DIY post apocalypse costume for girls

I’ve pondered the thought of whether this year’s costume is a bit of bad taste after going through and living during a pandemic. But hear me out first! I’ve had this idea for the past two years already where I had no idea how this year would turn out. The reason I’ve wanted to come up with my own version of a post apocalypse costume is that I’m a huge fan of shows like “The Walking Dead”, “The Rain”, “The 100”, and many others. They are fantasy outfits of what an apocalypse warrior would maybe wear. There is huge freedom with what you can do creatively.

How do you think the fierce survivors would dress? It always fascinates me to see the post apocalyptic fashion in those types of movies and shows and I have pinned many in the years before. Many of those pins have the person wearing a mask or gas mask and that is definitely fitting for this year.

Last year my daughter wore a dark angel costume and before that a zombie soccer player costume. This year we definitely wanted to stay in the dark, gloomy, and a tad bit scary range of Halloween costumes. I always like having creative freedom and not having to adhere to a specific character. I guess you can also call that cosplay! Those types of fantasy costumes can be very elaborate and expensive and there are a lot of beautiful and unique handmade outfits being sold in various Etsy shops. I wanted to come up with something more affordable and doable for everyone.

DIY post apocalypse costume

As inspiration, I decided to make her look like she could possibly be part of King Ezekiel’s warrior troop battling zombies with similar clothing you can find in your closet or online. She already owned the black boots, black ripped jeans, shirt, leather bracelets, mask but no gas mask or helmet (she didn’t feel like wearing that and I wanted to see her face a bit more). You could also add shin guards, patches on the clothes, and steam-punk goggles.

Supplies for post-apocalyptic costume or apocalypse warrior costume

• various feathers (HERE and HERE)
• makeup ( I used mostly my regular makeup and some face paint for the black and red lines)
• tactical military scarf
• ripped pants
• shirt
• black tactical vest (that one fit both of us perfectly)
• tactical drop leg holster
• toy gun
• combat boots
• black face mask (this mask HERE would have looked even cooler but we had the other one and I didn’t feel like spending more money)
• leather bracelets
• clip-in dreadlocks with feathers (the girl modeling them on Etsy has also really cool makeup which would work well for this costume also)
• bullet belt
• toy knife and knife holder
• bobby pins
• cord
• floral wire
• large stick ( I wrapped mine at the top with black macrame cord)
• rope with carabiner hooks (which I used like a necklace accessory)

I purchased the hand painted skull solely for the photos but now love having it as Halloween decor at home. You could also prop the skull on top of the large wooden stick as well and wear it with the costume.

Putting the post apocalyptic costume together

For this costume, there isn’t much crafting and DIYing to do. The only tricky part might be the hair and makeup. The rest is literally just putting the clothes on.

For the stick I only wrapped it with some macrame cord and hung feathers from it. As I said, you could stick the skull on top too which would look cool but I didn’t want to ruin it because I like having it as Halloween decor for the inside of our home.
I mentioned in my fall home tour that I told my mom that I found the skull at the river and thought it was so cool. She lost it and couldn’t believe that I didn’t call the police right away. I sent her the below photo of the skull in the grass LOL. And I can’t believe that she bought the story. Of course, I would call the police right away if I a found human skull somewhere.

Here is a video of how I put her hair and makeup together:

(Use the triangle on the image to turn on the video. If you have trouble watching it here in my blog post then you can also see it on YouTube)

The makeup is also done rather messy since there wouldn’t really be any makeup stores in the apocalypse. I used mostly dark brown and a dark green. I also tried to make the face look dirty, and a little bruised.

For the hair, I twisted separate strands of hair and pinned it back with bobby pins. This is a style I actually used to wear in my late teens and early twenties. I had planned on wrapping those twists with some yarn yet which would look really cool but I couldn’t find my blunt plastic upholstery needle to thread it under the twists and then just decided to knot the yarn at the end of the pins to hang some feathers and dreadlocks as hair accessories.

Below are the clip-in dreadlocks. You can add some more feathers to the dreadlocks by sliding the feather shaft under some of the beads.

I wrapped some of the larger feathers with wire which I formed into a loop at the top of the shaft and then tied that loop to the yarn that I knotted to the end of the hair twists and bobby pins as shown in the video.

I had so much fun taking the photos of her again in the finished costume.

Here is the picture I showed my mom of the skull 🙂 It looks so real!

When my daughter was little she couldn’t have handled tight jeans like this due to her sensory issues and that’s why we always had a Halloween costume that started with a plain black or white dress like the suagr skull costume, sad clown costume, and Queen of Hearts costume. Just in case you are interested in checking those out.

Unfortunately, I think my daughter is done after this year with the Halloween costume posts unless she changes her mind again until next year. She’s a full-blown moody teenager!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Tschüß,