When Ben Cooper, once called “the Halston of Halloween,” issued the company’s 1968 catalog, the captions read like this: Witch. Fairy. Clown. Skeleton. Ghost. Bunny. Devil. American Hero. That’s not to say they weren’t chasing licensing. It also made this Snow White costume (yes, the Disney Princess goes waaay back). But note that this radiant, smiling girl isn’t wearing Snow White’s hair bow. She’s got her own crown; she’s a princess on her own terms. Ten years later, most trick-or-treaters had traded in pillowcases for plastic pumpkins. Candy bars had displaced fruit, coins, and popcorn balls. And at the school Halloween parade, the only way to tell all the Mickey Mice and Wonder Women apart was to memorize their shoes. The 21st-century Halloween is smaller still—trunk-and-treats, bobbing for apples as a health hazard, 5-year-olds dressed as superheroes, with six-packs—which is what makes this image, with its sweetness and genuine joy, so beautiful and startling.
4 epic long-distance hiking trails in the Midwest
From Missouri’s Ozark Trail to routes tracing Lake Superior and the Great Lakes, these four trails offer memorable thru-hikes and shorter backpacking adventures within reach of St. Louis.
