The Spy Who Stabbed Me - Michael Myers / Mike Myers Mash-Up Costume

Another crazy idea in my head brought to life! After my Freddie Mercury / Freddy Krueger and Taylor Swift / Travis Kelce splits from previous Halloweens, I wanted to keep the mashup streak alive but with something unexpected and worthy of the cause. I've been tabling this particular idea for a few years now and figured that doing two absolutely ICONIC movie figures - Michael Myers and Mike Myers as Austin Powers - would be a real hoot, especially given their similar names. Horror and hilarity, half slasher, half spy. I even coined a really fun tagline for it: "The Spy Who Stabbed Me."

The build process was intense as usual, but fun. My wife Alex (the real MVP) helped me cut and Velcro the mechanic's jumpsuit and Austin Powers' velvet suit together down the middle, carefully aligning the fabrics so it sat clean and wearable. I used heat-transferred Photoshop graphics for the first time to bring "The Spy Who Stabbed Me" gag to life, and it helped clarify the concept for anyone who needed it. The mask was a project in itself - Alex sliced a classic Michael Myers latex mask in half, fused it with part of an Austin Powers wig and balanced it all with bobby pins and a lot of patience!

Despite wearing two totally different shoes, it ended up being one of the most comfortable getups I've ever worn. Reactions ranged from open mouths to laughs and many photo requests, which is exactly what I was going for. I even had people yell, "Oh my god that's f'n brilliant!" at the annual NYC Halloween Parade.

Another fun one for sure! Here's how to piece it all together. 🎃

For this project you'll need:

Michael Myers (The Slasher) - Left Side

1. The classic blue mechanic's jumpsuit. I bought this Dickies one size Large.
2. Classic latex mask, cut vertically down the center. Go with this one since it's high quality.
3. Black work boot (mine here)
4. Fake knife prop or rubber kitchen knife (mine here)
5. Black glove (optional, if you wanted a glove on that hand)
6. "Stabbed Me" custom-printed Photoshop graphic (optional, but cool)

Mike Myers (Austin Powers) - Right Side

1. Crushed-velvet suit jacket (blue or red. I opted for the latter here to contrast the Dickies more). This link also includes:
2. Matching velvet pants
3. Round glasses, but any lightweight costume pair works great. Needs to be cuttable.
4. An Austin Powers wig (to be cut and attached to the latex mask)
5. Ruffled white shirt, like this one
6. A fashionable "mojo" necklace (mine here)
7. Classic dress shoe (one only needed to complete the look. I used a Johnston Murphy one my closet).
8. Fake Crooked Teeth (I used these)
9. "The Spy Who" custom-printed Photoshop graphic (optional again)

Miscellaneous:

1. Bobby pins to stabilize the half-mask fit
2. 2" Velcro strips (used along the center seam to attach to the Austin side. Black preferred but white is ok.)
3. A good pair of scissors (you will be cutting a LOT for this one)
4. Chalk to mark where any cuts need to be made
5. Photoshop or other image-editing program to design patches (optional)
6. Heat-transfer paper and iron – for applying graphics if you want to do that yourself (I didn't)
7. Light bronzer and sideburn makeup for the "Mike" half of your face (optional)
8. Small Bluetooth speaker - if you want to play their soundtracks (optional)
9. Beard Trimmer (optional)
10. Razor (optional)
11. Shaving Cream (optional)

Every good mashup costume needs a visual anchor - something that ties the two halves together and makes the joke instantly click. For this one, I knew I wanted to spoof the Austin Powers 2 title ("The Spy Who Shagged Me") while weaving in the horror side of Michael Myers. "The Spy Who Stabbed Me" came to mind early on and it just made sense. It was cheeky and punchy and perfectly balanced slasher and shagadelic.

I fired up Photoshop to experiment with font combinations that blended 1960s psychedelia with Halloween menace. I used a groovy, bubble-style font for "The Spy Who…" and contrasted it with a sharp, blood-drip serif for "Stabbed Me," mimicking knife slashes through some of the letters. The color palette had to feel like both franchises at once, so I layered Austin’s trademark orange-yellow gradient with splashes of Michael's blood red and steel gray.

Once I was happy with the look, I sent the artwork to a custom fashion print shop that specializes in vinyl and DTF (direct-to-film) applications. I had never done DIY transfer myself and didn't want to screw this up, and I also wanted a durable, professional finish like something from a real movie costume. The shop handled the printing and application directly onto the velvet Austin Powers half of the suit and the Michael Myers Dickies and placed two 6" x 6" logos naturally with the fabric on their appropriate sides.

