Fashion Victims of Halloween

Emily Phillips

 'All Hallows Eve', is the night when witches come together, giving licence for modern women everywhere to whore it up. For American starlet Lindsay Lohan (pictured left), this year is no exception. Hollywood's hussy is always ready to pull out the fishnets and garters and get to work … but on the streets of London revellers were out in force in a daring array of frightening outfits. Here is a ghostly guide to what not to wear for Halloween

Under the assumed name of  "fancy dress," all of the worst fashion offenders come out to play …  "school girls",  "nuns",  "cavewomen" … hell just put a wig on with your most unflattering outfit and pretend to be US Playboy model and sometime actress Anna-Nicole Smith. What you choose to wear needn't relate to Halloween, although the prevalence of sexy devils and whorish witches at least allows one to know who is running with the theme and who is just appallingly unstylish.

Centuries ago, the Celts celebrated this day as the start of a long and bitter winter, where the risk of death was high and the dead supposedly roamed the earth. The idea of dressing-up also comes from the Celtic tradition of wearing masks to disguise oneself on this night to be unrecognisable to ghosts.

Nowadays, Halloween is just an excuse to party and look quite stupid. Why can't we channel out energies into looking like US actresses Christina Ricci in Sleepy Hollow or Winona Ryder in The Crucible? Even Sex and the City Tv star, Sarah Jessica Parker, in Hocus Pocus managed to pull off the alluring witch look. As the modern scantily clad she-devils hit the town, they want to show more flesh rather than less. Here's my guide on how to be a chic freak on Halloween:

1. Kick it old school … go for the witch or ghostie look and skip  "disguising" yourself as a Cowgirl/Cleopatra/Nikki from Big Brother. No one will know what you're doing and will just assume that you always wear hide britches/ a badly cut wig/a furrowed cling-on expression and jutting jaw.

2. Be subtly sexy … A skirt short enough to leave your suspenders on full display to the night bus might be your idea of glamour, but instead keep the allure on the smoky edge of mystery. Think dark eyes, a tightly bound corset and long flowing skirt.

3 Float like a ghost … leave the binge drinking stomp behind, glide between the pubs rather than crawl. Do not be photographed with legs akimbo getting out of a cab flashing your wares … Imagine riding a horse side saddle like a female headless horseman when exiting a car, and keep those legs together.

4.Leave the glitzy devil horns at home … If you've honed the pale faced ghoul look to perfection, everyone will realise you're in Halloween mode. Keep the regalia for that hen party you've got lined up, with the red feather boa and thigh high boots. Or, alternatively, Miss Lohan looks like she'd welcome donations to her wardrobe ….