Rating Ancient-Themed Costumes from Spirit Halloween

A Reception Collection celebrates spooky season

Happy Halloween, my magnificent readers!

To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to make light of some cheap, mass-produced costumes. To keep things on theme, said costumes are all influenced by the ancient Mediterranean. For those of you who don’t know Spirit Halloween, it’s an online retailer that sets up temporary brick-and-mortar shops across North America every fall. These shops tend to occupy abandoned warehouses and derelict malls, and they sell notoriously low-cost costumes and decor. I plundered Spirit Halloween’s website for some antiquity-based costumes, then picked out a few that I found especially entertaining. Now I’m going to judge them…

I’m rating these costumes based on a few criteria:

-Accuracy. Obviously it would be asking too much for full accuracy from Spirit Halloween, but I can’t fully switch off the historian part of my brain. I’m taking a bit of ancient costuming into account, but trying to stay fluid. These costumes obviously aren’t made to look historically realistic: they’re meant to convey some broad-strokes visual ideas of the ancient world to trick-or-treaters and partygoers.

-Originality and creativity. I’m looking for cool and unusual concepts from antiquity, as well as visual quirks that elevate these costumes beyond basic toga-party fare.

-Aesthetic appeal. This one’s simple: if they look cool, they get a better rating. If something is so bad it’s good, then it gets points for making me laugh.

Without further ado, here are some costumes!

Venus Goddess

We’re starting off with one of the best-known and most iconic ancient goddesses. This version of Venus’ jewelry gets the job done, and I like the embroidery around her neckline. I also enjoy what’s going on with the model’s hair: her curls and little diadem are very Greco-Roman. The shoulder drapes would be so fun to swish around at a Halloween party, not to mention a campy, light-hearted way to get into character. Imagine wrapping them around someone you find cute!

The high-low hem is giving me war flashbacks to the early 2010s when “mullet dresses” were in style. We’re only one costume in and I’m already tired of the white and gold combination. The ancient world was full of colour! Marble statues were painted! Why do we keep doing this to ourselves! 6/10

Athena Goddess

Ah, my go-to goddess! I’m always happy to run into Athena when I least expect her. This costume gets points for using colour, especially since that colour is an appropriately Aegean shade of blue. However, I’ve never seen an ancient goddess rock an ombre dress before: they could’ve made the entire dress blue and it would’ve been far more striking, and far more historically accurate. Like Venus’ high-low hem, the ombre brings outdated fashion trends to mind.

Without this costume’s title, I had no clue that it’s Athena. If I saw this woman out and about at Halloween, I’d have to ask who she’s supposed to be. The laurel wreath, sandals, and belt mark her as a Grecian goddess, but there’s none of Athena’s distinctive, very well-known iconography here. Where’s Athena’s spear? Her helmet? Any sort of owl imagery? My kingdom for some owl imagery! 5/10

Poseidon

Oh dear, Poseidon…

This one gets points for the fully bright blue tunic, but, in good faith, I can’t hand out any other kudos. It’s a shame, because a well-done Poseidon costume would rule Halloween! The torn netting pieces might work in a different context, but they look too sloppy for the god of the seas. They’re more appropriate for a victim of one of Poseidon’s shipwrecks. The faux leather accessories, with their spikes and fish-scale texture, are okay by Spirit Halloween standards, but to me they say less “sea god” and more “gladiator.” The trident crown would be a good idea, if it weren’t too small for the model’s head. It gives his hair an unfortunate muffin shape. Finally, the trident is tragically short and flimsy: did it start life as part of a kids’ costume? This one’s a failure in my books. 2/10

Zeus

It’s hard to think of a better Greek god to take to a Halloween party than Zeus. What could be scarier than a power-drunk, eternally horny agent of the patriarchy? His crown here has more in common with Wonder Woman than with antiquity, but I can’t complain. Wonder Woman takes tons of inspiration from mythology, and she’s probably the most recognizable pop-culture figure with Greco-Roman roots. I think she’s even a daughter of Zeus in some iterations.

