How to Stuff a Piggyback Costume (Five Minutes to the Full Carry-Me Illusion)

Stuffing a piggyback costume takes about five minutes: lay the false legs flat, fill them with rolled-up pieces of newspaper until they hold their shape, then step in and settle the waist. Spare jumpers or towels work just as well, and they are the safer filling for a candle-lit party. That is the whole job; every piggyback costume we make is one size fits most, so there are no straps to size and no fan to switch on, just you and yesterday's paper.

Piggyback costumes go by a few names, carry-me and ride-on among them, and they all rely on the same trick. If you would rather skip the stuffing entirely, our guide to how to put on an inflatable costume covers the fan-powered alternative. For the full range, start at our piggyback costumes hub.

Table of Content

• How do you stuff a piggyback costume?
• What should you fill the legs with?
• How does the carry-me illusion work?
• DIY piggyback costume or ready-made?
• Which piggyback costume should you pick?
• How do you keep the illusion together all night?
• Frequently asked questions

How do you stuff a piggyback costume?

You stuff a piggyback costume before you put it on, and the false legs are the only part that needs it. Here is the method we give customers, and it has not changed since we started making these:

1. Unpack the costume and lay it out flat, false legs towards you.
2. Roll single sheets of newspaper into loose balls and tubes.
3. Work them into the false legs, feet first, packing as you go.
4. Stop when the legs hold a natural bend but still feel light. Overstuffed legs stick out stiff as planks and give the game away.
5. If your design has false arms, fill them the same way, a little looser.
6. Step in, pull the costume up to your waist, and check the character sits level in a mirror.

Your real legs become the carrier's legs, so wear trousers and shoes that match the character underneath, not you. From box to mirror, you are dressed in about five minutes.

What should you fill the legs with?

Rolled-up newspaper is the classic filling: it is free, it weighs next to nothing, and it holds a leg shape all night. Scrunch and roll rather than fold, because loose balls of paper flex naturally when you walk and flat wads do not.

Soft alternatives work too. A couple of jumpers or towels give the legs a smoother line than paper, and at a winter do the legs double as a cloakroom: your coat walks home inside your costume. Whatever you use, keep it light; the illusion sells better when the false legs swing.

One serious note before the party. Children's fancy dress in the UK is classed as a toy for safety purposes, so it must meet the EN71-2 flammability standard, and RoSPA has worked with the British Retail Consortium on an enhanced test that requires a burn rate of 10mm per minute, three times slower than the 30mm per minute legal minimum (RoSPA costume safety guidance). Newspaper is not part of that test, so at a party with candles or a bonfire, stuff with fabric instead and keep clear of open flames. RoSPA also recommends wearing normal clothes under fancy dress as an extra layer, which a piggyback costume needs anyway.

How does the carry-me illusion work?

A piggyback costume makes it look as though a character is carrying you on their back. The stuffed character hangs from your waist in front of you, your real legs go into the character's trousers, and the false legs you stuffed hang where your legs would be if you were riding piggyback. From across a room, the eye reads the stuffed legs as yours and your walking legs as the character's, and the whole thing comes alive.

Because the illusion does the work, the fit stays simple: our piggyback costumes are one size fits most, cut from soft, stretchy fabric, and we check 30 measurements on every costume as part of the 500,000+ quality checks we run each year. What arrives in the pack is the costume itself; the newspaper is your department.

DIY piggyback costume or ready-made?

Honest answer: the stuffing is the DIY bit, and it is the only bit worth doing yourself. 42% of Brits say they plan to make their Halloween costume themselves, while 47% buy from online shops (YouGov, 2025). We have seen the scratch-built versions: a frame of coat hangers, borrowed trousers, a sewing weekend, and a character head that lists sideways by 9pm.

A ready-made piggyback costume gets you the part a home build struggles with, a stuffed character that stays upright and legs that read as real, and leaves you the five satisfying minutes with the newspaper. That is the version of DIY where the costume still looks like the photo at midnight.

Which piggyback costume should you pick?

Pick the character to match the occasion, because there is a carry-me gag for most of the calendar. These are the ones we would wear, all from our adult piggyback costumes range:

Oktoberfest: the Bearded Bavarian Piggyback Costume gives you a bearded Bavarian carrying you to the beer tent. Wear it in September and you will not buy your own drinks.

Halloween: the Mummy Costume Piggyback gets a bandaged corpse doing the carrying, which is exactly the wrong way round and exactly why it works.

Fancy dress parties: the Red Power Ranger Piggyback Costume is our Power Rangers take on the gag, and the original 2017 version of this post starred the Power Rangers, so consider this one a family tradition.

Christmas: the Santa Piggyback Costume answers the office-party brief in one move: Santa carries you in, you carry the conversation.

St Patrick's Day: the Leprechaun Piggyback Costume puts a leprechaun under you, which beats finding one under a rainbow.

Kids get the same trick in their own sizes. The Kids Alien Piggyback Costume makes it look like your child is being carried off by a little green friend, and the Kids Skeleton Piggyback Costume owns the school Halloween disco; both are safety test approved and sit in our kids piggyback costumes range. For everything else on the big night, our guide to the best Halloween costumes covers every style we make.

How do you keep the illusion together all night?

A stuffed costume has no fan to feed and no batteries to swap, so all-night wear comes down to three habits:

• Keep the stuffing light. Legs that swing sell the gag; legs packed solid look like scaffolding and weigh on your waist by 10pm.
• Re-fluff after sitting down. Thirty seconds of squeezing the legs back into shape restores the illusion completely.
• Take doorways slightly sideways. Your silhouette is wider than you think, and the character's head takes the knock before you feel it.

Loo breaks are easier than they look: the filling stays in the legs, so the costume comes off and goes back on in under a minute. Tracked delivery lands within 2 working days, and every costume ships under the Morph Promise: no costume fails, designs that flatter, party-long comfort, no unwanted surprises.

Frequently asked questions

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