Back in the day, if you were lucky enough your family let you celebrate what they believed was the “devil’s holiday”, you’d scavenge through the closets at home, dig out a bedsheet, cut some holes as eyes, and call it a day. A one-time attempt to dress up as a “mummy” using toilet paper – unsurprisingly, didn’t take long to start unravelling (the heat and sweat may have had a role to play in that). Nowadays, that kind of amateur hour just won’t cut it.
Strangely, this year Bollywood and local celebrities seemed unusually quiet on the Halloween front. In recent years, we’ve had VJ Anoushey Ashraf’s Wednesday Addams getup. Hania Aamir’s ever adorable teddy bear suit. Last year, Alizeh Shah stood out as one of the few local celebs to don a Halloween costume with her cyberpunk-inspired look: blonde wig, pink high-heeled boots, and a Marilyn Monroe graphic hoodie.
In Bollywood, Ananya Panday dressed up as her all-time favourite character, Poo from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, in 2022, rocking a baby pink crop top and nude faux leather mini skirt. Meanwhile, Janhvi Kapoor went goth in an off-shoulder black dress, with kohled eyes and a plum lip, embodying Morticia Addams in all her glory. Then there was Shanaya Kapoor, looking every bit the princess from The Princess Diaries, capturing the royalty-meets-Y2K vibes of the early 2000s.
Ghouls to glamorous
Long before celebs started donning extravagant costumes for Instagram, Halloween costumes were a different beast altogether. Back in the early 1900s, people in rural America dressed to genuinely terrify – think grim skull masks and ghoulish figures, channelling the holiday’s pagan roots of warding off evil spirits and its Christian undertones of reconciling with death. But when Halloween crossed the pond to America in the 18th century, it didn’t take long for it to evolve into an elaborate celebration. By the 1920s and `30s, the holiday had become popular in the States, with masquerades, costumes, and décor.
These days, Halloween isn’t just a time for A-listers to don costumes; it’s practically an art form, complete with photoshoots, lighting setups, and – I wouldn’t be surprised – entire production crews. Forget the flimsy masks and last-minute hot glue jobs the rest of us know too well – Hollywood’s Halloween is an extravagant parade of pop culture tributes with costumes that often have more resources behind them than some indie films.
If there’s anyone out there who’s a Halloween maximalist, it’s Heidi Klum. For the 23rd edition of her legendary Halloween bash, she went extraterrestrial, dressing as E.T., the beloved alien from Spielberg’s 1982 classic. Klum’s costume even featured the character’s signature glowing finger, along with a wig that matched her own golden locks. Apparently, aliens come in chic.
Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia Dimoldenberg reached all the way back to the Disney/Pixar vault for a costume that had us chuckling in recognition. She dressed as Roz, the grumpy, slug-like monster from Monsters, Inc. And then there’s Lizzo, who deserves a special mention for doubling down on her costume’s message. Dressed as Ozempic, a weight loss drug, she cleverly referenced online chatter speculating about her recent weight loss. She also dressed up as a “face card” for her second look, commenting on the theory of how attractive people can get whatever they want.
Paris Hilton also turned back the clock, donning Uma Thurman’s iconic Mia Wallace look from Pulp Fiction. Then there’s Ed Sheeran, whose costume was all about irony. Sheeran dressed up as an AI-generated meme of himself in a monkey costume and posted a picture holding a phone with the original meme for comparison. “Haters will say it’s AI,” he captioned the photo.
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