If you’ve ever picked up a calendar from a bakery, butcher shop or other small business, you’ll recognize the stylized images of beautiful women in typical Mexican garb. I wrote about this years ago on the old blog:
Part of this idea came last night. I went to have $1 tacos and sangría (yum!) with Ome at Don Antonio’s. I noticed the cheesy carnicería/panadería style calendars on the wall. One had a drawing of a higly sexualized Adelita. I loved it. So, we flirted with the cute waiters and they gave us calendars to take home with us.
The first representation of a Mexicana is a painting of la Adelita, but she needs to put on a little more clothes or a bra. If you’ve seen Mexican chromo art calendars, you’ll know that the men and women in the images are idealized depictions. The men are bronzed, muscular, and virile. The women as voluptuous and gorgeous. Angel Martín’s painting is no different.
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I cut off the ad for the restaurant and affixed calendar (the pull-away two month per page kind) and left the calendar hanging in my bedroom. Mexican calendar girls kept following me around a few years later when friends gave me a journal with an image of a vintage Mexican calendar girl on the cover. I carried it around until it started falling apart and the pages were filled. The image comes from a book called Mexican Calendar Girls.
All of these lovely [light-skinned] Mexicanas inspired me to dress up as a Mexican calendar girl for Halloween. I ditched the idea because I had to buy a new huipil blouse. I gave away my favorite after I lost weight.
If you don’t mind conceptual costumes, want to get out your pretty embroidered blouses and rebozos, then a Mexican calendar girl might be a good costume.
Mexican Calendar Girl
1. Huipil (embroidered blouse) – I used the white ruffly blouses worn by Mexican restaurant waitresses everywhere because that’s all I had available
2. Full-length skirt and boots or sandals
3. Rebozo (shawl)
4. Dramatic makeup and hair in braids
5. Big earrings, bangles and a rose to carry or pin in your hair
6. Calendar pinned below your blouse with an advertisement for a bakery or other small business (print 2 months side by side on white paper, make sure to include lots of saint’s days)
Obviously, I didn’t make the calendar. I didn’t buy anything for this costume except the rose hair pin.
Lotería Chicana 
You’re so lovely. There is a similar Filipino traditional dress, tho the name escapes me …
Your costume series makes me want to make my own Halloween costume. I usually buy one from Target.
A great idea and you look good doing it! I love the voluptuous Mexican calendar woman. She looks like a fun person, ha!
Hola,
Me encanto tu vestuario y el concepto para un disfraz de halloween. Tu como siempre sales super bien en tus fotos!
Saludos
Sesa: is the dress the Maria Clara dress? I know there’s a dance of the same name thanks. I had a lot of Filipino friends in college and occasionally went to the culture night shows. The dances were amazing, especially Tinikling. It made me really miss my days of doing Mexican folkórico.
Kaley: Thanks. I think a lot of people shy away from doing ethnic costumes for Halloween, but there’s a way it can be done respectfully. Likely, it’s not what you see in the costume shops.
Flor: gracias! El chiste de salir super bien es de solo subir esas fotos y un poco de photoshop.
Yes, it is the Maria Clara! I wore it twice during international days in high school.