Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette! In today's video, we'll be discussing
stylish and spooky Halloween costumes for gentlemen. Here, within the offices of
the Gentleman's Gazette, we've got a few different opinions on the significance
of the Halloween holiday. Growing up in Germany, Halloween wasn't really a big
deal for our founder, Sven Raphael Schneider, although he did do a few
things occasionally and it's important to point out that he met his wife, Teresa,
at a Halloween party when they were both in school. Meanwhile, I grew up here in
the United States and Halloween was a considerably bigger deal. I dressed up in
various Halloween costumes over the years, often as superheroes because of my
love of comic books and I definitely enjoyed trick-or-treating and putting my
costume together. What we've come to realize and hence it's the subject of
today's video is that there are a number of costumes that stylish gentlemen and
appreciators of classic menswear can put together, either from items completely
within their own closets or supplementing by going through a few
vintage stores or buying a few things online. We're highlighting seven
different costumes today and they all follow a specific set of criteria. First
of all, they are all based in classic men's style as I just said, most of the
core pieces will be able to come from your wardrobe if you already have an
appreciation for classic menswear. Furthermore, we believe all of these
costumes are classy or in good taste, not too makeup heavy and instantly
recognizable. Meaning that when you walk into a room or a Halloween party, people
will immediately know what you're supposed to be. First up today then is a
costume that Raphael is modeling, the traditional vampire.
Of course, the vampire is one of the staples of Halloween costumes right up
there with things like witches or Frankenstein's monster. Fortunately for
the classic menswear lover though, you can pull off a traditional vampire using
a white tie ensemble. By the way, if you'd like to learn more about what goes into
traditional white tie, you can check out our section on that subject in our
comprehensive black tie guide here. Of course, there are many different
variations for vampires but we're going with the look immortalized by actor Bela
Lugosi in the 1931 film version. So in addition to the white tie ensemble
making up the core of your outfit, you'll also want to supplement with two pieces
that you could easily find online, a cape with a high collar and a medallion to be
worn around the neck. If you'd like, you could also supplement with a bit of
makeup like some white face powder or some blood at the corner of your mouth
achieved with lipstick. However, neither of these things are absolutely essential.
Also in that category would be some of those false plastic vampire teeth
because they might just get in the way of your speaking over the evening and be
generally inconvenient. If you don't have a white tie ensemble to wear, you could
also pull off a traditional vampire costume by using the cape and a black
tie ensemble or something even less formal like a black necktie, white shirt,
and red vest. Next up is a costume that I'm modeling, Indiana Jones, the famous
film adventurer. Given that Indiana Jones' costume was itself inspired by
earlier film serials of the 1940s and films like Treasure of the Sierra Madre
with Humphrey Bogart, there are definitely some classic style elements
involved, most notably, the dark brown fedora that you'll often see Indi
wearing. In addition, you'll need a brown leather jacket and ideally, also a small
brown leather messenger bag. Your shirt and trousers could be anything on the
brown scale, you could wear something in khaki or you could do as I'm wearing
here, and wear brown pants and a white button-down collared shirt that has a
bit of a rumpled appearance to it. I'm also wearing brown leather boots here
and an extra belt to simulate the gun belt that Indi wears. Cap off the look
with a leather whip, you'll be ready to go on an adventure.
Next up from Raphael is another costume involving white tie, the Phantom of the
Opera. This one's fairly easy as well, as the white tie ensemble makes up the bulk
of it. You'll just need the Phantom's half mask for that instantly iconic look
and you could also wear a cloak, as well. By the way, if you've got your core
pieces of a white tie ensemble together but you're looking for some high-quality
white tie accessories, you don't have to look any further than the Fort Belvedere
shop as we offer a wide range of accessories to go with formal wear, you
can find those, here. And as with the vampire costume, if you don't have white
tie, you could probably get away with wearing black tie in a pinch just so
long as you do remember that iconic half mask. Next for me is a slightly more
modern look, Agent Smith from the film, The Matrix. You could also pass this off
as a more generic secret service or spy costume, as well. What you'll need here is
a black suit, black long necktie, and white shirt. In addition to other
elements like black socks and shoes, if you do specifically want to go for an
Agent Smith costume down to the tee, the specific design of sunglasses that Agent
Smith wore in the film can be found online as can an earpiece that you could
wear. I'm also supplementing here with a thin tie bar across my tie and wearing
my French cuff shirt with the cuffs undone inside the sleeves of the jacket.
