I’ve learned my lesson on waiting until the last minute to get Halloween costumes. Don’t do it. Start early. Get what they want.
Sure, they might change their mind as you get closer to the day, but that’s when you can point to their closet of dress-up clothes and the costume you bought and say choose.
We went to a super hero birthday party earlier this summer, and DD1 loved her Super Girl costume. I was hoping this meant Halloween was going to be a slam dunk this year. I figured I’d get her some blue leggings to go underneath the skirt, and some long underwear to wear under the costume and the leggings and we’d be set.
So, I broach the subject with her, thinking this was going to be an easy Halloween.
Stop laughing.
She says she likes her Super Girl costume, but she really wants to be Zelda from the game she plays with DH. Specifically, she wants to be the Zelda in the blue dress. I figure this is a new and very popular game, how hard this can be.
I can hear you laughing harder. Stop it.
I head over to Amazon, and while there are so many Link costumes out there that you can’t count them all, there are NO Zelda costumes. Not in the blue dress she wears at the castle. Not the blue riding outfit she wears through most of the story cut scenes. Not the white ceremonial dress that she wears as her kingdom is destroyed.
None of them.
Okay, Amazon failed me. That never happens. But there are other places.
I check Target, Costume Express, Walmart, Halloween Costumes.
Nothing.
I delve deeper into the depths of the internet, going to places like CJCosplay and Miccostumes. While I can find the adult version of the Zelda costume, I can find nothing for little girls.
I go back to DD and ask her if she’d be willing to go as Zelda dressed in Link’s champion’s tunic. She can pretend to be the hero saving link. No, she doesn’t want to look like a boy.
Grating at the social pressure my daughter’s already succumbed to, I go back to looking.
I check eBay and Etsy. Nothing.
I even send a message to several of the sellers who have the adult women’s costume, but none of them can help me with a kid’s size.
Finally, we turn to my crafty sister who can actually sew. Not my hack job of using some stitch witchery, but I mean really sew. And well. She even had a side business making vintage doll fashion reproductions before her work hours made it impossible to continue.
That outfit up there, she actually made out of some kind of silk. That she lined and did finishing stitches and a bunch of stuff I don’t understand. You know where ALL the crafty went in our family.
Anyway, we show her pictures of the Zelda outfits from the game. After studying them, my sister says the trim will be the hardest part, but even that won’t be bad if we can find a pattern. We head out to Joann to see if we can find a pattern.
After pouring through every pattern book in the store, we find nothing even close. My sister says she could make a pattern for it. It’ll be harder and take longer, but if her niece really wants it, she’ll do it.
Of course her niece really wants it, so we start looking for fabric. This store is huge, and there’s not a bolt of fabric in it that’s even close to the blue Zelda’s wearing.
Resigned, my sister says we might be able to find the fabric on eBay.
At this point, I tell her it’s okay, DD1 will just have to go as something else.
DD1 and I had the “no breath of the wild costume” talk. There were tears, and she was very upset. I even offered to buy her the Elsa costume from the Disney Store, but she wasn’t having it.
Later in the week, DH broke out our ancient Wii and brought out Zelda Twilight Princess. While Zelda isn’t much in that story, DD1 approaches me the next morning. She asks if she can go as the Zelda from Twilight Princess. She says she’d be willing to go this route so she can still be Zelda. Her tenacity will serve her well in the future. Her tenacity will serve her well in the future. Her tenacity (yeah, I keep telling myself this, hoping it’ll make me feel better!).
I sit her down and we look for a costume together, so she can see what’s out there. Not much.
A seller on Etsy has one that’s okay, and there’s a really pitiful looking one with reviews that include the dress tearing in a single wear from several Amazon reviewers.
I can’t find anything else in a child’s size anywhere.
DD1 is upset. She says it’s not fair how many Link costumes there are. Why aren’t there any Zelda ones.
I have no idea.
If Disney can go from Cinderella to Merida and Elsa, why can’t Nintendo give us more Zelda like from Smash Brothers and the corresponding merchandise?
Hey Nintendo, look! Here! I want to give you money.
Now make a game with Zelda as the hero and a costume to go with!
How about you? Your child ever want to be something for Halloween you just couldn’t do? How did they take the disappointment? How did you deal with it, other than trying to bribe the company to make one?
