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Costume Debut: Halloween 2025
Like most millennials of a certain age, Irvin was absolutely obsessed with the 2003 incarnation of Freaky Friday, considering it his favorite movie for a solid chunk of middle school. Upon seeing the legacy sequel, Freakier Friday, and specifically after the joke in the closing scene, Irvin immediately understood that this was going to be his Halloween. There was no choice but to craft the iconic dress, and cosplay Dr. Tess Coleman on her shopping spree after the body swap!
Of course, wearing the iconic dress in question is easier said than done! After perusing every thrift store he frequents, Irvin understood he would have to make the dress himself.
He got a dress that was fully bronze with leopard spots, and determined to alter it with the addition of panels of other fabrics... four days of sewing and many fabric store excursions later, Irvin rued the day he thought this would be preferable to making a dress from scratch. But, with only a few hours to spare, the dress was finally complete!
The remainder of the costume was much easier - a necklace made by gluing string onto star decals, thigh-high boots, giant shopping bags, sunglasses, and a spiky red wig that Irvin apparently looked really good in according to comments!
Of course, Freaky Friday is a tale of a mother and a daughter, so Irvin needed someone to be the Anna to his Tess. He recruited his dance partner, Yelena, by suggesting that for their dance school's Halloween social, they do a dance to "Take Me Away" dressed as the characters.
Yelena was all in on this, and crafted an Anna Coleman costume, including hand-designing the decal for the shirt. They choreographed a cha-cha routine and spent a month rehearsing it.
Naturally, the routine would start with them waking up in each other's bodies, then tearing away clothes to launch into the performance. So Irvin got a nightgown, and made it a tearaway by adding velcro.
Then Yelena came up with a brilliant idea: they could recreate the scene where Tess and Anna wake up in each other's bodies, and use that as an introduction for the dance video. Since this is exactly the kind of crazy scheme that Irvin lives for, he agreed.
When he showed up for the video shoot, it was to a thorough shot list! In only a couple hours, they filmed a shot-for-shot remake of the scene. It was a lot of fun!
"Don't you use that tone with me!"
"Oh my god, you are my mother."
"Oh, I'm like the crypt keeper!"
The video, thanks to Yelena's tireless editing, was a huge success... and the following day, so was the performance! Irvin and Yelena have crafted something of a reputation for over-the-top performances with lots of production value, but this was really their best effort thus far.
Yelena even recruited her boyfriend Dan to be a Jake, and to gaze adoringly upon Irvin-as-Tess.
On actual Halloween, Irvin was marching in the parade with Yelena and all of his other friends. But before he did so, he needed to get pictures and videos of Tess's signature shopping spree from the moment, when she goes wild with the mother's credit cards.
Recruiting a friend, he went to Fifth Avenue, where a very confused shopkeeper wondered why he kept walking in and out of a designer store with giant shopping bags but without buying anything. (For the record, having a Halloween costume with a purse and giant shopping bags was an absolute treat - definitely Irvin's favorite part of the outfit by the end of the night!)
There are so many iconic lines of dialogue from the movie, Irvin honestly could've done the photo shoot for ages, but he contented himself with the walk down the street, and the later rant about hating the situation.
In the parade, the costume was regularly recognized with great enthusiasm. Irvin and Yelena regularly played up bits from the movie - thanks to the video shoot, they could recite the wake-up scene almost word-perfect by that point. Irvin found another bit he could use from the movie - Anna's prompts to her talk show audience for more enthusiasm. He'd demand the crowd at the parade woohoo, and if he deemed the enthusiasm insufficient, he got to yell at them, "That was pathetic! With a cheer like that, no wonder you're getting old! Come on, let me hear it: WOOHOO!" It's not every costume that allows Irvin to call large swatches of NYC crowds pathetic and old, so Irvin deeply enjoyed it. So did the marchers around him, who told him they were delighted at his regular insults of the crowd.
The one last bit Irvin and Yelena got to play up was when they ended up at a diner after the parade. Yelena ordered a burger that came with fries, allowing for pictures of Tess eating fries in Anna's body ("I can hear the hallelujah chorus") while Anna in Tess's body looked on with petulance and whined, "That's not fair!"
A costume that allowed for carrying bags, insulting crowds, and eating fries in character? It really was the perfect Halloween!
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