Halloween fanatics go deep for costume creations

Everyone has a favorite holiday, but Halloween lends itself well to creatives. Each year is a chance to try out new costumes and themes to spook and impress friends and family.

These Sarasota figures make the most of their haunted holiday with inspired costumes and designs.
 

Trisha and Adam Dunn, Space Alien and Alien Expert

Adam Dunn wasn’t a big Halloween guy before meeting his wife Trisha almost 10 years ago. He quickly realized that was going to change. 

Trisha Dunn, an interior decorator and realtor, loved costumes from an early age and learned how to make her own while sewing together outfits as a figure skater in college.

Dunn now creates outfits for every occasion and has a space in her home she and her husband have dubbed the “costume closet.”

Adam and Trisha now match with colorful costumes every chance they get.

“It’s nice to have a husband who’s a good sport,” Trisha said. “Any themed party, we’re going to be there with wigs.”

Most recently Adam, a local attorney, went to a Halloween party as “Ancient Aliens” expert/meme icon Giorgio A. Tsoukalos with Trisha as a 1950s vintage Space Alien to match. The couple thought it’d be a timely costume with recent interest on the upswing in UFOs.

Adam’s challenge was to find the right suit and mannerisms to match the meme figure while Trisha made her look with purple makeup, a derby day fascinator and a dryer vent. She also thought up a backstory for her retro, peace-loving alien character.

“Any time you put on a wig or you put on a costume, you instantly make something up about who this person is and you play into it,” Dunn said. 

The Dunns throw a party at their home every Halloween weekend and have a group costume with friends in mind this year — the swimsuited crew of the Belafonte ship as well as the jaguar shark they chase in Wes Anderson’s "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou". 

Trisha Dunn, of course, will play the shark.

“I love watching her and the passion she has for life,” Adam Dunn said. 

Christina Fraser, Dark Mermaid

Christina Fraser has made a career out of event planning and works at the New College of Florida. 

Every Halloween, she brings that creativity home and transforms her house and back yard into a spooktacular venue for Halloween parties and trick or treat nights. She feels it’s something of a creative release.

“I was born just before Halloween, my birthdays always seemed to revolve around (the holiday),” Fraser said. “As an event planner I love surprises and with Halloween, you can kind of do more and get away with more.”

This year Fraser has reworked her back lawn into a stormy seascape with a sunken pirate ship and treacherous Kraken tentacles. 

 She made a darker mermaid costume to match with black seashells, shadowy makeup and an octopus companion she keeps on her wrist. 

Fraser and her husband found old wood fencing which they used to construct the ship’s mast emerging from the deep. She then put a skeletal pirate captain gripping a cutlass on the front of the ship to complete the scene.

The production, which includes treasure chests, skeletons sitting about the yards and even a smoke machine to add atmosphere, results in a fully haunted high seas landscape. 

“If you can do it, what can you do (with your parties) to always make it a little more interesting?” Fraser said. “You want something people don’t expect.”

Austin Judd, Plague Doctor

Austin Judd, a model who poses for artists with the Ringling College of Art and Design, crafts costumes all year around. But October, with all its creative imagery and performative tendencies, holds a special place in her heart. 

“Halloween is the holiday for us weirdos,” Judd said. 

For this Halloween weekend, Judd is helping lead and perform in a Halloween-themed drag production with the school’s burgeoning drag club on Oct. 29. Judd has been part of several drag shows and says she loves the spectacle and the heightened level of performance that almost satirizes pageants. 

“When I wanted to be me (growing up), I’d love creating the most elaborate things out of the most insignificant things you’d see,” she said.

She’s has been hard at work on her Halloween design — a diva riff on the 17th-century plague doctors who dealt with the dead during the Bubonic Plague. She started with a black dress that she adorned with led-light flowers and then added arm-length gloves, plumage, a mask and a dark pendant to complete the look.

“I wanted to do something really scary or really funny,” Judd said. “I didn’t want to be a witch (for Halloween) like everyone else but I wanted to be elaborate.”

The plague doctor mask itself — with its iconic bird-beak design — is a more golden color, which was important. Judd wanted the mask to really have a bright contrast against the darker tones of her costume. 

“You’re creating a production just for you,” Judd said. “You can be as creative as you want.”