At Chelsea Reference Library we are in need of some last minute Halloween costume inspiration. Here are a few ideas that we have found in our amazing Fashion & Costume collection in case you are in the same boat!
In a book about costume design in the movies we found these great images from Beetlejuice:

In Costume Design by Deborah Nadoolman Landis
We also had a look in our Vogue archives for inspiration from the 70’s. How about something like this glam outfit?

Or back in the 1957, this great 50’s outfit appeared on October’s Vogue cover:

Or you can’t go wrong with an aloha shirt, and we have a book full of them to look at for inspiration, along with some interesting history of the Hawaiian shirt:

The Aloha Shirt by Dale Hope and Gregory Tozian
Here is a great image of the Gothic & Lolita fashion movement in Japan taken around Haloween:

In Gothic & Lolita by Masayuki Yoshinaga and Katuhiku Ishikawa, Phaidon Press
Speaking of which, we have a talk coming up at Chelsea Library entitled Alice and the pirates: Alice in Wonderland and the dark and the cute in Japanese Fashion. Josephine Rout from the V&A will be looking at how Alice has influenced Japanese sub-culture, and especially the iconic ‘Lolita look’ which developed in Japan in the 1980s.
The talk will be on Thursday 19 November, 6pm to 7.30pm at Chelsea Library.
Make sure that you come along!
Mario Testino captured a great anarchic look for Vogue in 2006 to take dressing up inspiration from!

And if you have a pet, how about getting them dressed up for Haloween? We enjoyed looking through a book that we found of different outfits for your dog:

Dog Fashion by Susie Green