Krampus is a character in Central and Eastern Alpine folklore who visits children who have misbehaved during the Christmas season. He travels with Saint Nicholas and they travel on December 5th, with Saint Nicholas rewarding the good children with items such as oranges, chocolate, dried fruit, and walnuts, and Krampus scaring the children who have been naughty.
Krampus is portrayed in numerous ways, but he normally has a cape, is hairy, and has a scary face. You can choose from among many different costumes if you want to dress up as Krampus, but some of the traits are the same regardless of the costume you choose.
How to Dress Like Krampus
Krampus is indeed a gruff character and is usually seen with the following items:
- Scary mask
- Long bath robe
- Gloves
- Bottoms that look like a hairy beast
- Plastic chains
- Prop that looks like a bell
In most variations, Krampus is usually hairy and black or brown in color, has horns and cloven hooves like a goat, fangs, and a long pointed tongue that lolls out when he needs it to. The sack or basket on his back is always a nice touch, and Krampus is usually portrayed as an anthropomorphic demon that is half-goat.
He is truly a very frightening creature, so the scarier you can make him look, the more realistic the costume will be.
Krampus is a character that isn’t familiar to all countries and societies, but if you stick with a few common traits, making the costume should be a piece of cake.
DIY Costume Tutorials
Cosplay Examples
About the Krampus Look
Krampus usually carries chains and shakes them for dramatic effect, and he occasionally swats naughty children with birch branches. Most of what he wears is symbolic, and the chains are said to represent the binding of the Devil by the Christian church.
Sometimes Krampus carries bells along with the chains, and some interpretations replace the birch rods with whips. Some interpretations also show Krampus with a basket or sack attached to his back so he can put naughty children in there in order to drown or eat them, or transport them to Hell.
As you can see, Krampus looks different depending on who is designing him, but there are still some traits that are the same regardless of where the design came from.
Wrapping Up
If you’re interested in dressing up like Krampus for your next holiday costume party, you have a lot of choices available, but as long as you remember some of the basic traits that this character has, your costume should look great in the end. Just make sure the character looks scary when you’re done and you should be fine.
Most of the components of the costume are also easy to find and reasonably priced, so you should be able to create a great-looking Krampus costume without breaking the bank.
The Krampus costume is certainly a lot of fun to wear, especially if you love playing someone evil and wicked!
