19 costumes you should consider for Halloween 2024

It’s finally Halloween month. You know what that means? Time to start wracking your brain to come up with the most original costume out of your friend group. Gone are the days of traditional ghoul and ghost get-ups. In 2024, Halloween is a prized opportunity to flex your cultural clout by dressing as the most obscure reference to pop culture you can think of. Last year, we had bed bugs, Barbie and, erm, King Charles III’s fingers. This year? Expect everything from new Roald Dahl characters to deceased footwear. 

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We’ve collated a list of everything you should consider dressing up as this year – from the abstract to the glaringly obvious, from the scary to the oh-so-cute. Here are the best Halloween costumes for 2024.

Brat brain rot 

Messy, sexy and endlessly chaotic, Charli XCX’s slime green album ‘Brat’ was everywhere this summer – even Kamala Harris referenced it in her presidential campaign. ‘That’s so brat,’ ‘they say we’re alike, they say we got the same hair’, ‘bumpin that’, ‘so Julia!’: our brains have been so programmed to think in bratty lyrics and Charli interview sound bites, it’s no wonder our sense of selves have started to eerily decompose.

Wear this: Charli XCX merch, a little white strappy top (no bra), BIC lighter, tangiable ditziness.

Bloody cavalry horse on the loose 

Back in April, five horses escaped from the Household Cavalry’s daily morning exercise on Horseguards Parade and rampaged through central London, injuring five people. Blood was everywhere, making it genuinely apocalyptic and also perfect for Halloween.

Wear this: Fake blood and horse mask head. Use horsegiirL’s ‘My Barn My Rules’ as your walk on song.

Fully Conscious Baby

‘Who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?’

‘Meee!’

A baby went viral on TikTok earlier this year when it gave the affirmative after being asked if it wanted to go to Four Seasons Orlando. The clip gained millions of views and launched thousands of memes. Proper heartwarming stuff. 

Wear this: Nappy and can-do attitude. 

Exhausted Taylor Swift fan

There was no rest for Tay Tay or her long-suffering fans this year. Swifties had to toil through three-hour-long concerts, arthritis-inducing bracelet-making workshops and endless new drops of her latest album. Let’s pray they get to rest soon.

Wear this: Threadbare Eras Tour merch, arm full of bracelets, visible dark eye bags. 

Dynamic ticket pricing

Fans weren’t happy when tickets went on sale for the Oasis reunion UK tour and they were faced with the scariest villian of them all: dynamic ticket pricing. It meant that some keen beans shelled out frankly terrifying amounts of money for very average seats. (Luckily enough for the US, the Gallagher brothers decided to ditch dynamic pricing for their dates across the pond.) 

Wear this: This is more of an abstract one, so bear with us. Buy one of those paper windmill toys and asssemble it to a headpiece of your choice (this will represent the loading webpage). Print out your choice of ticketing company logo and tape to a shirt. Carry stacks of Monopoly money as a prop. Bosh. 

Keir Starmer’s new cat (but sexy)

In case you didn’t know, Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has a new Siberian kitten. It’s named Prince and living in Downing Street and is by far the building’s cutest resident (sorry Larry). Everyone loves an easy, sultry cat outfit for Halloween – they’ve long been the animal most closely associated with witches, after all – so why not make yours ever so slightly political?

Wear this: Cat ears, tights, mittens and tail. Bonus points if you need a group costume: grab two other friends to go as the Starmers’ other cat, Jojo, or Larry, No. 10’s veteran feline. 

Completed Old Street roundabout

It only took £132 million, 12 years and a tonne of travel disruption, but finally building work on the Old Street station roundabout has been completed. The result? A grey trapezium with a lacklustre patch of grass plonked on its roof. The Guardian dubbed it a ‘grim £132m ‘‘abomination’’’, writing: ‘there are no throbbing digital spheres, no hovering haloes and no multistorey maker-spaces in sight.’ Architectural brilliance or underwhelming construction flop? You decide.  

Wear this: Green furry hat and a roadworks sign T-shirt.

Dead smoking area

In case you missed the memo, there’s a chance smoking could be banned in pub gardens and outdoor restaurants. Sad news for smokers, scary news for those of us who use smoking areas to flirt, probably good news for the general health of the country. 

Wear this: ‘No smoking’ sign T-shirt. Fake blood. Optional snus as prop. 

Jojo Siwa’s rebrand 

Our favourite Dance Moms kid-turned-pop star JoJo Siwa is all grown up. She launched her new single, ‘Karma’, this year with a fairly intense rebrand. Some people were not super keen, but her Mighty Hoopla performance showed who’s boss, however: iconic, frightening stuff. 

