair just like hers (my new hair cut makes this costume so much easier). If you load on the eyeliner, straighten your preferably short and blonde locks, and walk around with a sad face all day, you will nail the Margot Tenenbaum aesthetic. I wish I would have carried around cigarettes and somehow made a wooden finger, but I didn't even need that to look just like Margot. When I showed people pictures of Margot today, they thought the resemblance was almost creepy. And if you have seen The Royal Tenenbaums, you probably recognized how I took these photos based on shots from the movie (I wish I had a Richie to sit next to on that couch...).
For me, finding costumes like this comes easy. My favorite film director is Wes Anderson, and other than this character by his, I could think of five other characters I could have dressed up as (Suzy from Moonrise Kingdom was my second choice). And this is where fashion really comes into the equation. Dressing up as other personas is fun for me because I get to create a look different from my own. Not everyday can I go around wearing a fur coat and a pound of eyeliner, and Halloween gives us an excuse to be whoever we want to be just for a day. Many use it as an excuse to dress up as something ridiculous, but I use it to let my love for fashion shine with an iconic look that wouldn't work on the other 364 days of the year. Halloween should be easy for fashion lovers like me. The opportunities are endless, whether you want to dress up like a fashionable character or an irl fashion icon. I have seen some Anna Wintours this Halloween, but you can go even further than that. You can go back in time and be your best Jane Birkin or Brigitte Bardot, or even work that heroin-chic look by being Kate Moss. And these are just people who have influenced the fashion world. The simplest thing to do is look at characters from your favorite T.V. show or movie with an impeccable style and impersonate them. My twin dressed up as Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks by pairing a crop-sweater and midi with saddle shoes and that iconic beauty mark next to her eye. Although many people in this era don't even know what the show is, people who did watch it immediately knew, and that's due to Audrey's unique look. That's how being Margot was for me -- many people had never even heard of the movie, but people who have watched it knew exactly who I was trying to be. People think that Halloween costumes have to be recognizable by the entire population, but that's not a requirement. I already have a few ideas for next year (Angela Hayes from American Beauty or even one of the Lisbon daughters from The Virgin Suicides). So go out there, and spend this day dressing up as someone you've always wanted to be but couldn't on a normal day. That's what Halloween is for, right?
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