Halloween - Fashion Girl Style

Cookie. Freaking. Lyons.

With a full time surgical career, two kids, a husband who travels, and an active volunteer life, my TV watching is pretty limited. I resisted the chatter about Empire until the end of this summer, when I binge-watched the entire first season in less than two weeks (seriously fast, in my life!).

The music rocks, the brothers are adorable, but the show belongs to Taraji Henson. She steals every scene she is in - mostly because of her incredible acting, but her costume designer (Rita McGhee, if the interwebs can be trusted) gets serious credit as well. She manages to be fabulous and over-the-top and tacky and luxe, all at the same time. 

This Halloween, I rejected my 3 year old's decision that I go as Skye from Paw Patrol to recreate a Cookie Lyons iconic look from when she meets Lucious at the prison.

Fantastic.

Of all of her outfits, this one is distinctive and easy to recreate. I had a black leather skirt from Saks Fifth Avenue and some amazing Jean Michel Cazabet caged mesh booties. I ordered an inexpensive Calvin Klein white tank top and some cheap plastic "gold-like" jewelry from Amazon (China - FYI, 4 weeks for shipping!) The jacket, obviously, was key. I wasn't springing for the original Moschino for a costume that I wouldn't rewear, but I found a patchwork denim jacket from Burlington Coat Factory for about $25. A few dollars of a stretchy gold fabric, some really terrible basting while watching Project Runway, and a decent imitation was created. 

I debuted it on the Friday before Halloween for the business trick-or-treating in our Seattle neighborhood. The makeup, carefully done while studying a picture of Cookie, was a little extreme for work, but went perfectly when I got home and threw on the costume. The 3 year old insisting on the Paw Patrol costumes for the whole family? Refused to wear his. 

Of course, the fact that many of the people I know are also too busy to be on the cusp of cutting-edge TV (and, of course, the misleading factor of my not being black) led to mostly erroneous theories about whom I was. A Real Housewife was the most common guess.

Whatever. Nailed it.