We’re officially ready for Halloween to be over now. What do you mean, Halloween IS over? It can’t be! Not when people are still buying $2,020 witch sweaters from Net-a-Porter, anyway. Or even £28 “scary skeleton” sweaters from Topshop:
These two items only appeared on their respective retailers’ websites after Halloween had been and gone, so either the spooky season is being dragged out for longer than usual this year, or witches, skeletons, and other such ghouls are suddenly the very height of fashion. We’re really not sure which is worse: Halloween lasting until Christmas, or people spending $2,000 on a holiday sweater.
You tell us, then: is it a crime of fashion to keep on wearing Halloween-themed clothing after Halloween, or are witches and skeletons, like, so chic, all year round?
From the gruesome to the gorgeous: here’s Gwen Stefani, living every little girl’s dream (and ours too, actually) by dressing up as Cinderella for Halloween this year!
It’s the morning after Halloween weekend, and there’s only one question on everyone’s lips here at Fashion Police HQ: where’s the coffee? What did Heidi Klum dress as THIS year?
As most of our fashion force know, Heidi throws an extravagant costume party every Halloween, and each year she somehow manages to outdo herself in the costume department. It must be quite stressful, now we come to think of it.
Did Heidi manage to outdo herself THIS year, though? Well, here she is arriving:
This dress – for yes, it is a dress, not a Victorian nightgown – will be be the perfect basis for your:
* Half-assed ghost (just paint your face white, OK?) * Escapee from a Victorian mental asylum * Burial shroud – ideal for the ever-popular “zombie” costume!
Or, of course, you COULD just wear it as it is, and go as a fashion victim, like we suggested last week. Fashion victims are MUCH scarier than ghosts and zombies, after all… because fashion victims are REAL.
Stay safe, kids: don’t let the scary dress give you nightmares…
Forget the witches, ghosts and other ghouls which traditionally parade the streets at Halloween: this year the word on the Fashion Police beat is that the Nicki Minaj Halloween costume is the one everyone will be wearing.
Nicki Minaj providing inspiration for Halloween costumes? Gosh, we wonder why?
Store-bought Nicki Minaj Halloween costumes are probably going to be hard to come by this year (Give it time, though: Lady Gaga has her own costume range now, after all…), but let’s face it, the fact that Nicki is ready and willing to wear just about anything will make this one a pretty easy DIY, especially if you have easy access to a semi-decent thrift store. Or if you have a little sister who does ballet, and you can fit into one of her old tutus.
Want to be Ms Minaj this Halloween? You will need…
Candy coloured hair. A wig would be the sensible option here, but according to the glossies, pastel hair is “bang on trend” right now (an angel dies every time that phrase is used, by the way….), so if you decide to dye it, you could be Nicki Minaj for Halloween and a Fashion Victim for a few weeks afterwards!
Candy coloured clothes. Are you sensing a theme here? Really, anything goes with the clothing, as long as it could reasonably be described as “wacky”. Your outfit aim should be a kind of “Clown Barbie meets Ice Dancer” extravaganza. Go wild!
Anything that makes you think of Barbie.
Pale pink lipstick, bright blue eyeshadow. Or any other brightly coloured shadow, basically. Finish up with the longest, fakest looking false eyelashes you can find, and prepare to hit the streets looking just like Nicki Minaj!
What – or who – are you dressing as this Halloween?
Fashion Criminals may dress badly, you see – that’s a given – but at least their style is their own. Fashion Victims on the other hand, have no style. So devoid are they of anything resembling personal taste, that they will blindly follow any trend that’s presented to them, regardless of whether it looks good on them or not. THEY are the people the magazines are targetting when they publish all of those articles on how to wear this season’s “difficult trend” (the rest of us just don’t bother to wear it if it’s that “difficult”). THEY are the ones who constantly use the phrase “bang on trend”, and THEY are the ones who can always be relied upon to pop up in the comments thread of any Fashion Police post and say, “But IT’S DESIGNER!” or “These were on aaaaaaalllllll the runways this season!” as if that means the item in question cannot POSSIBLY be anything less than perfect.
The sad fact is, the Fashion Victim actually believes these things. Because they don’t have any style of their own, they rely on the presence of a designer label to tell them whether or not an item is acceptable. The more expensive it is, the better, and if it has a visible logo, so much the better: that will allow other people to see that the item is OMGDESIGNER, too.
