Two-thirds of us are planning to celebrate Halloween this year, with analysts Planet Retail expecting the occasion to trigger a £330m American-style spending boost for the UK economy.
Costume sales alone are expected to reach £148m, with one in four of us intending to give the mirror (at least) a fright on 31 October. You could, of course, make your own – no-one ever went wrong with an old sheet – but if you’d prefer to get something off the peg here are some ideas. With the typical Halloween-reveller still only willing to part with just £10.77, on average, to mark the occasion, where can you find the best Halloween costumes for a tenner or less? And, at the other extreme, what’s the maximum you could spend dressing up, if money were no object?
We went shopping to find out.
Kids’ costumes
If you don’t want to spend more than a tenner on your child’s costume, Asda offers the biggest choice of the major supermarkets, with 43 Halloween-themed outfits on offer within your price range. They include traditional monsters, skeletons and pumpkins but also a more unusual six-legged spider outfit (£8, fits 1-4 year olds), a pretty ghost tutu dress (£8, 1-4 year olds) and a winged witch’s costume with a light-up cobweb skirt (£10, 3-8 year olds).
If your child would like to wear a mask, opt for Matalan. It is selling 16 children’s outfits for £10 or less, most of which include a mask or hair accessory – the Mummy onesie for six to 13 year-olds, complete with bandaged face mask, is the most original and costs exactly £10.
Meanwhile, at Morrisons, you can pick up a cat witch dress and hat for just £5, while at Clintons, a pirate skeleton outfit for seven to eight year-old boys is half-price at £4. Aldi is also offering traditional witch, spider and skeleton outfits for £3.99.
Overall, the cheapest children’s outfit we could find was at Poundland, where you can buy a pumpkin poncho for just £1, in small or medium sizes.
Or you could blow your budget and … pop over to Knightsbridge, where Harrods is selling a snow queen dress, scattered with Swarovski crystals and white fur, for £349. It’s suitable for girls aged four to nine years old. Alternatively, for a similar age range, there’s a £180 bad fairy outfit with a couture feathered collar from La Pitchoune.
Adult costumes
Again the supermarkets might offer a solution to your costume needs. Asda’s range for women will help you dress like a skeleton or an enchantress for the sum of £10, while at Aldi a vampire dress will set you back £7.99.
For men or women, findmeagift.co.uk is selling an instant skeleton kit for £6.99. All you need to do to start scaring the neighbours is to dress in black, slip on the skeleton gloves and pull on the hooded mask. For men, Asda is selling a Grim Reaper outfit for £10.
If none of those appeal, you can accessorise your own creations cheaply on the high street. Poundland has green wigs, witches’ hats, neon tights, “horror necklaces” and bloody aprons. A headband with a lace veil for £6, from Tesco, is perfect for accessorising homemade ghost or witch’s outfit, or splash out on a £10 pair of inflatable bat wings from Asda.
Blow your budget and … order a bespoke outfit from Chivaree Circus costume designers. Prices range from £300 to £100,000 – however, an evil queen costume made to measure would only cost you £850 (including a wig featuring feathers from magpie wings and peacocks). Or spend £413 on an officially licenced Star Wars Chewbacca costume from Jokers’ Masquerade, hand sewn with multi-coloured long-haired fur.
Dog costumes
One in 10 dog owners bought their pets a Halloween outfit last year, spending £10 on average, according to a survey of 1,200 dog owners by Saga Pet Insurance. So perhaps it’s not surprising that you are spoiled for choice if you want to make your four-legged friend frightful. You can pick up dog skeleton and devil costumes for a fiver from Morrisons, while Asda will transform your pup into a Frankenstein’s monster or blood-sucking vampire for £4. Online, Peacocks is selling a pumpkin dog coat for £4.80 or, for £6, you can buy your pet a flashing LED witch’s hat from Fetch.co.uk - it’s “the perfect way to let your dog join in during trick or treat” the site says.
Blow your budget and … pay £24.50 for a wizard’s outfit from Astar Pets.
Make-up and accessories
Major retailers like Poundland, Asda and Sainsbury’s are all selling fake blood and Halloween make-up kits for £1. Other useful Halloween accessories for under a tenner include a stitch face tattoo (£3, from Asda), glow in the dark fingers (£1, from Sainsbury’s) and adhesive Frankenstein’s monster neck bolts (£9.99, from Tesco).
Blow your budget and … buy a werewolf mask from Fishpond.co.uk for £109.
