Let’s face it, nothing says Halloween more than PUMPKIN.

Every supermarket the Party Britain team go into these days there’s a huge pile of them at the door just ready for a scary face to be carved into. But to save you time – and cutting your fingers as you saw away at that tough old pumpkin shell – we’ll give you the means to turn your own head into a pumpkin instead.

Yes, on the Party Britain shelves this month we have none other than at least two fancy dress pumpkin wigs. And boy are they cute.

Take this one for instance. The long carrot-top braids tied with green string look rather fetching, we think. We also love the more round pumpkin wig with a spike on top (just be careful when venturing near supermarkets!).

You could always go the whole hog of course and convert your entire body into a pumpkin. This fab adult fancy dress costume has a rather spectacular orange pumpkin-shaped skirt and puffed sleeves. It looks stunning with orange and black striped tights and black mini top hat. Again, there’s something rather sweet about this little number.

But you’re curious aren’t you? Why pumpkin and Halloween you say? Well… the reasoning goes back to Ireland 200 odd years ago and a stingy old drunk called Jack. He tricked the devil and made him promise not to take his soul. But when Jack died he discovered Heaven didn’t want his soul either because of his lifelong cruelness.

As a result he was forced to wander around in darkness. The devil felt sorry for him though and gave him an ember from the fires of Hell which Jack put into a hollowed out turnip. That became the Jack O’Lantern and the Irish would light a turnip at Hallow’s Eve to ward away the likes of Jack and other evil spirits.

Irish immigrants who moved to America at the beginning of the last century or so realised pumpkins, being bigger, made far better lanterns than turnips. And so the tradition was born!

Here at Party Britain Towers we’re been gearing up for some time now for the biggest event of our year.

Yes, you know exactly what we’re talking about – the night all the ghouls and ghastly gals come a knocking on our doors. We’ve gone
all out this year to find you the scariest costumes ever to line the dusty and dreaded shelves of your top fancy dress emporium.

And there’s quite an array to choose from. One of our favourites has to be the clown range. Traditionally the jokers, these ghastly gents are far from laughter inducing.

Take Bubbles The Clown for instance. Just look at that mask – if you can bring yourself to! Even without the padded muscled top and tattooed arms he’s gonna make any poor passing pedestrians run in the opposite direction. Take note of the bloodied eyeball and mouth.

Not scared yet? Ok then maybe it’s time to take a look at Bubble’s partner in crime Bo Bo. That spiky purple hair and horrid grin is bad enough but add the knife and black gloves and you’re gonna scare yourself when confronted by your reflection.

Bo Bo has a beau too. She has an amazing dress with sticky-out tutu which looks great for a party but with the cleaver and sensationally ripped tights, you know any party she’s attending isn’t for the faint-hearted.

Check out the rest of the callous clown outfits at Party Britain. Just don’t do it with the lights off!

She’s sexy, scary and her blush-inducing Burlesque routines are legendary. And now dear Party Britain blog readers you too can be just like Dita Von Teese… sort of.

We give you Dita Von Death – the sexiest Halloween costume this side of er, Halloween. This gorgeous skeleton-imprinted pink corset and black/pink skirt is enough to make any male shimmy up the nearest pole or pirouette on the spot. But add the miniature top hat, sexy laced arms and three quarter length striped stockings and you’ll have a cardiac on your hands if you’re not careful.

We’re sure the goddess who put the tease back into Striptease would approve. The former Playboy cover girl who was once wed to super-Goth Marilyn Manson, has won numerous awards for dress up and we’d never let her down with anything short of perfection fancy dress costume-wise.

And ladies, don’t worry if you didn’t get in there first. If your friend’s nabbed the Dita von Death costume, don’t worry, – you can match her in the sexy stakes with our sensational Madame Vamp number.

This ensemble is a bit like a naughty Moulin Rouge. Er, what are we saying the classic French show IS naughty. You can make this gorgeous, black, white and red corset and long skirt a tad more gothic with dark eye make-up and a matching red and black gossip choker. Better still, black gloves and a cigarette holder will seal any meandering male’s fate. Just try and be kind to the poor boys.

At Party Britain we’ve possibly got the top range of Zombie costumes in Europe, nay… the world.

