RANDY METCALF/ Arizona Daily Wildcat Communication senior Matt Schuman and education sophmore Jeanine Zelik look for some costumes at Creative Costumes yesterday afternoon.

Get Halloween costumes early and avoid making your own crappy imitation

While October is filled with midterm madness and the registration crazies, college students often focus on securing their grades and schedules for the next semester, and often forget about securing what is truly important: the perfect Halloween costume.

Yes friends, come Oct.31, which conveniently falls on a Friday this year, leaving us the weekend to sleep off the after-effects of All Hallows Eve, you will be staring into your closet thinking, "WHY didn't I think about this earlier?"

So, for those of you who will heed my warning and take to the streets in search of gowns and garters, wigs and feather boas ÷ here is some advice on where to stop in your quest for costume nirvana.

Fourth Avenue is a nice little hop skip and a jump from most on-campus housing, and nary more than a brief drive for those who live off campus.

Also lovely is the fact that it is home to many a costume venue.

The likes of anything that was ever worn by your mother, grandmother, or, dare I say, great-grandmother can likely be found at How Sweet It Was Vintage Clothing and Rentals, located at 419 N. Fourth Ave.

You are welcome to pick individual pieces and assemble your own costume, or go with a pre-selected character.

How Sweet It Was can transform you from Marilyn Monroe to Carmen Miranda (you may know her as the woman who wore a basket of fruit on her head) to a mermaid with a green sequined tail.

But surely it is expensive to dance the night away in an elaborate sequined tail.

This is where the fun part comes in. You do not have to buy anything!

You get to spend your evening in an outfit you will never want to (or have to) wear again!

For varying prices, you can rent everything you need for your Halloween extravaganza, and then return it ÷ easily spending the same amount as you would for a few yards of sequined material and a bikini top (or a cluster of plastic bananas, for that matter).

At How Sweet It Was, costume rental prices range from $25-$38 for the night.

You can also buy your costume, and therein lies the magic ÷ the versatility of the decision!

"Get here for the best selection early and be open minded," said Leslie Frost, manager of How Sweet It Was. "A lot of people wait until the last minute and then they're panicking and going 'what can I be?'"

Also located on Fourth Avenue are Desert Vintage and Costumes, 646 N. Fourth Ave., and Kanella's Now and Then Clothing, 338 N. Fourth Ave.

"The number one costume seems to be the naughty school girl," said Steve Conklin, owner of Kanella's Now and Then Clothing.

For naughty schoolgirls who have not yet bought their uniforms, Kanella's costumes average at $40 to buy, or $30 to rent, according to Conklin.

Fourth Avenue seems to have a real handle on the vintage market.

"We don't carry any kind of like, a lion suit," said Conklin. "Most of our costumes are era-costumes. Poodle skirts, flappers, gangsters that kind of stuff."

For those UA students in search of a certain je ne sais quoi, Creative Costumes and Formal Wear is located at 828 N. Stone Ave.

Boasting a stock of approximately 10,000 costumes, according to Sandi Almasy, president and co-owner of Creative Costumes and Formal Wear, the store sells everything from costumes to accessories.

"We have anything you could possibly imagine," said Almasy. "Cave people to astronauts and anything in between."

Big this year are the pirate costumes, as well as vampires and flappers.

"For women, 'the look' is usually sexy," said Almasy. "For guys it kind of varies, I don't know about scary as much as kind of fantasy."

A costume that Creative Costumes is especially proud of is their adult-sized saguaro cactus costume.

"We make a lot of our costumes, which is why we're able to make such special and unique things," said Almasy. "You know you're not going to run into 100 other girls wearing the same thing."

If you cannot foresee yourself donning the head of a giant saguaro post-Halloween, Creative Costumes offers costume rentals, as well as costumes for sale.

Costumes at Creative Costumes range from $25-$100, but the average range from $30-$50.