Junior enjoys creating new Halloween costumes every year

Photo by Angelique Delacroix

Junior Angelique Delacroix, while wearing her Redwood Griffin costume in seventh grade, poses for a photo with Redwood Middle’s then-principal, Barbara Neal.

When she pieced together an elaborate griffin costume to challenge herself and show her school spirit, junior Angelique Delacroix was in seventh grade at Redwood Middle School. (The school’s mascot is a griffin.)

Fellow students marveled at her creative and exquisite costume in the hallways. As a result, many of the staff members, including then-principal Barbara Neal and some of Delacroix’s teachers, got word of her costume designing expertise and admired her costume.

Friends like junior Hannah Shaw have seen her costume designing passion.

“Angelique always starts a few months before Halloween to plan and design. She has an amazing talent to bring fictional creatures or a character to life through her costumes and her passion for it is clearly shown through the time and effort she puts into it,” Shaw said. “As a result, her costume designing skills always impress me every year.”

The persistent praise Delacroix has received from others over the years has motivated her to continue making costumes, with this year being her fifth year of doing so.

“As the years have gone by, I have noticed that I enjoy the feeling of self-accomplishment after finishing a costume that I have confidence in,” Delacroix said. 

However, she only enjoys making costumes of characters she’s interested in, which are characters from myths, comics and videogames. In addition to her griffin outfit, Delacroix has been Wendigo, Princess Adora from “She-ra,” Toothless from “How to Train your Dragon,”  and a Minecraft Werewolf. This year she’ll be Yang from “RWBY”. 

Her costumes can take from a range of a couple weeks to a few months to complete, depending on the amount of free time she has and on how difficult it is to create the costume. In order to design these costumes, Delacroix used a variety of unique materials: For every costume, she uses foam and several different fabrics including silk, velvet and nylon. As a result, she finds herself doing lots of sewing and hot gluing during the process. 

On rare occasions, Delacroix incorporates 3D printing and moldable plastics to her costumes, specifically for her “She-ra” princess and Wendigo costume. 

Over the years, she said costume designing has helped her learn beneficial skills that are useful in the long run. She became more adept at sewing, 3D printing, time management, and innovation through the projects she has done. Having prowess in these skills makes it easier for Delacroix to repair ripped clothes, possibly obtain a job in the 3D printing or innovation industry in the future, and complete tasks in a shorter amount of time.

“Even though I am at the age that people consider to be too old to go trick-or-treating, I still plan to create more costumes in the future,” she said. “It is fun and it is good to push myself each year.”