halloween costume ideas

23 Halloween costume ideas for 2016

Halloween costume ideas will get you all set for the coming parties at the end of this month. On this list, you won't find anything super expensive or overdone but instead some cheap and cheerful suggestions to get you a lot of Insta likes. Make sure to hit up your local Halloween costume store, army surplus, art supply or vintage clothing store for all your costume supply needs.

Here's a round-up of Halloween costume ideas for 2016.

Jailbird Capybara
Those sneaky, giant rodents escaped from the High Park Zoo this past summer and had the city in suspense before they were eventually captured. You'll be able to run around the city yourself with this costume and hopefully be caught be a hot animal control officer. All you need is some cheap, vintage fur or faux-fur and a jailbird outfit.

Blue Jays tall can with prohibited sign on it
The now infamous beer toss at the Rogers Centre during the ALDS made headlines and quickly got beer cans banned from the Rogers Centre. Wrap yourself in cardboard, paint it like a beer can and then encircle it with a prohibited sign. Easy!

Edwin Encarnacion
Take Encarnacion's "walk the parrot" home run moves to the streets and carry a parrot on your shoulder or shirt ... hell dress as a parrot and knock your look out of the park. Just make sure to do some good shoulder stretches that day... that bad boy's going to be up in the air a lot Halloween night if you chose this active look.

The ghost of Pokemon GO
Pokemon Go absolutely took over Toronto this summer with Poke stops, parties, and meetups. Towards the end of the summer the trend and hype died down. Dress as any Pokemon trainer, character or team, ghost them out and you're on point.

Justin Trudeau at Pride
The Prime Minister's Pride Toronto look was relaxed, summery and very white. It made for one giant wet t-shirt contest. Trudeau smiling, soaking wet in his casual, temporarily see-through white and light pink attire put a smile on everyone's face. Imagine what you can do to a party.

Drake's broken ankle
The year's most famous ankle! Drake cancelled his remaining Summer Sixteen tour dates because of this injured body part. The hobbled ankle has many fans confused, but who cares! It'll make for a great costume. Just grab rolls of medical grade bandages and wrap them around yourself. Huge bonus if you already have some OVO merch.

The ghost of the TTC fare collector
With eventual full rollout of PRESTO anticipated by the end of next year, ticket booths will be abandoned in favour of roaming customer service agents. Strap on your finest TTC wannabe uniform, hat and faux-tokens, complete it with a ghost face and you've got an iconic lost Toronto look.

Sushi Burrito
There's no yummier costume than going to this summer's hottest food trend. You'll need some seaweed looking fabric to wrap all that rice and veggies, but obviously you're going to be the salmon sushi in the middle. People will be lining up to have you as they did all summer for places like Rolltation, and numerous other sushi burrito joints.

Olympic bromance
Grab your bestie, pull on some spandex and reenact the Usain Bolt and Andre De Grasse bromance that captured everyone's heart at this past summer's Olympics in Rio. The respective country's outfit would be pretty easy to put together, but it's the brotherly love you'd really need to pull off to win the room over. The eyes, the smiles, the hugs, were one of summer's greatest memories.

Bloor Street Bike Lane
All hail the new bike lanes on Bloor Street! It took a while, but they finally arrived this year and they're glorious. Pulling off this costume will be pretty simple. Grab some bristol board and the bike lane symbol will do. Let the joy of the existing lanes do the rest.

No AC on TTC
This Halloween look could be really terrifying or super sexy depending on how you swing it. This summer was not the one to not have air conditioning on our subway system. With record temperatures some of the older subway cars shot up to 30+ Celsius. This costume would require you looking like you're on the way to work, but very, very, very sweaty.

Creepy Clown
The creepy clown pandemic has swept Ontario for the past few weeks with terrifying circus folk wandering the streets, luring children and generally scaring the life out of young kids everywhere. This costume not only is super easy to put together, but in 2016 is creepier than ever.

