Halloween 2013 Races - Peacock Costume

I was at a local thrift shop looking for inspiration for what to wear for this year's Halloween races when I discovered a beautiful teal dress. The fabric had a great shine to it, and the bodice had sequins; perfect for a peacock costume! I picked it up for $8 and then was on a quest to find other pieces to complete the costume.

Party City offered quite a few peacock items this year. I picked up:

• Peacock feather gloves
• Black and blue feather boa
• Peacock fan feather wings (this what became the tail)

Also purchased:

• 36"-40" feathers from featherstore.com. I ordered 50, but 30 would've been fine. I discovered it's much cheaper to order online than buy in stores.
• Blue duct tape
• Foam core
• Flat sequin shoes from Payless. I am a minimalist runner, so as long as the shoe had zero drop or close to it, I was good to go.
• Blue gloves
• Tacky glue

Items I owned already and that were put to use:

• Peacock earrings 
• Peacock feather hairclips.

I cut out a piece of foam core that was the same shape of the feather tail and then wrapped the foam core in duct tape. This piece would be the support for the peacock feathers. The foam core isn't waterproof, so the duct tape made sure the structure would stand if the weather wasn't favorable. The duct-taped foam core was glued with tacky glue to the tail and left to sit for a day.

When first adding the feathers, I sorted through them and took the longest ones, and added those to the tail with the peacock eye facing away from the back. I originally tried to tacky glue the feathers down, but the shaft of the feathers were not sticking very well. I discovered that duct taping them was much easier! I taped down a row of long feathers, and then did another row of shorter feathers. A few more rows were added, trimming the feathers as needed.

For the shoes, I added gold glitter around the edge, but this ended up coming off in the wet grass. I took four peacock eyes from my feather pile and glued a feather on top of the shoe, and one on the side. The feathers stayed on just peachy.

The shiny shoes!

For the feather boa, I pinned it onto the dress with safety pins. This way I could easily remove the boa and wash the dress later. 

For makeup, I went heavy on eye shadow called "peacock."

It was pretty chilly out when I was wearing the costume, so I wore black long-sleeved shirts and black running tights under the costume.

The outfit was a hit! Nothing like a costume with some height. And peacock feathers are so pretty!

At the start of the Wicked Halloween 5K!
Photo: Greg Sadler Photography

There wasn't that much drag. It felt like a light tug on the back of your shirt. So not too bad at all.

Feathers flying toward the finish!
Photo by Greg Sadler Photography

This costume ended up winning the 2013 Wicked Halloween 5K/10K costume contest! I was awfully excited about that, there was some stiff competition!