The Spellbinding Evolution of Witch Costumes Through the Decades

Witches have always had a strange pull on our collective imagination. Thus, it's no wonder that they have become a staple of Halloween costumes for well over a century. And just like fashion, those costumes have changed with the times.

Early witch costumes were relatively modest with their long black dresses, aprons, and shawls. They were less about fantasy and more about really embodying a real witch by wearing what one might have worn in her practical everyday life. By the mid-20th century, though, witches started to take inspo from mainstream fashion. The 50s and 60s brought glamorous, pin-up style witches with winged liner and form-fitting dresses. The 90s popularized witches looking like modern fashionistas with a pointy hat thanks to the pop culture obsession with normal, every day girls with magic powers like Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Craft.

By the 2000s, the look shifted to the stylized, mass produced, and party-ready costumes that are still quite popular today: short skirts, striped stockings, and corsets. From spooky to sultry, from folklore to fantasy, the evolution of we can't shake our love for magical, powerful, and dangerous women.