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My Big Mouth: Halloween is an opportunity to be creative

Summary:

Girls in next-to-nothing and another excuse for shops to flog us products we don’t need. There are lots of reasons to hate 31st October.

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By Hannah Friend

Girls in next-to-nothing, another excuse for shops to flog us products we don’t need and having the door bell rung all night. Some people also believe it is a celebration of the devil. There are a lot of reasons to hate 31st October, and I am certainly not a fan. Nowadays there seems to be no real reason for ‘celebrating’ Halloween.

The first thing I knew about exception to the girl-dress-code rule was from the film Mean Girls (2004) when a teenager, raised in the African bush, moves to public high school. According to her, ‘In the real world, Halloween is when kids dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In girl world, Halloween is the one day a year when a girl can dress up like a total slut and no other girls can say anything else about it.’ Aged 13 at the time, I didn’t take much notice of this. When I went to University I saw it play out in full.

But this year seems to have taken a turn for the better. Many young adults have used it as a way to show their creative side. Meet the people who take Halloween to a whole new level, which doesn’t involve revealing costumes or sweets.

Londoners have raided their dressing up boxes and make up supplies to produce costumes worthy of West End shows.

One London student used the occasion to pursue her interest in beauty and not to attract male attention.

“I personally didn’t dress slutty as I think it draws the wrong attention from people. I’d rather for people to say my make-up or outfit looks amazing, rather than some guy checking out my bum cheeks due to a ridiculously short dress I’m wearing,” said Rushika Perera, student at the University of West London.

“I guess those that dress slutty believe that they cannot be judged, as the whole point of costumes is that you can be whatever you want to be.”

She took inspiration from the character played by Natalie Portman in the Black Swan, and said that most people knew complemented her costume and knew who she was.

Another Halloween goer wanted to avoid attracting the wrong sort of attention and got more creative with her Halloween costume.

“I think it’s good to be different and creative, and I think if people dress as sluts they look like they’re trying too hard to get the wrong kind of attention and just want an excuse to flash,” said Megan Jones, who travelled to London for the night out.

“It’s much better to go scary and actually look like you’re out for Halloween.”

She said that she got more attention from people saying how much they liked her outfit.

To create the look she spent an hour sticking child’s craft sequins and paper to her face with eye-lash glue – which took even longer to take off.

I think it’s great that girls don’t feel the need to reveal-all and enjoyed the occasion fashioning their outfits, instead of getting hooked up.

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