Wear this: Intense goth eye makeup, bedazzled rainbow catsuit, hair styled in space buns. 

London phone service 

Because it’s really just shit these days, isn’t it? Experts say it’s because our 5G data infrastructure needs updating. Not ideal when you’re in a rush to book your Lime bike after a bad Hinge date. 

Wear this: We’re a bit stuck here. This could be a good one for a party you really don’t want to go to.

Dead Adidas Samba 

Sambas’ cool credentials were already in decline this year after the classic shoe became painfully ‘normie’, but the final nail in the coffin was when former PM Rishi Sunak donned a box-fresh pair of the white trainers. In his desperate attempt to appear down with the kids, he upset sneakerheads so much he subsequently issued a formal apology to all Samba wearers. 

Wear this: Sambas (obvs), three-stripe tracksuit, lots of fake blood. 

East London natural wine bar 

You know what else is frightening? The number of natty wine bars and small plates restaurants in east London these days (and the amount of hyperlocal memes they inspire). They are nice though, we’ll give them that.

Wear this: Carhartt shacket, Real Housewives of Clapton merch, Wales Bonner Adidas Sambas. Props? Lime bike and bottle of Chin Chin. Hell, you might not even need to dress up!

Clapham run club member

Haven’t you heard? Run clubs are the new dating apps. This year London was taken over by hoards of jogging enthusiasts faster than you could finish the Hackney Half. As soon as we entered 2024, seemingly everyone was running: jogging at night, sprinting for pastries, dashing to get pints. We’re not saying running clubs are bad, by any means – frankly, it’s just frightening how quickly they were everywhere, especially south of the river.

Wear this: Garmin watch, running trainers, running vest, large croissant and too many gels. 

Sad box room sublet for £1000 per month

London’s rental crisis is frightening stuff, and it’s making Londoners reach deranged heights when it comes to housing, like subletting their teeny tiny rooms in Zone 3 for a grand a month. We’re starting to think that ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ was written about the capital’s rental market. 

Wear this: Cardboard box with holes for arms and printed-out SpareRoom ad stuck on the front.

The Unknown 

‘What is that? It’s the Unknown!’ Glasgow’s failed Willy Wonka immersive experience very nearly broke the internet this year. The event, which left children in tears and was cancelled after just one day, was so bad that families called the police to complain about spending up to £35 per ticket. One of the major characters in the experience was ‘The Unknown’: a creepy, jolty, masked character. Incredibly appropriate for Halloween. 

Wear this: Silver mask, black hair wig, black cloak. For a group costume, grab a couple of friends to go as disgruntled Oompa Loompas.

Dead Pret subscription 

Caffeine-addicts were left reeling when Pret called last orders on its five-a-day coffee Club Pret subscription earlier this year. How would Londoners get their ‘free’ coffees now? 

Wear this: A vest made from old Pret coffee cups (unless you’re one of those people who still uses re-usable cups, in which case, we applaud you and suggest you try one of the other costumes).

A 31-year-old graphic designer (male) at The Devonshire drinking a cheeky Guinness

Esquire recently named The Devonshire the ‘buzziest pub in the world’. The Soho boozer, AKA The Dev, is near impossible to get a seat at after midday. But, if you do get in, you’ll almost definitely find one brand of Londoner haunting its bar. Don’t forget to split the G. 

Wear this: Silly little cap and a crossbody bag. Empty pint glass. Look of disappointment.

Queue for NYC Downlow at Glastonbury 

If you went to Glastonbury this year, you might well have noticed the nightlife was a bit busier than normal – especially, it seemed, at Block9’s excellent queer club, NYC Downlow. The queue to get in: not so excellent. Scarily long, even. 

Wear this: A stick-on moustache (IYKYK), bum bag (with poppers inside) and body harness. 

Man in finance

When Megan Boni shared a clip on TikTok of her singing the satirical song ‘Looking for a Man in Finance’, she probably didn’t think it would have the impact it did. With the loop lyrics ‘I’m looking for a man in finance, with a trust fund, 6’ 5’’, blue eyes,’ it went viral, and has since been played in DJ sets and at corporate work summer parties worldwide. Boni even signed a label deal with Capitol/Polydor/Virgin Germany.

Wear this: Blue contact lenses, padded gilet over a white shirt, black shoes, copy of the Financial Times. Probably stilts of some kind.