Happy November, Trojan family! I know we’re past the trick-or-treating, but I’m still reminiscing over the past Halloweekend. 

This was my first Halloweekend since starting USC, as I’ve actually had the flu every year since coming. So, I decided to go all out. Planning eight and wearing five costumes, narrowing down what I wanted to be was harder than I thought. 

When looking for costumes last month, though, I started noting what was popular on social media. Despite the classics of Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, various law enforcement and security roles, and fluffy-eared animals, I was mainly scouting to see which to avoid.

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The thing is that I wanted to have a unique costume, something no one else was wearing. Maybe that’s a pipe dream with how many people are at USC, but I found myself starting to see the costumes of various fashion creators. I quickly discovered a difference in the mainstream versus fashion sides of social media and Halloween: Mainstream looked toward recreations, cute outfits or plays on words, while FashionTok went for references of art but overall battling for first place in the competition of the most niche. 

Whether this meant obscure in reference to art pieces or online icons, like this one girl’s couple costume of Karis Dadson, who went viral for her hog showmanship-competition outfit and her pig, what made it obscure often wasn’t the fact that it was something you’ve either seen or haven’t but rather what part was referenced. 

Need another example? A girl with a white button-down and a homemade “M” on her chest to resemble the McDonald’s “M” explained that “to the untrained eye, my costume is just a McDonald’s worker, but to the eye of a real ass fashionista, I’m Kate Moss in Nutsy’s McDonald’s by Tom Sachs (2004).” I would have thought of Jeremy Scott’s McDonald’s reference in his Moschino Fall 2014 ready-to-wear collection. 

The key with these costumes is that they didn’t expect you to know, or understand, their vision. If you did, kudos to you, but if you didn’t? Then, it was a job well done on their part. 

I actually did have one fashion-specific costume planned. I might end up just taking a photo and pretending I wore it out because, as you’ll read, it is kind of hard to walk around in. Taking direct inspiration from Samuel Cirnansck’s Spring 2012 collection, I was going to copy the styling of the runway models, holding a bouquet in my hands with my wrists tied together from the back. 

So, I turned to music. Originally going to play on the album cover of Naked Eyes’ “Promises, Promises” United States single, I was going to wear a black mini skirt, gray and silver striped tights, and my blue, sheer eye-patch shirt from Tora-Lily. Realizing it just looked like a regular outfit — which is fine — I wanted to be more dramatic for the time of year.

I was going to put in hair rollers, a black smokey eye and red lipstick to pair with my peekaboo-boxer black shorts and OGBFF’s “Ironically Hot” tank top to be the girl from TV Girl’s song, “Cigarettes out the Window.” Why did I think about this? Well, because I thought the lyrics named the girl as Livvy, which I thought would be a cute play on my first name, Olivia. Instead, it’s actually, “My girl Liddy used to always smoke / Cigarettes when she couldn’t sleep.” I also don’t smoke, and I thought pretending to wasn’t something I wanted to do anyway. 

The two that I eventually decided on, though, were Víla Amálka, a 1975 Czech cartoon, and the “Emerald Shores” print of a woman in a red dress, green socks and green eyeshadow by Christina Gordon. I didn’t expect anyone to get what I was, and no one did, but I found this incredibly rewarding. 

I like being one of one, even if it is not every day. I like that in a world of constant connectivity and the ability to share and discuss, I still can — at least in my experience and view of the world — be an individual. 

A friend recently commented that my day-to-day outfits tend to be more basic and that it was ironic I wrote a fashion column when I “basically just wear Brandy Melville.” And, while my navy T-shirt from Brandy Melville is one of my favorites, I didn’t take any offense. I know what I’m referencing, and just because I love fashion doesn’t mean I need to put on a show every day, wearing my best dresses and shoes to the one lecture I have at 2 p.m. on a Thursday. 

Maybe that’s why Halloween has become a collaborative competition: We are fighting for one person to admit defeat of originality and source of inspiration. But what makes the results so incredible is that all efforts are celebrated and, at the very least, validated and acknowledged, even if your competitor has no idea what you’re talking about.

All in all, I know what I am wearing, and the choices that I make are enough for me. Even if you don’t think so, I am the (self-declared) champion of obscure — for Halloween 2024, at least. 

Hadyn Phillips is a senior writing about fashion in the 21st century, spotlighting new trends and popular controversy in her column, “That’s Fashion, Sweetie,” which runs every Wednesday.