What most people don’t know about fairies is that their origin in folklore was a lot more dark and disturbing than your favorite Disney movies make it out to be. They didn’t have wings (they relied on magic to fly), and could appear looking like most anything; a black dog, an ugly small troll-like creature, a small child, or a fully sized angelic-looking being. They would cause terrible things to happen to you and your loved ones, and wouldn’t think twice about stealing your newborn baby and leaving a changeling in it’s place.

Fairy

Though, if you tried to go to a Halloween party dressed as a ‘true’ fairy, you could be certain that nobody would have any idea what you were supposed to be. So for the sake of recognition, being a fairy of our current popular culture would probably be your best bet. But what to do?

A cute little dress and sparkly wings would do the trick easily, but there are also a multitude of specific (very recognizable) fairies to choose from. Tinkerbelle, the jealous but well meaning fairy from ‘Peter Pan’, would be a fun and easy costume. You could get together a costume to resemble the animated version of her, or try something a little different and portray (for example) Julia Robert’s Tinkerbelle from the movie Hook.

Or perhaps you wanted to be a fairy, but were hoping to portray something a little bit more mature? With an all green attire of your choosing and green wings, you could instantly be the ‘green fairy’; a vixen said to control men’s minds after they were under the influence of the -equally green- alcoholic beverage, absinthe. Since there is no set look for this fairy, you would wear as much (or as little) as you were comfortable with and could let your creativity guide you as to how you wanted it to look.