Halloween is one of my favourite times of the year. I love autumn anyway: the colours, leaves, bonfire night, soups, warm clothes… So, I figured that now I have a retro and vintage blog, I should have a suitable vintage Halloweeny post. Hence the updated header for a limited time only!

I’m heading out tomorrow night to Zombie Pride with my friends. Obviously, the theme is zombies, but we’ve decided to go as an 80s wedding party (keeping the retro spirit alive at the same time…). I ventured into Manchester today to look for my outfit as chief bridesmaid to the bride.  I was having serious trouble in finding anything, but fortunately was saved by Ryan Vintage. It’s not quite a bridesmaid dress, but it is 80s, it is velvet, it is red and it does look quite good, if I do say so myself! I’m sure there will be pictures coming up soon once the event is over. I’m thinking we could recreate some 80s wedding album photos, before and after the zombie attack!

Anyway, one of my other errands today was to source some horror DVDs for the weekend for myself and Aidan to enjoy.  He is running the very aptly named Hellrunner on Sunday (a gruelling half-marathon through mud, bogs and woods), so we’re planning to take it quite easy on Saturday. The plan is to go to a castle in the afternoon and then watch a scary DVD on saturday night. I bought two: ‘It’ and ‘The Eye’.  ‘IT’ continues the 80s horror theme nicely I feel…

While I was in the queue at HMV, I spotted a book all about vintage Halloween adverts and pictures. I very nearly bought it; it was a very beautiful and appealing little book, and I am a book lover after all… However, reason took over and I realised I could just look on the internet instead. Which I did.  And I found some beautifully vintage and Halloweeny pics which I couldn’t resist sharing…

I actually would love to make some costumes such as those in these pictures.  The dress at the top of this post is gorgeous – look at the little pumpkin detail! I think next year I might push to have a vintage Halloween party…

Bat girl, perhaps?

Have you seen her owl headdress? And the woman in the first illustration, she’s got a very similar one. I wonder if that was a trend in a certain era? If ever that was an inspiration for a costume…

Pumpkins seem to be a bit of a theme from the Victorian era cartoons:

Actually, they seem to be a theme through the decades:

I don’t really understand the significance of the hot air balloon in this one, but I like it all the same:

Owls (yay!) seem to be a theme as well:

There’s a folk tale behind the use of a pumpkin, or Jack o’ Lantern here if you’re interested.  I have my own folk tale of pumpkins, involving making soup, leaving the stringy bits in it and poorly tummies, but Aidan wouldn’t be too happy if I told you about that one here…

One of my boyfriend’s favourite films is ‘The Wicker Man’ and no doubt we will be watching it at some point again this year. It’s the perfect retro Halloween film: remote Scottish island, 1970s, Lord Summerisle, crafty looking people, pagan rituals, giant wicker offering… it’s got everything really. Don’t bother with the recent Hollywood remake though: like everything, the original is best.

I randomly found the following picture when I searched for ‘The Wicker Man’. Seems to fit nicely with the theme…

And here is Lord Summerisle himself; that bastion of retro horror – Christophere Lee. 

Note the yellow poloneck – now if that isn’t retro, I don’t know what is…

Happy Halloween everybody!