Lichtenstein Pop-Art Vintage Halloween Costume Idea

The Pop-Art Halloween Costume is Fab!

Okay. So, as lovers of vintage clothing and hair and makeup, we spend plenty of days during the year dressing up in things that other people would only wear on Halloween. To us it’s perfectly normal and beautiful. So what do we do to get creative on Halloween? We already dress like pin-ups on a normal Saturday night!

MAC cosmetics has an awesome idea! Let’s take our love of mid-century and do it a little different.

BE A LICHTENSTEIN!

The MAC artists have created a very cool video with Halloween makeup ideas. I love this one based on the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein. (Since I first wrote this post in 2009, the original MAC video of this makeup has disappeared from the internet.)

Screenshot from MAC Halloween Ideas 2009

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Time for school boys and girls! For those of you who took Art History 101, this is just a refresher course. And for those of you who are not yet familiar with his work, I can guarantee you have seen his style copied. Which is ironic, because that is exactly what he did, but as a social criticism. We’re all just putting a new spin on something we’ve seen somewhere else and making it our own self-expressionist version.

vintage-halloween-costume-tippi-hedren-birds

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Roy Lichtenstein started creating his signature style of pop art in the early 1960s. It is based on the look of commercial printing. There is a an obvious dot pattern on printing from the time period. He used this dot pattern style as his critique on commercialism that was booming at the time.

Much like Andy Warhol used soup cans and Marilyn Monroe as a critique on the commercial world.

Which is funny that now MAC is using it as a way to promote and sell their makeup products. But, seriously, kudos to the artists at MAC for coming up with this idea! You truly set a major Halloween trend!

My Version of Lichtenstein

I did end up doing this costume and it was quicker than you might think to put together. I lucked out and found a mini polka-dot dress at the thrift store that was long-sleeve. This saved me from needing to do the makeup on my arms.

And the little thought bubble is just attached to a polka dot headband I happened to have. My handwriting is awful, so I did the lettering in Word and printed it out. I also had polka dot earrings. All and all it was a pretty simple costume to put together!