Halloween 2013 Costume 2: Audrey

November 4th, 2013

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is one of my favorite classic films. It stars Audrey Hepburn and takes place in New York in the sixties. Plus, it’s so beautiful and romantic. What’s not to like?

For this year’s Halloween costume, I decided to dress up as Holly Golightly, Audrey Hepburn’s character in the film. It’s one of Audrey’s most iconic roles – and outfits.

In the film, she wears a selection of beautiful Givenchy dresses, so my challenge was to try to recreate her most iconic look… but on a budget.

Like I mentioned in my previous Halloween outfit post, I like to DIY my costumes by combining items I already have with a few accessories I purchase.

I already owned the little black dress, stockings, and shoes; all I had to add were a few details like black opera gloves, pearls, a cigarette holder, and a jewelled hair accessory.

Planning this costume was a lot of fun. I decided on it the day after Halloween of last year, which gave a me a full year to figure everything out and scour shops for just the right pieces.

By chance, I happened upon this pearlescent necklace on the Forever 21 site late last year, and knew immediately it would be perfect for the costume. It was more of a choker, though, so I attached a single strand pearl necklace I had to the back of it, to extend the length. Problem solved!

I found the gloves and cigarette holder on Amazon for really good prices. But unfortunately, getting them to ship to Canada cost as much as (if not more) than the actual product.

The earrings were another thing I found for cheap on the Forever 21 site. Man, I love that store. All your costume bling needs, without the bling-y price tag.

My only “splurge” for this costume was getting my hair done. I figured I was probably only going to dress up as Holly Golightly once in my life, so I might as well do it properly.

And frankly, I just don’t have the magical abilities required to do that myself.

I found this set of two rhinestone and pearl hairpins at Claire’s for a few dollars, and asked my hair stylist to secure them into the bouffant. He did a great job, and it gave me just the sparkle I needed.

So we’ve covered the outfit and hair, now let’s talk about the makeup.

I re-watched the movie and studied a ton of high-res photos in order to do the makeup as accurately as I could. I was determined to get it as close to hers as possible.

I used makeup to lighten the color of my eyebrows a bit, and added some powder in them to reshape them to appear thicker and more square-shaped.

For the face, I contoured along my jaw and cheekbones to mimic Audrey’s killer bone structure, and added some powder pink blush to the apples of my cheeks, since she had a very rosy complexion in the film.

I used a nude-colored lipliner to reshape my top lip to look more like hers (her makeup artist would make her top lip appear wider by lining outside her natural lip shape in the outer corners), and applied a peachy-coral lipstick over top.