A 2022 Guide to Halloween

Photo Courtesy of: Adya Chetiya

As darkness falls across the land and the midnight hour is close at hand, one tends to keep an eye out for Halloween beforehand. With the 31st of October approaching, it’s natural to see people meticulously curating their plans or making some last minute. We only spend a few years of our lives as university students so it’s understandable to not want a single opportunity wasted. Fear not, here’s a guide aimed at UCL students on how best to prowl around London at night.

Costumes:

Traditional easy-to-put-together costumes include wearing black clothing with accessories. So, this could be a dress with a masquerade mask or a suit with blood on your face like Count Dracula. If you want to go for something funny, Amazon has cheap costumes of food, dinosaurs, or inanimate objects. 

Current clothing trends also make it possible to create iconic ’90s characters with items already in your wardrobe. Plaid blazers and skirts can be used to dress up as Cher Horowitz or Blair Waldorf. If you’d like to stay in the present, 2022 is a year of iconic pop culture moments like Alice Chambers from Don’t Worry Darling, Ms. Marvel, Elvis and Priscilla Presley, Maverick from Top Gun and more that you can reference. For a timeless look, a flapper dress will transform you into Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby while a petticoat can be dressed up in a Moulin Rouge-esque style or down to emulate Black Swan.

A fun challenge for you and your friends could be dressing up as each other and getting everyone to guess whom they've picked. Group costumes are easy to coordinate if chosen well. Shows like Stranger Things and Euphoria have branded each character to a certain aesthetic, some pieces of which are bound to be in your closet.

 Now that you’re ready for Halloween, here are some things to do:

House party: A couple of spider webs, candles, trash bags, glow-in-the-dark skeletons or writing, or old dolls (all affordable) will transform your place into a Haunted House. Carving pumpkins are around a pound in Lidl so everyone could buy one and engage in a pumpkin carving contest. Spotify has a Halloween Party playlist which is a perfect soundtrack to the event.

Walking tour: Strawberry Tours runs a free ghost tour that visits landmarks like the West End, St. James’ Palace, and the riverside to explore their ghostly past. Running 1.5 hours, this highly reviewed tour is a perfect way for students to see London from a new angle.

Neighborhoods to visit: Highgate is home to a historic pub called ‘The Flask’ which is haunted by a Spanish barmaid and a man in a cavalier’s uniform. Similarly, ‘The Ten Balls’ in Spitalfields (originally called Jack the Ripper) has echoes of its shadowy past.  On a more outdoorsy note, The Spriggan on Parkland Walk peers at you in an abandoned railway line that runs between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace.

Happy Haunting! And I hope everyone makes it to November after the happenings of the night.