This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of eBay. All opinions are 100% mine.
When I was a kid, Halloween excited me as much as it did any other kid but I never put too much thought into my costume. Halloween shopping entailed going to a big box retailer, browsing the aisles, and making a snap decision on one of the premade costumes depicting a character in pop culture.
Now?
Halloween costume creation is a sport to me. If it doesn’t involve hours of prep, tedious makeup, and a needle and thread I don’t want it. And my favorite type of costume? Pop culture references. In my book, any year that Taylor Swift drops a new album is her year so in the year of Taylor it only made sense that I’d be dressing up as Taylor Swift.
Taylor has put out so many music videos, each featuring their own iconic looks, so it was a hard decision to make. When it came down to it, I decided on her opening look from the Me! music video for a few reasons:
The required materials were cheap enough that I could DIY the entire costume without breaking the bank.
It could be quickly DIY’d. Costumes of years past have taken hours and hours of labor to get finished, I was able to make my DIY Taylor Swift Halloween Costume in a day.
It is recognizable. Me! was the first music video Taylor put out in her Lover album, and this ensemble got a lot of buzz on social media.
Making my DIY Taylor Swift Halloween Costume
Shopping
The first step was gathering my materials. I loved the simplicity of the costume and the fact that I wasn’t going to need to order from a million different sites to get what I needed, I was able to find everything on eBay.
I broke down each element of the costume into a shopping list, and here’s what I came up with:
I already had the makeup I needed for the look, so I put in my order and got started on the costume as soon as everything arrived.
My DIY process
90% of the effort in this look was styling the wig and doing my makeup, trying to channel my inner Taylor Swift. The only sewing I had to do was adding the silk flowers to the white tulle skirt. Pro tip: I got my flowers from a $2 thrifted wreath, if you don’t have any flowers handy then eBay has a lot of options for cheap.
I stitched mine by hand (with the help of my kitty, Gherkin), but you can also use a strong glue like e6000, just make sure that you don’t glue the fabric layers together.
I used the Me! music video as reference as to where to put my flowers, but I didn’t make an exact replica, I ended up adding a few extra where I saw fit.
The DIY Taylor Swift Costume Hair
If you’re a natural blonde with a long bob, this step is going to be easy for you. Do your hair in retro curls and call it a day!
If you’ve got any other type of locks, though, theres an extra step that is well worth the effort.
I bought this blonde wig from eBay, knowing that it’d be way too long. I appreciated the freedom it gave me in styling, and ended up chopping it to my shoulders. From there, I stuck it on top of a bottle and curled it, pinning the curls to set as I go.
I recommend this exact wig, because it’s heat resistant meaning you can use your curling iron on it without melting the hair (something you have to worry about with some wigs!).
Now I’m no hair stylist (clearly) but I did my best to style the wig the way Taylor’s hair was in the video. The main things I focused on were: retro curls, deep part, and slicked back on one side.
The DIY Taylor Swift Costume Makeup
I clearly look nothing like Taylor, and my makeup skills tend to hover right above sub-par, but I was determined to alter my looks enough that you could sort of kind of tell what I was going for. I actually practiced my T-Swift makeup a few times before shooting this post, and then the day before I needed to pull everything together, JBunzie uploaded a Taylor Swift Transformation Video.
I followed her instructions as closely as possible (my makeup arsenal is lacking, so I needed to do some improvising) only changing the colors of the eye makeup and lipstick to match the music video.
Once it was all put together, I could honestly see the resemblance. While no amount of makeup and costume could make me look just like Taylor, I sent a selfie to a few friends and they all guessed my costume correctly based on just my hair and makeup.
Taylor Swift is nothing if not enthusiastic about her cats, so my final accessory? My kitty, Lemon, who was incredibly enthusiastic about getting his moment in the spotlight.
To pull the look together, I also photoshopped my eyes blue to match Taylor’s. If you don’t have a contact phobia (guilty), then consider topping your look off with blue contacts. Click the slideshow to see the “before” picture – the blue eyes really do make a big difference!
What are you dressing up as for Halloween? Will you be trying out my DIY Taylor Swift Costume, or going a different route? Tag me in your DIY costume on Instagram so I can like and comment, too!
