Monster Mash Turns Somerville Ave into a Halloween Fantasy

Events
Written By Sonny Oram

One of my favorite scenes in E.T. is when the siblings walk down the street in the golden Halloween sunlight. Kids are running wild, everyone is outside, and it all feels like a dream. Why isn’t Halloween actually like that, I wondered? Why aren’t the streets filled with more costumes and mayhem?

Last weekend, I fulfilled my fantasy at Monster Mash in Somerville, Massachusetts. People of all ages crowded Somerville Ave, transforming the street into a Halloween playground filled with elaborate costumes, music, and festive chaos.

Costumes ranged from enormous blue wings and fantastical bird creatures to mysterious plague doctors, mad men characters, and everything in between.

As the afternoon progressed, the sunlight did indeed turn golden. Just when we thought we were wrapping up for the day, the heavens above gifted us with some of our best shots. Dressed as a devil, I met my angel counterpart, wearing a glimmering halo, and we posed together as though we’d been in a band for years.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My in my Devil costume - Thanks to Nostalgia Vintage Cafe for the make up art and styling

 
 
 
 

Zouk and I - the staff I appear to be holding is the shadow of a street sign

My inner devil is coming out

Photography: @0nyx.lens

 

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Sonny Oram

Boston-based multidisciplinary artist Sonny Oram is the founder of Qwear, a leading voice in the queer fashion movement for more than 15 years, and the author of the foreword to Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: Resistance and Revolution in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025). His work has been featured in HuffPost, BuzzFeed, Design*Sponge, and QTYPE Magazine and he's spoken on panels at MIT, South by Southwest, and Simmons Nursing School.

His earliest published work was created at age ten: a series of collages made from cut-up magazines, accompanied by original text exploring themes of gender, cultural conditioning, predatory advertising, and media objectification. In 2025, images of these collages were published in Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: Resistance and Revolution (Bloomsbury Press) and the Fashion, Style & Popular Culture journal.

Through Qwear, Sonny has launched influential campaigns, including the award-winning #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike with Yasmin Benoit, and continues to create spaces for underrepresented communities across internet and print media. He has also used search engine optimization (SEO) to increase the visibility and diversity of queer representation in online search results, helping terms such as “androgynous style,” “bisexual style,” and “asexual” reflect a broader range of identities and experiences.

https://sonnyoram.com
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