DOSE OF PROSE:
Happy Halloween to those of my readers who are celebrating! I’m personally not a huge participant in Halloween, but I do find it fun to dress up, indulge in some sweets and watch a few thrillers. This year, instead of portraying a character from a film/TV series, I decided to do a celebrity inspired look: Rihanna! From music to fashion to beauty, Rihanna is a trailblazer for women of color around the world. So it’s safe to say that it was an easy choice for me when deciding my Halloween costume this year. Before putting my outfit together, however, I did some general research on Rihanna’s style. I found that she tends to wear a lot of over-sized blazers, off the shoulder tops/dresses, bright colors and cat eye glasses. I would describe her style as a classy sex appeal with an urban flare. She had so many iconic outfits and it was hard to narrow it down to just one, but ultimately I ended up going with the sexy gladiator look she wore in the Wild Thoughts music video.
LOOK FOR LESS: $3,553 vs. $55.65
Wild, Wild, Wild…
For the dress, I found one online that looked exactly like hers, but unfortunately it would not arrive in time for Halloween if I ordered it, so I had to go to plan B. Several Google searches later, I found an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress that fit the bill. Although it wasn’t long-sleeve nor made of chiffon material, I felt that the dress still captured the essence of the actual dress worn in the video. When the dress arrived in the mail, I was initially disappointed because the color did not seem exact (more green than teal). However, in pictures the color translated to the shade of blue I was looking for. Plus, the dress was only $19 from Forever21…you can’t beat that!
Left: Alberta Ferretti Mini dress ($1,228); Right: Forever 21 Off Shoulder dress ($19)
Diamonds ain’t nothing when I’m shinin’ with ya…
I had trouble finding low priced gladiator sandals, especially those with jewels, so I had to do a bit of a DIY with improvisation for these shoes. It appeared in the music video that the sandals Rihanna wore were clear, while the jewels were colorful, so that’s what I focused on during my hunt for the dupe. I found some clear heels as well as foot jewelry from Amazon for a low combined price of $38, and put them together to create my own gladiator shoes. It worked out nicely because you couldn’t even tell that the jewels weren’t part of the shoe. I also like the look of clear heels, because it makes your legs look longer. Although the jewels didn’t climb up my leg like Rihanna’s shoes, the shoes I wore had a similar effect, which is all I cared about.
Left: Manolo Blahnik Poison Ivy Gladiator Sandals ($2,325);
Right: Heels + Foot jewels ($36.68)
Lastly, the makeup was pretty simple, I just threw on some red lipstick, teal eye shadow, false eyelashes and I used a ton of bronzer/highlighter to achieve a super glowy look.
Overall, I had so much fun re-creating this outfit! I hope it was helpful for those of you who needed some Halloween inspiration or for those who were just curious about how I put everything together. If you’re interested, I can start doing a ‘Look for Less’ series by picking a celebrity, analyzing their style and putting together a series of outfits that re-create some of their most popular ‘OOTD’s,’ for a fraction of the original price. How does that sound? Let me know.
-Kaamilah