This was a particular style quirk that I picked up on when viewing the film again
recently. Specifically for this costume, I am glad that I do have a black suit in
my wardrobe but if you're curious as to how often a gentleman should actually be
wearing a black suit, you can find our video on that subject here. Next from
Raphael, we return to classic film to go with Charlie Chaplin's famous Tramp
character. Chaplin would wear ill-fitting morning dress in this role to
accentuate the clownishness of the Tramp character. As such, you'd need a
traditional morning wear ensemble of striped pants and a dark coat,
as well as a shirt with a wing collar or a turndown collar made to look like a
wing collar in a pinch and a dark tie. If you'd like to learn more about morning
dress, there's also a section for that dress code in the Black Tie guide on our
website. Capping off the look would be a bowler hat and cane to do some of the
prop comedy that Chaplin was famous for and then you'll need some black eyeliner
to draw in some eyebrows and the famous toothbrush mustache that Chaplin's Tramp
character sported. You could also, of course, go out and buy a false mustache
to wear but we wouldn't recommend this for a few reasons. First of all, these
kinds of toothbrush mustaches are often more associated and will be sold as
Hitler mustaches rather than Chaplin mustaches.
Second of all, we'll often find that the adhesive used to put these mustaches on
can be uncomfortable and may not hold throughout the course of the evening. The
final look I'm modeling today is the one you see here, this is a Clark Kent
costume mid-transformation to Superman. Of course, this one resonates for me as
I'm a big comic book fan and it also incorporates my love of classic style
with the blue suit. Blue is the most traditional color for Clark Kent as seen
in the comic books but you could get away with really any suit color, as well
as any shirt and tie. Most traditional here, though, would be a white shirt and a
red striped tie as I'm wearing. It will also help to slick back your hair and
wear glasses, two things I already do naturally so this costume is even easier
for me. You could supplement with a hat like the
gray fedora I'm wearing here today, also most traditional. And of course, the key
for this costume would be the Superman t-shirt worn underneath the dress shirt,
that way, you can be in that mid-transformation look. Our final
costume today, again, comes from Raphael. This one, another film character, Gordon
Gekko from the film, Wall Street. Here, you're going to want to go for that
distinctly 1980s power suit corporate raider look so you'll want to slick your
hair straight back and incorporate several
features like suspenders and a Winchester shirt, wear a bold wide tie
with a large pattern, something like large repeating
paisley and also, you could wear something like gray trousers with
inward-facing pleats. Supplement with a jacket if you'd like or you could leave
it off and show off the suspenders and two-toned shirt. Add optional props like
a cigar or maybe a 1980s style brick phone available online or maybe if
you've got one of your own still bumming around somewhere and you'll complete the
Gordon Gekko look. Just remember that greed is good.
These seven costumes are just a sampling of some of the ideas we had. There were
also a few others but they were a bit more involved as too supplementary
pieces. For example, you could look to something like Dick Tracy which would
require a yellow trench coat and fedora. Probably possible to find somewhere but
definitely more difficult than any of the things we listed here today. You
could also look for something like James Dean with his iconic red harrington
jacket from Rebel without a cause. Raphael has a green harrington but
because that isn't the iconic color, we decided to skip that costume. Still, you
can find more information on the Harrington jacket here. If you're aware
of any other costumes that incorporate classic menswear, be sure to let us know
in the comments below. Have fun assembling your costumes and
from everybody here at the Gentleman's Gazette, Happy Halloween!