5 Products For Your DIY Eleven Costume To Channel 'Stranger Things' On A Budget
The biggest show coming out this Halloween is Stranger Things, the follow-up season season to Netflix's surprise hit last year. With all nine episodes dropping on Friday, Oct. 27, and most Halloween parties being held either that night or the next day (Saturday), showing up in costume as one of the Stranger Things characters is the most topical thing you can do. For those on a budget, we've put together a guide for the cheapest DIY Eleven Costumes to be found.
Some assumptions we make in this guide: If you're dressing up like Eleven, you probably have access to white tube socks and flat, chuck-like sneakers. Also, if you're not willing to do the blonde wig look, you might need to play it off as the "Millie Bobby Brown Curly Grow-In" the actress has been sporting for the last year.
As for the other items in Eleven's wardrobe, let's run down the cheapest options we can come up with.
Hospital Gown
So, there are four major outfits that we see Eleven wear over the course of the series, starting with her hospital gown that she's wearing both in the flashbacks to her psychic power breakthrough and then in her escape from the lab and away from the Upside Down.
Hospital gowns are cheap. (We actually have a few at home, taken from hospital experiences.) If you haven't been to a hospital recently and come home with your own gown, you can buy them cheap online too. Image Textile carries them for less that $6 a pop. You'll have to wear your own socks.
Yellow Shirt
Eleven's next outfit is the one she wears in Benny's Burgers, when she steal's a men's XXL shirt so she's not wearing a hospital gown anymore, even though she's still without pants or shoes.
While we'd all like to be able to go and buy the authentic shirt, that's not always possible. But, a big oversized yellow men's tee will do. Cheapestees has the nice, comfy Fruit Of The Loom ones for $3. Once again, you'll have to wear your own socks.
Pink Dress
Eleven's other outfits are both based on the pink dress that the boys dress her in to wear to school. The dress is an old-school, pinafore-type school dress, with a ruched bodice and peter pan collar. The real deal runs $50 at Hot Topic, but if you don't have that kind of money to spend, there are plenty of knock-offs running around Amazon and Etsy.
FabShopper has a close version for $12. This bargain basement version we found isn't quite on the money -- the pink is a little darker, the peter pan collar a little frillier, and the cuffs and longer sleeves aren't really it, but considering that the dress is under a blue jacket most of the time, we can let those details slide, right?
Blue Jacket
Speaking of jackets, that's probably the hardest thing to find on a budget. Blue windbreakers of any quality type are going to run at least $25, if not higher, and a real deal Member's Only on Amazon is going to be closer to $40-50.
But, if you're ok with the cheap type of jacket you see security guards wearing as part of their uniform, you can get it down a bit under the $20 mark. This one from Liberty Uniforms sells for $18.
Blonde Wig
As for the wig, there are tons of blonde wigs that will fit the bill from $10-50 on Amazon. The very cheapest we could find was this one for $6 from TrendsGal. Good thing Eleven's wig looks like one, right?