The props are what really sell this costume. I can’t look away from that tiny little plastic thunderbolt! The thunder emblem on his belt is way bigger: knowing Zeus, I’m afraid that’s probably implying something. If Zeus wielded this flimsy little twig of a thunderbolt in mythology, Kronos would still be king of the cosmos. 10/10 because my lungs hurt from laughing!

Roman Gladiator

I wish that Gladiator II came out before the end of October (it’s releasing in November 2024, and I’m thoroughly excited). You know full well that, if it had been out earlier, everyone and their dog would be sporting Coliseum-worthy getup for Halloween.

The model for this particular gladiator looks so much like Vorenus from HBO Rome: serious props if Spirit Halloween picked him for the resemblance. Otherwise, this is pretty par for the toga party course. The bright red cape is nice and instantly reads as Roman, but everything under it is a little plain. The curse of the undersized weapon strikes again, and I have to be a nitpicking historian and point out that this isn’t a gladiator look. It has much more in common with a legionnaire! A funky helmet would give him a more gladiatorial look, but, alas, all he gets is a flimsy headband. 4/10

Signature Roman Emperor Costume

Someone put some effort into this: the abundant Gorgon heads are a nice touch, and the breastplate reminds me of some actual statues of Roman emperors. But what in the name of Marcus Aurelius is going on with that helmet? The nose guard isn’t protecting a thing, the top’s missing entirely, and the wings are borrowed straight from Gaulish warriors. The Gauls, might I remind you, fought against the Romans, who saw them as uncouth barbarians and apt targets for genocide. I have no idea why an emperor would want to visually emulate them in his own wardrobe. This costume is tantalizingly close to doing a good job, and then the helmet has to go and act all chaotic. 7/10

Roman Sun Warrior

If you’ve never heard of a Roman sun warrior, don’t worry. Neither have I!

I’d love to know the inspiration for this, because it certainly isn’t from antiquity. Maybe “sun warriors” showed up in an obscure 1960s sword and sandal movie, and the idea stuck around. In terms of looks, this could be worse, but the bar’s awfully low. The accessories look pretty good, but everything starts to fall flat once we get to the fabric. I’m not sure why Spirit Halloween keeps dressing their Romans in black: it wasn’t a very common colour in ancient clothing, and there’s already so many black Halloween costumes out there. Why not use the ancient world as an excuse to market more colours? Also, that’s the saddest, limpest little shoulder cape I’ve ever seen. 4/10

Kids’ Mystical Goddess Dress

This is one of two ancient Mediterranean kids’ costumes I found on the Spirit Halloween website. It’s… a mixed bag. The white and gold colour combo rears its outdated head once more: you’d think a costume for little girls would be a chance to play with brighter colours. The pastel purple cape is a step in the right direction, but the celestial print isn’t quite on-theme. It doesn’t belong on mount Olympus, it belongs in a Wiccan undergrad’s dorm room.

I do appreciate the length of the tunic. It gives its wearer freedom to move around, while evoking some badass mythological women, like Artemis and Atalanta. I know I’m not the only woman who went through an intense Huntress of Artemis phase at age 12, so I wish this costume would indulge that preteen urge. Give this girl a bow and arrows: she deserves them! 6/10

Kids’ Anubis

This is fantastic. And by fantastic, I mean that it’s a beautiful trainwreck. I was originally going to save ancient Egyptian Halloween costumes for a future post, but this was too good to keep under wraps. (Mummy wraps? Get it?) First of all, the model’s wearing dress shoes, as if Anubis is on his way to an office job. Then there’s the skeleton shirt, possibly lifted from a different Halloween costume. Is it there because Anubis is associated with death? Or is it there because they couldn’t market a shirtless costume for little kids, and panicked to cover up everything? The look’s finished off with a headpiece that’s suspiciously similar to a cheap werewolf mask, with a few touches of pseudo-Egyptian gold paint. I think they even painted the teeth gold! The whole thing is a disjointed mess, I can’t look away, and I wish I could show it to people from actual ancient Egypt. 3/10 for effort, 10/10 for entertainment factor.

