Halloween, Part 1: in which we explore bloody Eastern European royals
Oh my god, it’s not even October and I’m already getting super excited for Halloween. I have so many things happening all around me that I can barely stand it! I’ve got two costumes for myself that I’m DYING to make, a costume for the Babe, and three friends’ costumes. It’s like Christmas, but with more pumpkins!
Ok, let me break it down a little bit.
break it down, Pusheen!
This is going to be a multi part series covering all the fun Halloween things that are happening over the next few weeks. But this post! This post is about the couple’s costume I came up with the other day that I am obsessed with. It’s so deliciously nerdy while being perfectly Halloween appropriate.
Elizabeth Bathory and Vlad the Impaler!
Oh, wait, other people aren’t versed in renaissance era serial killers? Well, that’s cool, because now we have something to talk about! And it’s super creepy!
Let’s start with Vlad the Impaler this week – we’ll get into my Elizabeth Bathory costume next week. Vlad was also known as Vlad Draculae, or Count Dracula. That’s right, Dracula was a real life dude. He lived in what is now Romania during the late 15th century. He was known then as Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. And he was totally brutal. No really, he was famed for placing his enemies on tall stakes and watching their bodies slowly slide down, eating dinner while his victims screamed. He was also rumored to drink the blood of his defeated foes from a golden goblet. This was the primary reason he is called the Vampire Count. His foes were primarily the Ottomans who were sweeping across Europe at the time, building an enormous empire. He is thought to have died in battle against the Ottomans, with his body supposedly buried in a cathedral that he had founded. When his tomb was unearthed, as if to add fuel to the vampire fire, the only remains found were several horse bones. And he is still to this day considered a folk hero and freedom fighter in certain areas of Eastern Europe.
Also, check out that moustache. If that moustache doesn’t scare you out of Romania….
His famed viciousness and bloodthirst would remain intact for centuries after his death, and his story would become cemented in the cultural mythos of eastern European vampires. In the 19th century, Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula capitalized on the name of the Vampire Count of Romania, consequently immortalizing the now-popular image of Dracula as a pale and handsome foreigner hunting beautiful young women for their blood.
Cool! History! Maybe you knew that one already. He’s not entirely obscure. But how do I translate that goofy hat atop those luxurious curls into a scary Halloween costume? (I mean, I could just slap that moustache on the Babe and he’d be terrifying…)
For reals, that thing was as famous as his bloodlust.
But here’s how I’m actually going to do it. I started looking into fashionable menswear of the era, and some battle gear appropriate for the region. What I come up with is a really fun idea that ties in both a historical Dracula and the Babe’s family history, making the costume reusable!
Enter: the black and gold brocade, fur lined black doublet!
Pair it with: Black hose, a black linen shirt, and leather boots!
Accessorize: Leather [in this case, leather-look] bracers, a sword, and some gold jewels with red accents
Top it off with: Fangs and a gold goblet full of [blood?] red wine!
So to recap, Vlad III was a brutal dude. He drank blood and spurred the Eastern European vampire mythos. And he had a terrifying moustache.
Stay tuned for more bloody Eastern Europeans next week!