In October, USC is swarmed with students and young people looking for ways to make an impression on Halloween night, with loud music around the area and an abundance of candy baskets for everyone.
From originality and budget-friendly do-it-yourself costumes to simply making a statement through social media and pop culture moments, ideas for costumes are widespread and abundant.
A distinctive costume comes from having the right vision behind it. Building it often comes with using old clothes and creating new styles, Cassandra Wing, owner of clothing store Wretched Collections, said.
"We've got a lot of cheaper options for individual shirts, and pants, and dresses and stuff, and figuring what characters those can be turned into and everything," Wing said.
Wretched Collections opened its storefront in August 2021, with a plethora of Halloween attire. The store built its collection over time while buying out older attire from a closed-down business, Wing said.
The store sells individual pieces to make styling easier for consumers. Wing said she keeps a mental note of items in the store to help customers with their ideas.
Each year, Wing said she sees new and unique costumes. She said she notices people purchasing similar items and she can be surprised by each year's new trends.
"I was completely unprepared for that, because in the past three years, I haven't had anyone specifically ask for a Woody or Buzz Lightyear costume, and that's all I've heard," Wing said.
Fourth-year fashion merchandising student and director of photoshoots for Fashion Board Mariah Williams said social media has become an inspiration for many young people's costumes. Influencers and TV shows are places she said some people draw inspiration from.
"I saw a lot of Nara Smith costumes too, which is crazy, but yeah, I think (social media) has a giant role," Williams said. "I think a lot of people ... get their inspiration from TikTok, like all of those costume idea TikToks are really big."
Cartoons such as Toy Story are a common inspiration because young people have lots of nostalgia towards their childhood, second-year computer science student Chance Hanner said.
Hanner, being involved in the fashion community around USC, said cosplaying as someone's favorite character from their childhood tends to be very prominent among people.
"I feel like people want to be their favorite characters, I feel like everybody has that child in them, where they want to emulate something great they see," Hanner said. "Whether that's Miles Morales from 'Spider Man' or Arthur Morgan from 'Red Dead (Redemption) 2', somebody wants to emulate something they love and they've seen."
Many young people and college students don't have the money or time to spend on costumes for their favorite characters however, forcing them to find unique combinations in their closets to save money, Hanner said.
An example of this he said he had seen was of a couple he saw that was dressed as Remy and Linguini from the film Ratatouille. They wore parts of each character's costume, such as the chef's hat, jacket and mouse ears, and mixed them with their everyday clothes, Hanner said.
"We automatically knew what it was when they were walking up, so I feel like a lot of people now will look towards their closet and look for what they can make out of what somebody would say is nothing," Hanner said. "I feel like that's a great part of Halloween because you can see what people make out of something that nobody else would expect."
The enjoyment that comes from Halloween for people is based around the potential for the unexpected and people's creativity in their costumes, Hanner said.
The ability to express a new side to someone is also what can make Halloween a competitive holiday, Williams said.
"I feel like Halloween is a free-for-all. You have those different types of people who like to go all out or the ones who like to be all cutesy," Williams said. "I feel like there's no judgment when Halloween comes around."