Grinning Hippie: costumes

Last year I just about blew a gasket looking at Halloween costumes targetted for girls. Back in my day (when did I become old enough to say that??!?), we made authentically cool, extraordinary, unique costumes. Unlike the dreck (sexy/scary, polyester, "don't wash" bits of fabric barely sewn together) in your local Halloween shop or super store.
My little one was recently invited to a princess party and really wanted to be Aurora from Sleeping Beauty.
I pretty much knew from the beginning that I'd have to make the dress. First of all, I can't stand polyester. Second, the temperature tends to reach 100 in the summer here. And third, Disney doesn't appear to sell a realistic Aurora dress anymore. And Disney doesn't even pretend to offer it, now the dresses are 'inspired by' [insert movie title]. And sewing patterns to make a Sleeping Beauty dress are out of print.

Ebay to the rescue. For a higher price than I would normally pay for a pattern, I won an ebay auction for the mini-Aurora dress pattern. Now I really hope she likes it right up until Oct 31, I have no interest in sewing an Ariel dress.

I wrote this at the beginning of October, when our family starting talking about Halloween. Since then more blogs and news sources have brought up the issue. I've added those links at the bottom. 11/28/2011

Last year I was appalled to see the Halloween costumes on toddlers at the mall on Halloween. We accidentally went there during a special trick or treat event. Little tiny barely walking girls wearing... french maid likes ladybugs, french maid eats a fairy, french maid morphing into a green witch. Perhaps the parents didn't interpret the outfits that way... but they sure as heck don't look like real costumes anymore.
Back in my day (lol when did I get so old?), the goal was to really LOOK LIKE something/someone. We dressed as a lion, not a short girly tutu with the hint of a lion added in for flair. Sexy was for the grownups when they went to their grownup parties after the kids were done scarfing their candy. We were about realistic. Kids won prizes for most realistic, most unexpected, most humorous. Now the child costumes are sexier than I *ever* dressed in public.

This gem comes in Child's small, medium and large. Complete with fishnet 'arm warmers' and leggings. Now I'm not a vampire book/movie aficionado, but I'm pretty sure female vampires don't dress like that.

I found the 2T Dorothy costume picture on Target's website. The changes are subtle... but someone decided it would be cute to put Dorothy in a very short corset dress with poofy fabric where an older child would have breasts. Compared to the more innocent grownup Dorothy costume I found elsewhere, that only had the skirt shortened.

little girl in very short corset Dorothy dress

grown woman in realistic Dorothy dress, with slightly shorted skirt

The following are all "Child costumes" (from spirithalloween.com). The fourth is for "tween" which I understand is now considered to 8 to 12 year olds. The other three I'm guessing are for girls up to about 8 or 9 years olds. The pink witch is available in 2T to child Medium.