And we’re not exaggerating! Click onto our Zombie fancy dress outfit range and take a look for yourself. You’ll be stunned into submission and probably walk around with a strange hypnotic look, maybe holding your arms out rigid in front of you…

Where to start? The range includes an American footballer, convict, school girl, Dr Gore, rocker, ghost pirate, gangster, mummy, and an even scarier punk than usual, to name but a few.

Our own personal favourite is the female black and white striped convict outfit with latex heart. We particularly love the pill box hat and white three-quarter length blood stained stockings.

Next best we reckon is the American Footballer with jagged cut trousers and unlucky number 13 painted on his blood stained tee-shirt. Like the convict fancy dress outfit this comes with a hat too – appropriately a foam number with mouth guard. If you’re going as a twosome this will look great with the Zombie school girl outfit.

Maybe you were more into music at school? Then how about the freaky punk fancy dress costume? This eye-catching number has a leather jacket with a blood dripping and disfigured chest piece. There’s also a very spiky headpiece and studded collar and cuffs. It’s a must for Sex Pistol zombie lovers everywhere.

And talking of zombies we hear Brad Pitt et al have now cleared Glasgow’s streets (which they’d blocked off for a fortnight) to film the post-apocalyptic zombie movie World War Z. The movie, which consisted of bringing around 1200 movie people to Scotland’s biggest city, is based on Max Brooks’ 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War, and is due to be released next year. We’ll be watching out for it with zombie costume in hand. But don’t worry – we’ll give you plenty of dressing up warning in advance.

One of the best-loved children’s story characters – certainly amongst little girls anyway – has to be Tinkerbell.

We all wanted to be her didn’t we? At least we wanted hitched to a wire in the school play and allowed to ‘fly’ about the stage much to the consternation of our parents.

At Party Britain your offspring don’t have to be in the local amateur dramatics group to get to play Tinkerbell. They can do it in their home – or out playing Trick or Treat – with this outfit currently gracing the Party Britain shelves. The lovely layered dress comes with detachable fairy wings and is available in three sizes to fit from age three up to eight.

And if you’ve two little ones, the Tinkerbell outfit goes great with our kids’ Peter Pan Costume. This rather cool little number comes with a leaf sash, peaked cap with red feather and even a mini toy dagger.

Now, who’s gonna go as the Crocodile? ‘Cos we have this great green and yellow zipped jumpsuit with hood which just happens to be adult size…

Check out our shelves at Party Britain and see if we stock your favourite story book characters. If not, let us know and we’ll have a go at sourcing them for you.

All the girls love a sailor they do say.

Well, here at Party Britain we’re pretty certain that all the boys would be pretty keen too – on catching site of this saucy little number.

The World War Two fancy dress costume comes complete with black jacket, white waistcoat (both items are finished with gold buttons), skirt and an ever-so cute hat.

Not only do we offer this prized fancy dress outfit for your consumption, but we can also provide some interesting female naval facts too, for authenticity reasons when you’re questioned on what rank you are in.

For instance, did you know that all women in the British Navy were officially known as wrens (or Jennies as the unofficial term went) until 1993?

They didn’t officially become part of the Royal Navy until 1993 (unless they were a nurse or member of the medical team). In fact their uniform was different too. Wrens had the same rank insignia as their male counterparts but this was in blue rather than gold. And they had diamond shapes above their rank stripes rather than circles.

And, just in case you were wondering, the Chief Commandant of the WRNS was Princess Anne from 1974 to 1993 – at which point she was renamed Chief Commandant for Women, Royal Navy.

Any more female naval questions? Then just send us an email right here at Party Britain and we’ll endeavour to reply. Why, we may even do it in naval uniform such is our delight at this new cozzie that’s just arrived.

Another of the fabby new fancy dress costumes just arrived at Party Britain in time for Halloween.

How do you fancy hitting the High Street dressed as The Nightmare Before Christmas hero Jack Skellington?

The outfit consists of a dapper pin striped suit, a rather fetching ‘bat’ bow tie and the rather strange looking face mask which fingers you as the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town.

Incidentally, did you know that in James and the Giant Peach, Jack appears as the captain, in the pirate scene? Well now you do. If you watch the movie closely you’ll hear the Centipede in James and the Giant Peach, on coming across him, saying: “It’s a Skellington.”

