‘It’s the last Halloween of my 30s and I want to show off my bod’: your favourite DIY costumes

For every Halloween party I went to as a child, my mum made me the same costume: bin-bag bat. Black base layer, fangs drawn on with eyeliner, and wings cut out of bin bags and attached to the sleeves. Surprisingly effective, cheap and with a five-minute assembly time (particularly helpful as I was the youngest of four), the costume became such a habit that I’ve fallen back on it many times in adulthood too; my friends even dressed up as a colony of bin-bag bats for my hen party.

Given the Halloween “season” seems to swell every year like an overgrown gourd (a house on my school run is already covered with fake cobwebs), I asked colleagues, friends and readers about their own DIY costume ideas.

Mummy’s on a roll …

“When we were kids we sometimes wore our ballet outfits and then drew ‘scary’ makeup to look like broken ballerinas – ‘cracks’ drawn with eyebrow pencil, bright red lipstick,” says the Filter’s audience editor Ella Jinadu. “These days, I think wearing an LED face mask without the light turned on would be pretty terrifying.”

One anonymous reader says a ninja is a great idea for kids if you’re pressed for time: “You just need a black turtleneck, an oversized black T-shirt cinched with a belt and a sword – my son made one out of cardboard.” Otherwise, a KPop Demon Hunters look can be “quickly achieved with purple hairspray”. Though for reader Harriet, it’s all about the loo-roll mummy – a classic for a reason: “Budget, and lots of fun.”

“In my opinion, an adult Halloween costume has to be homemade (no next-day Amazon deliveries) and scary (sexy nurse is not allowed),” says reader Marie. She recommends her “head on a platter” look using a foil plate around the neck and a large cardboard box “table” to pop your head through (alternatively, try this brilliant costume hack spotted on Instagram using a backpack, stuffed tights and some old cardboard boxes).

Costume drama

Others told me they’re planning a look that taps into the zeitgeist. “It’s the last Halloween of my 30s, and I want to show off my bod,” my friend Nick told me, “so I’m going as Sydney Sweeney in her controversial sports gambling advert. I’m going to wear nude underwear, cut a football in half to put across my chest, have a tennis racket on my back and wear a wig, of course.” Meanwhile, for the thinking woman’s Halloween costume, reader Margaret is planning to go as a Freudian slip, wearing a slip dress with ego, id and preconscious written across it.

And because a dog Halloween outfit is nearly always a good idea, reader Leslie thinks this could be the year she finally makes a spider costume for her rescue terrier, Queenie. See the viral mutant giant spider dog video for more details. Something spooky this way runs.