They absolutely nailed it. The text popped under light and the blend of campy spy-movie lettering and ominous horror tones pulled the entire concept together. It made the outfit look like a real promotional piece from a film that sadly doesn't exist (...at least not yet anyway!).

This was the heart of the project where the mashup stopped being an idea in my head and became an actual, wearable Frankenstein of fashion. Like all mashup costumes, the challenge was joining two completely different worlds of fabric, structure and fit together while making sure it didn't look like I got dressed in the dark. (And also make it look like a true 50/50 split down the middle to complete the illusion, of course).

I started with a standard navy Dickies jumpsuit for the Michael Myers half and a red crushed-velvet suit jacket and pants for the Austin Powers half. Two very different fabrics (heavy poly-cotton twill and polyester/velvet, respectively) but not an impossible feat to mesh them, thankfully.

The real key here was finding the perfect centerline. My wife (the fashion expert) laid both outfits flat on the floor - aligning collars, shoulders, and inseams - then used both tailor's chalk and blue painters tape to draw a dead-center cut from the top collar straight down to the ankle. (Pro tip: mark the line on both pieces before cutting anything — symmetry is everything.) Then she had me wear the Dickies to see how they rested on me and marked off appropriate areas with painters tape.

She then steadied the fabrics and made the necessary cuts with scissors, one key area at a time:

1. The top left of the Dickies costume, leaving only a small strap to hang over my right shoulder there.
2. Most of the Left Dickies pant leg (my right leg) up to the crotch, so that the Austin pants showed there instead.
3. Half of the Austin suit jacket, leaving only the left side since we didn't need the right one at all.
4. Most of the right Austin pant leg so that the Dickies looked cleaner laying on that side

The jumpsuit sliced cleanly, but the velvet was a little trickier. Velvet has a mind of its own - it sheds, it slips and it sticks to everything in a five foot radius. So we were extra careful with that and made slow, steady cuts.

Once both halves were ready, the real puzzle began: alignment. The fabrics didn't stretch or drape the same way and I wanted the center seam to stay dead-straight when worn. We laid the halves together and used some tape to temporarily bond the pieces from the inside. This method let us reposition sections quickly during test fits, which happened a lot.

The trickiest areas were the shoulder seam and crotch line, where one side's fabric wanted to pull diagonally. We offset the cuts slightly (about half an inch difference from top to bottom) so the midpoint visually stayed centered once the outfit was on my body. It was basically optical illusion tailoring.

To reinforce the bond and avoid the "split-at-the-parade" disaster scenario, we layered Velcro down the main torso connection and smaller strips along the back and leg. These not only kept the fabrics together but also allowed for easy separation when I needed to get in or out of the costume, which I thankfully didn't need to do until the end of the night (whew!).

By the end of this step, the two halves looked hilariously mismatched off the body, but once worn they fused into something cohesive. The split was crisp, balanced and dramatic, with half cold-blooded killer and the other half velvet-clad flirt. It was the kind of fabric fusion that makes people double-take before realizing the joke.

I tried to illustrate this in the photos above, but this was the order in which I needed to put this on:

1. White, ruffled Austin shirt (a.k.a. the pirate shirt)
2. Red Austin pants
3. Dickies outfit
4. Red Austin jacket

And with that in place, it's onto the mask!

If the outfit is the foundation for this getup, the mask is the moment. It's what makes the split instantly recognizable, with one glance telling (most) people what was going on here. But pulling off a seamless "Michael Myers meets Mike Myers" headpiece would take some work, as Latex, wigs and glasses aren't exactly made for each other.

We started with a classic Michael Myers latex mask - the spooky, expressionless kind that can turn any room instantly uncomfortable. The first challenge was cutting it perfectly in half, because it wasn't cheap and we only had one to play with. Latex doesn’t cut cleanly unless it’s stretched taut, so Alex carefully held it steady and used scissors to slice straight down the vertical centerline, from the top of the forehead through the chin. One wrong move and we'd have an asymmetrical psychopath...which sounds cool, but...not for this costume.

She initially did one conservative cut, and then another, and then one more. I wanted it to be as close to 50% as possible but we realized that we needed more than half of its nose to remain there for stability reasons, so I guess that part was more like 55%. But that's ok! It didn't really hurt the illusion very much in the long run.

Once we had two clean halves, it was time to bring in the comedy. For the Mike Myers / Austin Powers side, we used a traditional Austin Powers wig and trimmed it so the part fell just off-center. The hairline needed to meet the latex edge without creating a bulky ridge, so we shaved down a bit of the inner latex seam and also cut away any pesky pieces that were getting into the latex mask's eye hole (spoiler alert - not comfortable!).