Talking of bizarre creatures, another in our new fab fancy dress costume line up –fresh from the imagination of film director Tim Burton once again – is the officially licensed Beetle Juice outfit. This look-twice number includes black and white striped trousers and jacket, tie, white collar and shirt front.

And, of course, no Beetle Juice outfit is complete without the wig, or even make-up with its water washable white (face) cream, black make-up stick and tooth wax. Just don’t be expecting to pull when you wear this – unless it’s literally something unearthly!

Both fancy dress costumes, together with a number of other officially licensed outfits, can be found on our Party Britain website.

There’s no prizes for guessing the origins of the latest fancy dress costume to hit the Party Britain clothes rails.

Possibly the most famous film character in recent years – well he’s certainly spurred enough sequels, Captain Jack Sparrow is loved rather than loathed – despite his pirate profession.

We have the official Captain’s outfit from Pirates of the Caribbean Stranger Tides. And really it’s all here – not just the shirt, waistcoat, trousers and boot tops but also the bandanna, hair and beads.

And better still, there’s a mini-me Jack Sparrow fancy dress costume too. This comes with a cool skull logo, mock belt and shark and a really cool tricorn hat. We just love the trousers and so will your little ones we suspect.

And just as an aside – did you know there was a real, actual Jack Sparrow who lived around 300 years ago? His name was Bartholomew Roberts and he was a Welshman (well, we didn’t say he was perfect… just kidding!!).

Nicknamed Black Bart because of his jet black hair and dark thunderous eyes, this teetotal pirate terrorised the islands of Barbados and Martinique until he was buried at sea by his men following a battle on the high seas off West Africa, aged 40.

See – and you think you don’t get an education when you visit Party Britain blog!

Can’t find that missing sock? Lost your toothbrush? That packet of Super Noodles in the cupboard mysteriously gone astray?

Well, forget about your flatmates owning up. Instead, be your own detective and track them down yourself. And here at Party Britain we can help you do that thanks to our no-messing Sherlock Holmes fancy dress outfit.

Our long coat – which you can use to cunningly cover a multitude of notebooks and recording equipment – looks dapper lined up the matching waistcoat, shirt and bow tie. And to round it all off there’s the deerstalker hat.

If you want to look even more authentic, although personally we think you’ll have your flatmates rolling around in laughter, er fear, you can purchase an authentic-looking pipe and magnifying glass.

Yes, seems we’ve thought of everything. Now you have to get the old grey matter going yourself and hunt down the culprit. Go back to when you last saw the missing item and who was around at the time.

When interviewing look out for eyes that don’t meet with yours (a sure sign of lying) and hands which can’t sit still (a guilty conscience).

For further tips on detective know-how check out the book Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. The Victorian London detective was famous for his spot-on reasoning and disguises (yes, he too loved to attire himself in the odd fancy dress-up costume).

Maybe find yourself a Dr Watson too. But do stay away from the white powder.

Wow!! We love this new fancy dress costume that’s just sneaked in through the creaky old main door of Party Britain Towers and wandered down the hallowed entrance hall.

Having said that, we wouldn’t like to come face-to-face with her when on our lonesome. Meet Maleficent, the Mistress of All Evil. From Sleeping Beauty, this stunning creature is adorned in a long black and purple number with stunning jaggy batwing sleeves and stand-up collar. The spiky equally-dramatic headpiece is sequenced (er, just in case you thought she wouldn’t be noticed!).

Rub on a spot of face – and neck – paint and this is going to be one very scary lady. In fact, watch there’s no kids around or they won’t be coming back for a while. Hmm, then again…

Still on the scary theme. Another candidate for Halloween would be the adult Tarot Death fancy dress costume. This rather charming gentleman is attired in a long grey robe, hooded mask, skeletal gloves and er, has a rather large tarot card stuck to his front (just in case you forgot who he was). His identity is irrelevant really ‘cos one look at his bony face and you won’t care. He’ll be haunting your nightmares for a long, long time to come.

Both of these new fancy dress outfits have just been placed on the fancy dress popular list so don’t hang around too long if you fancy one. They’re especially fab for Halloween.