Rosemarys Baby Mia Farrow

Frightful fancy dress // Classic horror film inspiration for haute Halloween style

With Halloween creeping up malevolently behind us it’s time to STEP AWAY FROM ALL THE SKELETON STUFF IN TOPSHOP and decide how we are going to look fashionably terrifying for this year’s fright fest.

First rule: you have to go as something associated with horror, not as a plug socket, if you wanna keep things old skool.

Cast your eyes over the below classic horror flicks for inspiration and seal your sartorial fate accordingly…

Rosemary’s Baby

Mia Farrow as Rosemary played our fashionable heroine used and abused by her husband, weirdo neighbors and occult-preoccupied doctors in this Polanski horror.

She floats about in Breton stripes, tiny shift dresses and dodgy nightwear growing justifiably paranoid that all is not well in prenatal paradise. Rosemary’s hair becomes a talking point when she visits Vidal Sassoon halfway through the flick and comes home with a tiny elfin crop.

Rosemarys Baby Mia Farrow

The look

Hair being the crucial element, a crop is essential (perhaps try a wig though, duh – this is a BIG commitment for one night). Add a blue polyester nightdress as worn in the final scenes. Sexy.

The Craft

The coolest, most badass coven to hit high school. Four frenemies change their hair colour in an instant, magic up horrifying hallucinations and one of them ends up certifiably bonkers. Essentially, a thrill a second with more goth fash-bombs than you can cast a spell at.

The Craft

The look

Nancy on a magic trip. Short skirts, white shirts, long socks, chokers and eyeliner. Crazed/terrified expression.

The Hunger

This film was cited as a reference for Dior’s slick SS13 suiting, don’t pain yourself with watching the whole thing though (the ending doesn’t make sense but the opening Bauhaus credits are epic).

Key moments are when Susan Sarandon starts craving blood whilst wearing a metallic burberry-esque trench and Bowie ages rapidly in some stylish headgear.

The Hunger

The look

Elegant 80s bloodsucker (the Grace Jones film ‘Vamp’ is also fab for this). Think red lips, sharp teeth, lots of black and LOTS of hairspray.

The Birds

Hitchcock heroines are great fancy dress fodder. Girly victims rather than evil perpetrators, Tippi Hedren in the Birds is the standout.

The Birds

The look

Shift dresses, pencil skirts, matching jackets, coiffed blonde hair with surreptitiously placed feathers.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Ol’ Leatherface didn’t technically have his finger on the (cold) fashion pulse but seeing as leather is so HUGE for AW12 he gets an honorable mention.

Try a leather boiler suit or pinafore apron styles over boyish shirting and voila! There you have one crazy-ass butcher.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The look

An additional mouth mask will freak everyone out. Add copious amounts of fake blood. Granted, you won’t look as hot as your friend dressed as Grace Jones but as everyone knows, looking too sexy is technically cheating.

Happy haunting day, kids!

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