'I went to one of London's biggest costume shops - I still don't get the Halloween hype'
I will start by saying I am not a fan of Halloween. I do not like horror films, I do not like being scared. It's just not for me. However, I am partial to fancy dress, not all the time, but it can be very fun.
Halloween is one of the biggest times to dress up in this country's social calendar. With the celebration (I won't call it a holiday) around the corner, I went down to one of London's biggest costume shops to see what was on trend for this spooky season.
Mad World Fancy Dress and Party Store is not a shop you would easily walk past. It is just off Old Street and, crucially, under the ground so you kind of need to know it is there to find it. Walking in, the entrance is full of fake blood and spider webs.
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Inside there are rows and rows and then some more rows of costumes. It is a crazy sight with over 35,000 costumes to hire from the store. It is a treasure trove for fancy-dress fans and I was a little overwhelmed, I'll admit.
I found one of Mad World's employees, called Eve, and got the lowdown on what to expect for Halloween 2024. We took a stroll through the thousands of costumes and Eve said that the most popular was Regency outfits.
She said that the most wanted outfits usually reflect what people find popular on TV. A British obsession with Netflix's Bridgerton has seen Regency outfits become the most popular of the year. As we spoke, another man walked out of a changing room to show his friend a corset he reckons would be a good fit.
Eve shows me the pre-ordered section waiting for their temporary owners to come and pick them up, and it is full of Regency outfits. This Halloween is set to be a regal one and the main reason for this is because of the versatility of combining outfits. Because Regency is a gown, it frees up your face for other types of costumes, like a zombie, vampire or Frankenstein's Monster. You can look elegant and scary at the same time, in short.
The next most popular outfit that Mad World are seeing this year is Roman Gladiators. Eve says that the ease of those outfits means that many people go for them. The other one like this is the Peaky Blinders outfits. This mixes the two last points together, they are easy to put together and are still popular on TV.
After these three, Eve said that the old classics are also doing well, having seen a few creepy clowns rented out this week, but also 60s disco which seems to be a forever solid costume no matter what the theme of the party is.
I walked around the aisles of the shop in awe of everything that is on offer. Other people zipped in and out too, hunting down their next best get-up. I hoped that looking around the popular outfits would instil a love of what is the biggest fancy dress day of the year, but it cannot. The thought of drunk people spilling out on the streets of London dressed as an 18th-century regal vampire does not get me excited.
I walked through the props section hoping that I can find some inspiration for Halloween in there, but it was a failed venture. The mannequin dressed up as Hannibal Lecter whose eyes followed me as I looked at the props did not help, and neither did the big bloody bag that looked to be full of stuff.
Mad World is an excellent shop for those who love Halloween, that much is clear. The selection is enormous, and I seriously doubt even the most hardened of Halloween'ers would leave disappointed.
Sadly, Halloween is not something I love - and I'm starting to think nothing can change my mind.
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