Halloween Fancy Dress

posted on 14 September 2011 | posted in Halloween Fancy Dress


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It's coming up to that time of the year people when teenagers are thinking about their Halloween costumes and what theme to go for this season. Whether it's an organised party or just an event at a pub or club, getting that right outfit is vitally important.
Halloween as to be the most important part of the year for many fancy dress retailers and can often be bigger than the Christmas and New year period. Months of preparation go into getting orders in from stockists and ensuring that you have enough costumes to go around and to see what is trending.
No matter how old you get everyone loves to dress up for Halloween. Every year costumes seem to be getting more and more realistic with some fantastic masks now on the market.

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Why do we celebrate Halloween?

The three days between 31st October and 2nd November see Pagan and Christian celebrations combined in a fascinating way and is a perfect example of superstition struggling with religious belief.

It is believed that Halloween originated as a Pagan Celtic festival of the dead related to the Irish and Scottish Samhain, but there is no evidence that it was connected with the dead in pre-Christian times.

On the evening of the festival, the Druids, who were the priests and teachers of the Celts, created bonfires and burned animals, crops, and possibly even humans as sacrifices. During this celebration, people sometimes wore costumes made of animal heads and skins and sometimes told fortunes about the coming year by examining the remnants of the animals that had been sacrificed.

Then in about 43 A.D., the Romans conquered the Celts and combined two of their autumn festivals with the Celts festival of Samhain. One of the festivals, Feralia, was held in late October to honour the dead. These 2 festivals were then to be known as " All Hallows Eve " (31st October), and " All Saints Day " (1st November).


Why do we have Pumpkins?

Well rumour as it that a carved pumpkin with a candle inside that makes up a lantern came about because it
symbolizes the Stingy Jack of Ireland, hence the term " Jack O" Lantern" . He was known to be a greedy, old farmer. The farmer had once tricked a devil and trapped him. In revenge the devil put a curse on Jack. According to the curse, Jack was condemned to roam on earth at night. Pumpkins are carved into comical or fearful faces and placed at doorsteps of houses in the dark. Originally carved pumpkins were associated with harvest in America. But by the late 19th century, they began to bear an association with Halloween. Black and orange are regarded as the traditional colours of Halloween. Black colour is linked with death, witches, fear and silence while the orange colour is associated with pumpkins, autumn and fire.

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Trick or Treat

The practise of "trick or treating" is now done in many different countries. It is widely believed though that it's origins started in the late 1950's in North America. Large groups of children can be seen dressed in wonderful costumes accompanied by adults going from door to door to ask for treats. The threat of a trick is more often an idle threat and very rarely carried out!
Most homeowners with children often participate and decorate their homes on Halloween night to give the signal that it's good to call. A bowl of sweets and treats is often left behind the door ready to reward the young children for their dressing up efforts. Homes can be seen adorning spiders webs, Jack O" Lanterns (pumpkins), paper skeletons and plastic bats and spiders.

The tradition of trick or treating within the UK can be traced back as far as 1895 in Scotland whereby at Halloween children dressed up carrying lanterns of hollowed out turnips and were to be rewarded with fruit, cakes and money.


Halloween these days as become nearly as commercial as Christmas itself. Weeks before the event shops and supermarkets can be seen with their props and costumes all ready for the big night. A lot of towns even have the best dressed shop window competition and a lot of effort is put into getting the theme spot on!

So now that you know why we celebrate Halloween and how important it is to ensure you get the correct fancy dress outfit for the big occasion, let's get shopping!!!

We have a wide range of Children's Halloween fancy dress outfits, Ladies fancy dress outfits and Men's fancy dress outfits. We have accessories and props also to compliment your costume and also face and body paints to give you that final scary monster look!

Over recent years with the advent of " Twilight " vampires and Dracula costumes have been all the rage. We still have the traditional outfits of fancy dress witches, but people tend to go for something that extra special now. Over the past 2 years one of our best selling products as been the werewolf costumes and masks.
Zombies seem to be on the increase at the moment too.

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Mum's and Dad's don't forget to buy your children's fancy dress costumes early this year instead of leaving it to the last minute and ending up with a costume that your child may be disappointed with!

To see our full Halloween fancy dress range click here.



 
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