These 'Coco' Halloween Costume Ideas Definitely Say, 'Remember Me'
Take your Halloween party to the Land of the Dead.
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It’s been a few years, but costumes from Pixar’s Coco continue to prove their staying power. In fact, Coco-inspired ideas make for a genius group Halloween costume, since what could be better than trick-or-treating as a family while dressed as characters from a movie that’s all about the importance of honoring your relatives? Whether you want to be Miguel, Héctor, Ernesto, Mama Imelda, or Mama Coco, here are the best Coco Halloween costumes. And before dressing up, do a gut-check about cultural appropriation: Take care to dress with racial sensitivity, focusing on costuming linked to a specific character, not a generalization of someone else's culture. It's also a good time to take the opportunity to talk with your kids about what Día de Muertos is (if they aren't already familiar).
If Coco isn’t your family’s favorite, we have some other group Halloween costume ideas for you. In addition, we have more than 50 Halloween costume ideas for kids. (We also have some genius ideas for baby Halloween costumes and toddler Halloween costumes, too.) Then, after you’re all done trick-or-treating, gather around for some family-friendly Halloween movies which, like Coco, won’t scare the living daylights out of your kids.
The easiest way to DIY a Miguel costume is to get a red hoodie (extra points if you can find one with a white stripe down the sleeves) and use face paint to make a skull. If the one with the red stripe is sold out, you can always just grab a Hanes hoodie.
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Sugar Skull Face Paint
The hoodie does most of the work for a Miguel costume. All you really have to add is the face. If you want more instruction as to how to do a Land of the Dead-style face paint, Oh Oh Deco has you covered.
Get the tutorial at Oh Oh Deco »
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If your big kid is 100% certain to smear the face paint skull, this all-in-one hoodie uses a see-through mesh mask instead of paint. It's almost too easy.
A Miguel mask is another way to get around doing a full-on facepaint job — and somehow is actually scarier than a regular skeleton mask.
Skeletal gloves also come in handy — and keep kids' hands warm. Or yours, since these fit adults, too, and could work for a Miguel or a Héctor costume.
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A white guitar, a la Ernesto de la Cruz's, really ties the look together. You might have to break out the markers to add your own floral designs on it.
Héctor's face is one that's hard to achieve through face paint alone, so you might have to resort to a mask. The goofy walk he does? That's all up to you.
TeenyTinyPrincesses Mama Imelda Dress
The least frightening Coco getup award goes to Mama Imelda, who spends the movie in a lovely purple dress. If you don't want to shell out for the exact copy, you can find other purple dresses that approximate the same look.
You can also wear an embroidered mask as a face-paint work-around. You can find similar-style masks for Miguel, Héctor, Ernesto, and Mama Imelda on Etsy.
Hands-down the best thing you can add to your Coco group Halloween costume is a teeny Mama Coco. Start with this wig, and then add your own shawl and embroidered dress.
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
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