Halloween Costume Guide
Musa feels everyone’s emotions whether she wants to or not. The costume is the easy part. The headphones are the whole character.
Musa is a mind fairy at Alfea College who absorbs the emotions of everyone around her without being able to turn it off. The headphones are not a fashion statement; they are how she survives being in the same room as other people. Portrayed by Elisha Applebaum in the Netflix series, which ran for two seasons before being cancelled in 2022. The costume is a cool, layered look that works for fans of the show and for anyone who just wants a punk-adjacent outfit with a story behind it.
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The headphones are the first thing people notice, and they need to be visible when you walk in. Musa wears them around her neck in most of the show, not over her ears, which means you can actually hear people and still look the part. Without them, the lilac-and-blue outfit reads as a cute casual look, which it is, but it doesn’t read as a specific character. The headphones are the thing that makes strangers say “oh, the Winx Saga girl” instead of “nice outfit.” Bring your own; any chunky over-ear pair works.
Musa is the person at the party who can feel what everyone else is feeling and has decided, reasonably, that this is too much. She is not unfriendly. She is just conserving herself. At an event, that reads as someone who is selective about who she talks to, genuinely interested when she is interested, and not especially bothered about being in the middle of things. If someone asks about the headphones, the answer is the quote: “I put them on so I can take a break from everyone else’s emotions and just focus on mine.” Deliver it without irony. It lands better that way.
The Contact Lens Timing Problem
Put the purple contacts in before you start getting dressed, in good lighting, with clean hands, and at least 20 minutes before you need to leave. Inserting colored contacts in a dim bathroom at the last minute while already in costume is a situation that ends with one contact on the floor and the other somehow in your hair. Give yourself time.
The Socks-and-Boots Gap
The navy knee socks need to show above the boot line or the detail disappears entirely. Pull the socks up before lacing the boots, then lace the boots snugly so the socks don’t slide down during the night. If the socks slip, the outfit loses the layered look that makes it recognizable. Tall socks have a habit of deciding the party is a good time to start moving south.
Alfea’s Magical Academy
This is the strongest option and the only one that requires no thematic explanation. It works because each character has a distinct look: Bloom’s red hair and fire fairy aesthetic, Stella’s brighter fashion-forward style, Aisha’s athletic build, Terra’s earthy warmth, Beatrix’s sharper edge. The group reads as a unit to anyone who watched the show. For everyone else, you’re just a very well-coordinated group of people who clearly like each other, which is its own thing. The more people who commit, the better this lands.
Supernatural Sound Sisters
This is conditional. The concept works because every character here has psychic or emotion-based powers, which is a genuine thematic link, not just a loose costume grouping. Eleven, Wanda, and Jean Grey will be recognized by almost everyone. Raven from Teen Titans reads clearly in costume. Musa is the niche pick of the group, and Piper Halliwell from Charmed will depend entirely on the age of the crowd. If everyone commits to their character, this group has a strong concept. If anyone half-commits, it just looks like a group of women in different costumes.
Boarding School Mystics and Misfits
This is the most broadly recognized group on the list, mostly because Wednesday and Sabrina anchor it for a wide audience. Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair from the Netflix Wednesday series will be immediately understood by almost anyone. Sabrina Spellman is very recognizable. Hope Mikaelson from Legacies and Clary Fray from Shadowhunters are niche enough that they’ll get a blank look from people who didn’t watch those specific shows. Musa fits the boarding school misfit energy well. The group works because the theme is recognizable even when individual characters aren’t.
Musa’s look is built from pieces that sit at the intersection of casual streetwear and fairy-adjacent academia, which means there is a reasonable chance parts of this are already in your wardrobe. Here is the honest breakdown:
Musa is an empath who has spent a lot of energy learning how to protect herself from other people’s feelings. At a party, this translates to someone who is quietly observant, genuinely warm in one-on-one conversation, and selective about the energy she puts out in larger groups.
Seven items: lilac long sleeve crop top, powder blue puffer jacket, rolled cuff denim shorts, stretch cord belt, navy knee socks, mid-calf lace-up combat boots, and purple contact lenses if you’re going all in. The one thing not in the shopping list is the most important prop: over-ear headphones worn around the neck. Without them, the costume loses its most recognizable detail and reads as a casual outfit rather than a specific character.
Three lines worth knowing:
The first one is the one to use at the party. Say it once, to someone who asks about the headphones, and move on. The third one works well as a dry aside if anyone comments on the combat boots.
Recognition is limited outside of the show’s fanbase. Netflix cancelled Fate: The Winx Saga after Season 2 in 2022, and it never reached the mainstream visibility of a show like Wednesday or Stranger Things. Fans of the show will know it immediately, but most people at a general Halloween party won’t place it. This costume works best as part of the Alfea group or at a fan-specific event.
No, but they help. In the show, Musa’s eyes shift to purple when her powers are in use. The contacts are the detail that moves the costume from a nice outfit into something that looks researched. For a fan event or group costume, worth it. For a general party where most people won’t know the character anyway, skip them and put the money toward the jacket.
Any over-ear headphones. No specific brand or color is required. The ones from the show are chunky and dark. Wear them around your neck rather than over your ears so you can actually hear people all night, and put them on for photos. That is the only rule.
Musa is a mind fairy and student at Alfea College in the Netflix fantasy series Fate: The Winx Saga, portrayed by Elisha Applebaum. She is an empath who constantly absorbs the emotions of everyone around her, which is why the headphones are her defining characteristic. The show is a live-action adaptation of the animated Winx Club series and ran for two seasons in 2021 and 2022.