Signature Goddess of Sun

There’s no sun goddess in Greek and Roman mythology, so either Spirit Halloween failed to do their research or this is a genderbent version of Helios. If this is a genderbent Helios, I love it and I want to see more costumes in this vein!There’s also a chance the design team saw a sun goddess from a different mythological pantheon and got confused. Accuracy aside, I really like the crown on this costume: I’d incorporate it into a Halloween look of my own. The rest of the outfit is a lovely colour but it seems cheap, even by Spirit Halloween standards. I can hear the loud rustling of that skirt fabric just from looking at it! 7/10

Apollo

Here’s a more accurate sun deity, and another of my mythological faves. I think this is supposed to be a set with the Zeus and Poseidon costumes I covered earlier: however, Apollo takes everything those two were doing and pulls it off a lot better. He gets some major props for colour: the Greeks and Romans would eat up his crimson and saffron combination! The belt is a little chintzy, but someone clearly gave it some thought, with those gems and that spiffy red lyre emblem. Even though I know they’re cheaply made, I would kill to wear those sandals. I have a major sartorial weakness for gladiator sandals, the strappier the better…

My one complaint here is that Apollo is famously an archer. Homer repeatedly calls him “Lord of the Silver Bow” in the Iliad. Why give him a flimsy little prop sword, when you could give him a flimsy little prop bow? Or abandon the weapons and give him a lyre? I’m docking a point for the props, but otherwise this is a pleasantly well-done surprise. 9/10, and not just because Apollo was my childhood crush and I’m biased.

Caesar

Just as Apollo was putting me in an unexpectedly positive mood, Spirit Halloween let me down with this tragedy. Forget the Ides of March: this is the real assassination of Julius Caesar! They didn’t even try to give the poor guy a convincing toga. He’s stuck with a little strip of fabric (leftovers from Apollo’s cape or the sun goddess’ dress?) haphazardly stitched onto an elongated white t-shirt. I don’t expect a full reenactment-worthy toga, since togas in the Roman republic were made of wool, dozens of feet long, and notoriously uncomfortable to wear. However, there are ways to fake the toga look without being this limp and shapeless. Trust me, I’ve done it before!

I can’t be mad at the lack of colour here, because Roman senatorial togas were actually white. However, I can get mad at the tragically scanty gold trim: it would be more historically accurate and more aesthetically pleasing if it were red! At least the other men’s costumes I found have some fun weapons or little details: this one has a laurel crown and arm bracers, but they’re grievously plain compared to the other looks. The Apollo or Venus crowns would be perfect for old Julius, but no, he gets a wimpy, minimal set of laurels that barely show up in the photo. This entire costume reads like a cry for help. Even the model has sad eyes. I never thought I’d feel sorry for the dictator who conquered Gaul, but here I am. Spirit Halloween, you’ve done the impossible! 1/10

So there you have it, some ranked and reviewed mass-market Halloween costumes. I had fun picking these apart, but they also gave me an interesting glimpse into the state of pop-culture perceptions of ancient Greece and Rome. There’s a lot of visual shorthand that the designers of these costumes use to quickly signify antiquity. Pre-packaged Halloween costumes are broad-strokes and obvious by nature, so they have to boil down characters to their most recognizable elements. There’s always a bit of a disconnect between these recognizable traits and actual antiquity: however, I found some pleasantly surprising positives in these costumes. The outfits that actually use colour are fantastic: archaeologists have known about polychromy in the ancient world for decades, and the general public is finally, slowly catching on. I’ve talked before on A Reception Collection about the harmful implications of an all-white ancient Mediterranean, so I’m delighted to see that change, even if it’s gradual.

If you’re dressing up as something ancient Mediterranean for Halloween, tell me in the comments. I always love seeing and hearing about everyone’s costumes!