Gender neutral washroom sign
2016 was the year that washrooms changed forever. Not everywhere, but in some pretty important locations, washrooms became gender neutral, a big move and strong message of support for our city's trans community. Create a big gender neutral sign, slap it on your body and call it a super inclusive night.

Poop to celebrate our toilet-themed cafe
The city's first poop cafe has finally opened its doors and flushed its way into our hearts. The washroom-themed restaurant features a bunch of items you can take inspiration from. But just being a piece of poop this halloween is enough to turn heads. Three words: lots of felt.

The letter T from the Toronto sign covered in graffiti
Nuit Blanche is always an early fall highlight and crazy art celebration that takes over the city. This year it was marked with more than just drunk-20-somethings and large instillations. Our beloved Toronto sign was vandalized. So dress as a giant blank T and cover yourself with a bunch of tags for the ultimate newsworthy effect.

Toronto's housing market
Our city became Canada's hottest real estate market as of September, so why not flaunt it dressed as a giant bubble that's sure to burst? Unless you can think of a way to dress up as a land transfer tax, this is probably your best bet to dress in the theme of real estate.

The ghost of the Weeknd's hair
When The Weeknd dropped the album art for his new single "Starboy" with Daft Punk one thing stood out right away: his haircut. The R&B star's iconic do had been chopped, so why not try to recreate it with some ghost-like details to mourn the loss of our city's favourite haircut.

Broken Presto Machine
PRESTO is both a hero and a villain this year. While it will be a great system to have in place once it's working, for now, the issues are endless. A busted PRESTO machine or card swipe box from the streetcar would not only be very relevant to many commuters at any Halloween party, but a great conversation starter.

A Toronto ice cream lineup
This one may sound a bit out there to pull off, but think about it! It's a group costume where the first person is the cone, and friends follow along holding onto a rope. The cone would have to be extreme, but it's the line that really makes the costume. It was an ever present character downtown this summer thanks to Sweet Jesus, and now you and your pals.

The King Street commute
Another great group costume for the transit nerds among us would be the morning commute along King St. All you have to do is get a few people to dress vaguely like streetcars and then walk around all bunched together all night. Just make sure to arrive late to every party you're invited to.

Auston Matthews as the Greek god Atlas
He's given Maple Leafs fans hope by being their number one draft pick, and the pressure he's currently feeling must be crazy. Why not make this a physical thing by dressing as the Greek God Atlas to show that you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders? Any hints of Maple Leaf gear will really help.

Vanishing TIFF movie ticket
TIFF's ticket woes stole headlines this past September when the festival made the move to a Ticketmaster system. It created chaos for an already faulty system and every time you thought you had a ticket and were ready to check out, the system logged you out. Why not dress as a big, crisp movie ticket with the TIFF logo? Feel free to disappear throughout the night. Also, popcorn.

Barb from Stranger Things
Characters from Stranger Things will most definitely be a hot ticket costume this year, so be careful who you choose. We suggest tactfully selecting Barb. Not only because she rules, but because there was a party in her honour this year and a slew of Stranger Things events to show her off at around Halloween. Short red wig, high waisted jeans and glasses, voila!

Did we miss a Halloween costume idea you think will fly this year? Let us know in the comments!

Photo from last year's Halloween by yedman in the blogTO Flickr pool.


Latest Videos



Latest Videos


Join the conversation Load comments

Latest in Fashion & Style

A Thornhill beauty salon is going totally viral around the world right now

Uniqlo is opening a new Toronto store this week

IKEA Canada slashes prices on hundreds more items due to cost of living crisis

Model says she doesn't feel safe wearing fancy clothes in Toronto anymore

Toronto neighbourhood is doing a late night vintage store crawl

Here's what you should do with your solar eclipse glasses now that it's over

People applaud IKEA Canada for trying to end tax on second-hand items

Toronto's most anticipated fashion event of the year is returning next month