It’s October, which can mean only one thing … Halloween! At AbFab we love Halloween - fancy dress is our life blood and we love helping our customers to have the best Halloween parties ever by providing ideas, costumes and just great fun.

Trick or Treat is always a laugh but dressing up to welcome those little trick or treaters is an art in itself. A costume that’s too terrifying can simply cause your house to get blacklisted on the trick or treat routes - we know somebody who managed to be such a convincing witch that she had to apologise at the school gates the following Monday. Apparently she’d caused a weekend of nightmares for the kiddies who’d come to her front door. Bet she wasn’t first choice for the PTA after that!

So a costume to welcome Trick or Treaters should be fun rather than frightening - over the years we’ve learned that witches, vampires and  devils are less frightening than zombies and skeletons, so if you don’t want people to run screaming when you open the door, choose accordingly!

Of course then there’s your own costume for your grown up fancy dress party and we’ve seen a real change in halloween fashion in recent years. Whilst it used to be that ‘anything goes’ these days we see many more themed Halloween parties. Popular ideas are ‘Day of the Dead’ which often has a Mexican vibe and lots of tequila, and ‘Wild Halloween’ which combines either Wild West or animal themes, so it’s good to be clear which you’re aiming for. One of our best sellers for the Wild Halloween costume is these stunning Gothic butterfly wings - they are both stunning and easy to wear. Butterfly fancy dress is always popular for the ladies, and there’s no reason not to enjoy it at halloween too.

If you’re catering an adult party, don’t forget the dry ice and some spooky cocktail colours using unusual liqueurs - blue curaçao works well, as does chartreuse for a moody green and Parfait Amour for a beautiful mauve that harmonises with our goth wings!