Sexy Halloween

Halloween – what is acceptable?

It feels like a questions as old as the inception of Hallow’s eve itself – is it acceptable to use Halloween to dress up in slutty/sexually provactive costumes and what is too much?

On a night based on ghoulish inhibition, those pesky evil creatures transgressing the boundaries of reality, we should expect nothing less than a night full of transgressions, at least in costume. Brilliantly parodied in Mean Girls, we all know the drill, how can you dress as sexy as possible? I’ve heard many a plaintive whine. And this is indeed an opportunity. What for, you decide!

The first time I remember seriously venturing on this Halloween ‘sexy more than scary’ business, I was sixteen and found the shortest red dress as possible in classy Camden Market. In fact, it was more of a red t-shirt with pleats and I paired it with red horns and boots. I had fully entered the traditional Halloween visual currency. The next year someone gave me a French maid’s outfit and I flounced around, naïve to a large extent of the pornographic connotations.

Adolescent halloween outfits

Pet, who is currently working in marketing at House of Beth, describes her first sexy Halloween venture. She was 17 and dressed as a lumberjack with hot pants, a gingham plaid top low buttoned with a bra showing.

“Would you dress like that now?”

“No, never in a million years” she quickly replies.

“Why do you think you did dress like that?”

“Because it felt sexy. I didn’t feel slutty, I felt sexy. That is the difference.”

Indeed, that does make all the difference. While clearly there is a link between adolescence and using Halloween to dress as provocatively as possible, the intention of the dresser is sometimes more interesting than the what they end up with.

The key to Halloween, whether sexually provocative or not, is to dress with imagination. So even if you are dressing as a ‘sexy witch’ or a ‘sexy cat’ this Halloween, I urge you to let your imagination run wild on how to achieve this phenomenon. Meanwhile I like to think I have left my adolescent Halloween outfits behind in my latest creations. I have been a dead venetian courtesan and Mrs Havisham and this year – Bess the black-eyed daughter from the ‘Highwayman.’

So if you do create anything particularly fabulous, tweet us some pictures! We’d love to see @house_of_beth

Rosalind Kendal