Happy Halloween from a vintage Chanel purse, Karl Lagerfeld and his cat, Choupette!

If you know me, you know I’m obsessed with Chanel. And I’m so happy to share this fun Halloween post with you!

I have to thank my wonderful husband, Charlie, for helping me put my purse costume together. Without him, I don’t think it would’ve turned out as great as it did. He has a way of reading my mind and calming me down and helping me with this idea. He is my best friend and biggest supporter. I love him a million times over for doing this and for agreeing to be in costume with us.

I’m gonna be honest. I’ve been thinking about this costume since Luke learned how to walk. Every year after that, I told myself we were going to make it happen. Every year it never happened because you know….life got in the way.

I was determined to make our Chanel-inspired Halloween costume for our family happen this year! It was a goal that I started right after Labor Day.  But it almost didn’t happen this year. I didn’t order enough fabric for my Chanel purse costume and had to reorder more about two weeks ago only to get the wrong fabric from the seller. It took another week for the right fabric to be delivered. We just got it on Monday (today!).  I was stressed that we wouldn’t be able to get it together in time for Halloween. I really wished we were able to wear this costume around this past weekend.

At first, I had just planned for my costume to be a Chanel purse and Luke to be Karl Lagerfeld. But after telling my friend Jennifer about it, she suggested it might be cute if Karl’s cat Choupette was part of the costume. I really wanted Luke to be Karl Lagerfeld and I was set on making Chanel purse costume so the only other person to be Choupette was Charlie!

I’m sharing with you how we made our Chanel-inspired costumes for the whole family- how to make Chanel purse costume, how to make a Karl Lagerfeld costume and how to make a Choupette costume.

How We Made the Chanel Purse Costume

Although the Chanel bag costume looks pretty simple, it was fairly hard to figure out the shape and figure out how much fabric we needed. I didn’t plan very well and there lies our problem. Here’s how we made an adult Chanel purse costume:

The Frame (Moving / Cardboard Boxes)  – A few months ago, our neighbors threw away brand new, never used moving boxes. I grabbed them hoping to use them to store some of Luke’s stuff. But we ended up using a box as a the base for the purse. We cut out another box to make the flap over my head. We chose to make it look like a square purse rather than a horizontal rectangular one so that I would have room to move my arms.

Quilted Fabric – I wanted to make the Chanel purse costume as accurate as possible. A quick Google search led me to an Etsy shop called fabulessfabrics that had faux vinyl quilted fabric. We hot glued the fabric onto the box and the flap.

Gold Chain – I was browsing in Joann Fabric’s ribbon section and came across a big chain that looked like the gold chain for a Chanel purse. We put some black ribbon and interlocked the chains for the “gold hardware” look.

Chanel Logo – The Chanel logo (or the double Cs) is a must for this costume. We used two gold paper plates from Target and cut them into the shape of the letter C and interlocked them…et voila!

How We Made the Karl Lagerfeld Costume

The Karl Lagerfeld costume for kids or adults is pretty easy to put together.

Black Suit – Karl Lagerfeld is known for his signature black suit. We found a size 5 tuxedo for Luke at a second hand store for kids (Once Upon A Child, to be exact) for $11. I still thought it was a bit expensive. We used a small black tie that Luke had on another outfit when he was a baby. I put my Chanel brooch on it to give it the bling factor.

Hair – Obviously Luke does not have long white hair. I found this men’s colonial wig from Oriental Trading for $6.99 that seems to resemble Karl’s hair. The picture on the website didn’t really reflect the wig.

Sunglasses – Karl Lagerfeld always has sunglasses on. So we put a pair of my Chanel sunglasses on Luke to add the dramatic effect.

Gloves – Karl Lagerfeld always wears cut-out black gloves. We got the black skeleton gloves from Target for $2. Luke liked the gloves too much that I didn’t have the heart to cut them to wear the way Karl does.

How We Made the Choupette Costume

The Choupette costume was the easiest. All you need is a mask for Choupette.

White Suit – Since Choupette is a white cat, we knew Charlie had a white suit from when we were Fantasy Island for Halloween a few years ago.

Cat Mask – I knew Charlie didn’t want to be a cat costume so I purchased an adult cat mask to complete his costume.

My Budget – How Much It Cost to Make Our Family Costume 

My budget for our costume was $50 but we went over by almost 100%…$48 to be exact. The total cost was $98 (it was the shipping costs that made me go overboard!). But I think the amount of time and stress it took to put the purse costume together was where we spent the majority of our time.

Chanel purse costume –  Box (free) / Fabric ($50 with shipping) / Gold chain ($10) / Paper plates for Chanel logo ($3) / Hot glue (we had some at home).

Karl Lagerfeld costume – Tuxedo suit ($11) / Wig ($12 with shipping) / Gloves ($2) / Sunglasses (mine) / Brooch on tie (mine) / Tie (from one of Luke’s baby outfits).

Choupette costume – White suit (from our Fantasy Island family costume from a few years ago) / Cat mask ($10 with shipping).