DIY Scarlet Overkill Costume from the Minion Movie
With a new Minion Movie coming out in 2015, the silly yellow minions are going to be a very hot Halloween costume again this fall. A new character, a new super villain and a female one at that, is being added to the Minion franchise.

Her name is Scarlet Overkill the sexy villain from the 1960’s. She is voiced by Sandra Bullock for the U.S. release of the Minion movie and by Thalía in the Latin America version.
Scarlet is likely to be a popular costume for the slightly rebellious young girls, tweens and teen Minion fans, anyone who enjoys a retro-look or own a red strapless dress that they never get an occasion to wear.

The silly and slightly sinister costume with a bit of sex appeal is also likely to appeal to Moms, who will be liking the retro 1960’s costume idea and being able to wear a red dress. Putting together your own costume can be done pretty easily from some basic clothes like a red dress, long black gloves, black heels and stockings plus the accessories.
This DIY information page is written so it is easier to put together or pull together your own Scarlet Overkill costume (like for the premiere) without having to wait for the official licensed costumes to come out. For help get her 60’s style hair and makeup, see the separate DIY Scarlet Overkill Hair and Makeup page.
Sadly, lately the official Minion costumes (and many of the Disney ones) have been only made for younger children, and tweens so older teens and women are left on their own to design their own costumes, so we have come up with the adult Scarlet costume here and a more age-appropriate variation of her dress for teens and tweens at the DIY Scarlet Overkill Costumes for Teens & Tweens page.
Who is Scarlet Overkill—Super Villain?
We meet Scarlet in 1968 as three of the Minions (Stuart, Kevin and Bob) find they are on their way to Villain-Con International, a super-gathering of evil villains from around the world, or as they say in the previews, “the biggest gathering of criminals anywhere.” Stuart, Kevin and Bob hope to convince someone (maybe even Scarlet) with the Henchman Placement Specialists to let them be their henchmen.
The best way to introduce the latest Minion villain guru, Scarlet Overkill (who predates Gru by 42 years) is with a video clip trailer from the Minion Movie.
RESPECT * POWER * BANANA
DIY Scarlet Overkill Costume

Scarlet’s costume can be easy to create from an old red strapless dress, or one found it a thrift store.
Look soon though, if her costume becomes popular all of the red thrift shop dresses will be snatched up long before Halloween.
From top to bottom is a list of the items needed to make your own Scarlet Overkill Costume include:
- Short black wig with flipped ends
- 60’s style glasses
- Black choker
- Red strapless dress
- White petticoat
- Black long gloves
- Red heels
- Black heels with black tights
- Red lipstick
- Large Red Ruby
- Crossbow
Out of all of the items a costume crossbow like Scarlet’s may be the hardest to find. If you absolutely have to have a crossbow to complete your costume, I did find a Wooden Crossbow on Amazon that could be painted gold to look like hers. Just leave the arrows home so no one really gets hurt.

Basic Costume – Red dress with a Petticoat
The key part of any Scarlet Overkill costume is the red strapless dress with a full skirt. Ideally it would be great to have a 60’s style, but any of the dresses in this collection of different red dresses that would work, so as is like the Red tube skater dress or with a bit of modifying like the Red Corset A-line Satin Dress and Red knee-length strapless party dress both of which need to have the bows removed or adjusted.
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To make the red dress look even more like Scarlet’s, add a petticoat underneath.
How perfect is the name for this petticoat on Amazon, the Be Wicked Women’s Petticoat?
Accessories – Glasses, Choker, Gloves, Tights and a Ruby

In addition to the red dress, flip hairdo and retro makeup there are several other accessories you need to add to complete the costume look.
- 60’s style glasses
- Black choker
- Black evening gloves – Opera or full length
- Red heels
- Black heels with black tights
- Red ruby
- Crossbow
Some of these items may be what you have around the home like a piece of black ribbon to make a choker or a pair of old black Opera gloves. These retro items can often be picked up from thrift stores.
If you don’t have the accessories needed to complete Scarlet’s costume, I found several on Amazon that may be helpful like retro sunglasses and a red ruby:

Apparently for Scarlet, Rubies are a girl’s best friend, except perhaps after her crossbow.
Scarlet’s White Retro Sunglasses
Scarlet’s sunglasses are retro 60’s style, perhaps trying to recreate the Jackie O look. Her glasses are white, over-sized and an oval shaped.
Here are three different styles available on Amazon that would work for the costume, depending on the look you want, whether you will be wearing them again and how much you want to spend (the polarized ones are more expensive).
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Whatever you do if you want to look like Scarlet, don’t leave home without your sunglasses.

Hair and Makeup
To make it a bit easier to follow making the costume, we split off Scarlet’s Hair and Makeup into a separate page, the separate DIY Scarlet Overkill Hair and Makeup.
This page covers her 60’s inspired bouffant hairstyle and also her retro 60’s makeup along with select video tutorials to help make it easier to understand how to create the retro look.
Related Pages
Scarlet Overkill
To help you complete your Scarlet Overkill makeup and hair or a younger version of Scarlet Overkill take a look at the related pages:
Minions
It is too soon to know if the purple minion makes an appearance in the latest Minion Movie based in 1968. Even so, the purple minion is one of my favorites and we have costume, makeup and hair pages to help you put together your own unique minion costume for Halloween or any other time.
Watch for other pages featuring everyone’s favorite retro yellow minions coming soon.
Our Pinterest Board for DIY Scarlet Overkill Costume
To share our ideas and inspiration for making your own Scarlet Overkill, Super-villain costume and to collect ideas from other Scarlet fans we have a Pinterest board especially for the DIY Scarlet Overkill Costume Ideas from the Minion Movie. Be sure to pop over to Pinterest and follow us for updates.
This board is a collection of Scarlet Overkill images that inspired her costume, hair and makeup along with a few minions added for fun.
Scarlet Overkill Images from Illumination Entertainment and the Minion Movie.
Respect — Power — Banana