Hollywood Halloween

Posted by Helen Whitaker at 15:43 on 5 Nov 2009

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If there's one thing Americans love, it's Halloween. And in the interests of getting into the spooky spirit, the Brits here in LA have jumped right on the bandwagon. So I was very impressed with the party I went to on Saturday night in Venice Beach (held by one Brit, one Canadian, one New Zealander and an American). The house was decked out with gravestones, spiderwebs, sinister photos of clowns, mini-cauldrons of vodka jelly and (randomly) a bed covered in black silk sheets. In England it's perfectly acceptable to go to a party wearing a token witch's hat or some smoky eye make-up but over here you stand out more if you don't make the effort than if you go completely OTT. Which is why the costumes in fancy dress shops can cost hundreds of dollars (for a Where the Wild Things Are outfit). Believe it or not, some people actually pay that. However, my very resourceful and creative friends had smaller budgets but equally as brilliant outfits.

Hence, I had a cracking night with party-goers covered in ultra-convincing yet totally fake gunshot wounds, a superb (female) Russell Brand, several vampires, an uber-glamorous Marilyn Monroe, a Ghostbuster, a retro Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World, and even a comedy chicken. This is me in full Charlie Chaplin regalia (OK, so maybe leopard print ballet flats are less than authentic, but the rest was pretty good!) with my friends Ellie (Marilyn) and Ros (Supergirl) and when our cab didn't arrive later that night, the bed came in very handy for me and Supergirl to stay over. Although the down side of fancy dress is that there's no hiding the fact that you've been out all night when you're wearing a Charlie Chaplin ‘tache or super-hero cape. Thank God no one travels on foot in LA, as that's one walk of shame we managed to give a swerve.

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