A Fashion Victim, yesterday
Because of this label-lovin’ tendency of the Fashion Victim, we’ve chosen to illustrate our Fashion Victim Halloween Costume with a bunch of random items, all of which have one important thing in common: visible logos. Don’t want to rush out and buy a few thousands pounds worth of Louis Vuitton? We don’t blame you. Don’t worry, though: you can easily put together a Fashion Victim Halloween Costume using items you already own. All you’ll need is an old t-shirt you no longer need, a sharpie, and the ability to draw a designer logo with it. (The Louis Vuitton ‘LV’ or interlinking Chanel ‘Cs’ are easy ones, but if you can’t draw, simply print out the logo on a piece of paper and stick it to your t-shirt.) Add logos to t-shirts, bags, hats, jewellery: if you can somehow attach a logo to it, it can become a Fashion Victim accessory!
For a more subtle variation on this theme, simply pick a few current trends, as pretend that they’ve all attacked you at the same time. The Fashion Victim, for instance, will be totally into colour blocking right now, because colour-blocking is “bang on trend”. The Fashion Victim will love 70s style, because 70s style is, like, SO this season, dontchya know?
For the next in our series of Fashion Police inspired Halloween costume ideas, we present… The Fashion Criminal!
Now, we COULD give you a list of suggested items to use for this costume… or we could just direct you to our fashion crimes archive. Or to any street, in any city around the world, where you will find endless inspiration from the fashion criminals who pass you by. If you really need some ideas, though, the items which are arrested most often here at TFP include:
Drop-crotch pants: well, d’uh!
Crocs
If you don’t want to wear Crocs: peep toe boots, or almost anything by Jeffrey Campbell will do.
Sheer clothing without the appropriate undergarments.
Any item of clothing which is attached to any other item of clothing.
Or, of course, you could also choose to go for some classic Crimes of Fashion: socks with sandals, nude hose with open shoes, a visible thong protruding from the top of your too-small jeans… the opportunities are endless. If you can’t create the costume from your own closet – and we really hope you CAN’T – hit up the thrift store and purchase anything that doesn’t match and looks TERRIBLE. Add a pair of handcuffs, available almost anywhere at this time of year, and you’re done. And remember: we have a special amnesty on Crimes of Fashion on Halloween itself: wear any of your costume items before or after, however, and we just might arrest you…
Are you sick of reading the phrase “It’s almost Halloween!” yet? We are. It’s too bad, though, because we’re going to subject you to it a few more times this week, as we share with you some Halloween Costume ideas which will allow you to express your love of fashion – or your fear of it, if you prefer. After all, what could be scarier than some of the fashion trends we’ve showcased here over the years? We rest our case.
We’re kicking off with our personal favourite: The Fashion Blogger. It’s our favourite because, as fashion bloggers ourselves, let’s just say we didn’t have to look too far for our inspiration here… (Also, and for the avoidance of any doubt, please note that we’re not saying there’s anything wrong with wearing any of these items – well, except maybe the hipster glasses – just that they’re things we associate with fashion bloggers.)
You will need:
1. Hipster glasses. You will find these almost anywhere. If all else fails, head to the supermarket, buy a pair of those non-prescription reading glasses, and poke the lenses out. Remember that when it comes to hipster glasses, “The bigger, the better” should be your maxim.
2. A topknot Take the opposite approach to the hipster glasses: you want the topknot as small and tight as possible for true fashion blogger effect.
3. Macarons They’re the new cupcakes, dontchya know?
4. Fashion blogger clothes We’ve used a pair of trashed cutoffs to illustrate this part of the outfit, but really anything goes. Things you may want to consider include: colorblocking, layering, “arm parties”, Modcloth dresses – let your imagination run wild here.
5. Jeffrey Campbell ‘Lita’ boots If you actually ARE a fashion blogger, you’ll already own these. If you’re not, and you don’t want to buy them (and we don’t blame you: it would be like selling your soul to Satan, wouldn’t it?), any pair of super-clunky shoes will do.
6. Boyfriend-with-a-camera Your BFWAC should photograph you all night. If you can’t find someone willing to do this (and this time we don’t blame THEM), simply set up a tripod and pose in front of it: voila!
7. An iPhone Live-Tweet the entire party. Because it doesn’t count if it’s not recorded on the internet, you know?
Fashion Blogger Behaviour for Added Authenticity:
Just to make your Fashion Blogger Halloween Costume that little bit more realistic, you may want to adopt the following behaviourisms for the duration of your costume party:
1. Adopt a pigeon-toed stance at all times.
2. Tell anyone who will listen that your outfit is “remixed”.
3. And also “thrifted”.
4. Touch your hair, stare at your feet, or stare wistfully into space. Do this aaaaallll night.
These two items only appeared on their respective retailers’ websites after Halloween had been and gone, so either the spooky season is being dragged out for longer than usual this year, or witches, skeletons, and other such ghouls are suddenly the very height of fashion. We’re really not sure which is worse: Halloween lasting until Christmas, or people spending $2,000 on a holiday sweater.