We did a lot of testing here. First I put the Powers wig on, and then I carefully put the (half) Myers mask over it. It was a nice snug fit (a pleasant surprise!) but we made sure to put as many bobby pins as we needed in order to keep the two connected well.

Next came the signature Austin Powers glasses. It would've been ideal to wear a full frame and then put the mask over that, but that turned out to leave an imprint even after a few seconds (yikes!) so we had to go with Plan B instead. Alex carefully popped one lens out and then cut 45% of that same side off with scissors, leaving just enough frame so that it laid on my face ok. We were debating whether to glue this frame to the latex mask, but ultimately decided not to since they stayed put pretty nicely without it.

After a few mirror tests - and a lot of laughing - it finally looked right: a stoic serial killer fused with a swinging ’60s spy! The absurdity of it was exactly what I was going for.

When the full costume came together, the mask became the cherry on top. Everyone knows Michael Myers, so the mask is essentially the first clue that hits most people's eyes. Then they see the photoshop graphics and Powers suit, and voila.

Unlike some of my past mashups that required half-face makeup, this one was refreshingly simple in the cosmetics department. But it still required full facial hair commitment, at least for me anyway. Austin Powers has no facial hair spare a few sideburns and the Michael Myers mask doesn’t leave a ton of room for friction or facial hair, so that meant that mine had to go. If you don't have any scruff though, then skip ahead to step 5.

As usual, I went all in: full shave, hot water, shaving cream and fresh razor, etc. It's basically the only time all year that I do this and it felt a bit like a pre-game ritual at this point. I took my time, used a large mirror setup and trimmed before busting out the blades to make this as clean as possible.

Once clean-shaven, I ran a quick fit test with the full headpiece. The latex sealed perfectly against my face now without any gaps or puckering and the wig half laid flat without lifting. It was also very comfortable to wear...less heat, less itch and zero beard interference.

Shaving mission, complete.

After days of cutting, taping and aligning, this was the fun part - getting into character (well, both characters). All the major fabrication was done, so now it was time to layer and accessorize and make sure it all worked in motion.

I followed the same "dressing" order I'd tested earlier to put on the outfit:

1. White, ruffled Austin Powers shirt
2. Red Austin pants
3. The Dickies
4. Red Austin jacket on top

Each piece locked into place using the Velcro seams from Step 2, with a few extra strips for reinforcement. Once zipped and adjusted, the line down the middle stayed crisp and perfectly straight.

After that it was onto the props!

Michael Myers:

1. Black work boot
2. Fake Knife

Austin Powers:

1. Shiny mod shoe
2. White ruffled cuff shirt. Make sure to tuck enough of the neckerchief in on the killer side so that it doesn't show there!
3. Silver pendant mojo necklace, positioned slightly off center so it sits on the Austin half and doesn’t cross the seam, and of course,
4. His iconic crooked teeth!

I was initially going to wear the necklace around my, well, neck, but we hacked the system and wrapped it around the Dickies strap of Austin's side (pictured above). It was much better positioned this way.

The teeth came as a plastic upper set that needed heat-molded fitting pellets to keep it in place. This was a first for me since my only other dental "adjustment" was a fake grill from my Post It Malone getup, and that didn't have any such beads.

The steps for this:

1. Boil water, remove from heat, and pour the thermoplastic beads into it.
2. Wait about 30 seconds until they turn clear and clump together.
3. Press the softened beads into the back of the teeth piece to create a pliable mold strip.
4. While still warm (not hot), gently press the whole set onto your upper teeth and bite lightly for a few seconds to form the perfect fit.

They cooled quickly and held shape beautifully, which I was happy about. A little rinse in cold water locked the fit in place, and it was easy to reheat them and try it again if we needed to (spoiler alert, we did). One caveat with the finished product is that it is hard to talk clearly with them, but that was a small price to pay for authenticity!

With everything in place I did a few movement tests - walking, crouching and posing - and was surprised by how easy it was to move around in this. Despite the two fabrics and mismatched shoes, it was stable, flexible and shockingly comfortable. The half-mask stayed perfectly aligned the entire night even after getting bumped around a bit during the NYC parade.

Quick tip: if your chain starts migrating during wear, secure it with a clear thread loop on the shirt. I had to adjust it a few times myself, but thanks to Alex's ingenuity of wrapping the chain around the Dickie's strap it had pretty decent positioning without needing adjustment.

Looking in the mirror, the transformation was complete: one side looking for mojo and the other looking for you! The split read beautifully from every angle and the costume felt parade-proof.