Ghostbusters Costumes for Halloween

Apart from The Joker costume, one of the most popular fancy dress costumes for Halloween this year are Ghostbusters Costumes. You can see the increase in traffic in the month of October to the website with the keyword "ghostbuster" in it. See the diagram below:



Ghostbusters Costume as a Halloween Costume?
For me the choice of a Ghostbuster outfit as a fancy dress costume for Halloween is an interesting one. The continued popularity of this now pretty ancient film, shows that a popular theme can have a very long shelf life. Ghosts are a perfect them for Halloween as most of them make pretty scary costumes, but Ghostbusters? Not only do the kill ghosts, but you would in no way call them scary. Perhaps it is the funny Halloween costume theme that is the drawing card here as I have noticed that funny Halloween costumes are becoming more and more popular every year.

If you are interested in wearing a GB costume this Halloween, what versions of the outfit are there?

Adult Ghostbusters Costume
The Official Men's Deluxe Ghostbusters Costume according to the makers is not only an ideal Halloween costume, but also ideal for any 1980's party theme. The costume includes a beige jumpsuit, which fastens at the front by zip and the jumpsuit comes with collar and colour Ghostbusters logo on right upper-sleeve and also above left breast pocket. There are two breast pockets with zips to keep ghost-busting gadgets in! The inflatable proton pack comes with shoulder and waist straps and fasten with plastic buckles. The gun attaches to the backpack via Velcro. For extra value, the proton pack comes with a puncture repair patch in case of emergency.

Child Ghostbusters Costume
The good news is that there is also a children's version of the official Ghostbusters Halloween costume available

Woman's Sexy Ghostbusters Costume
I am pretty sure that this sexy version of the Ghostbusters costume wasn't in the film that I watched back in the 80's but it is nice to have a girls version and could possibly be used as the nicer part in a couples costume for Halloween!

Breasts Sell Fancy Dress Costumes

I think with the title of blog post like this, I will have to explain:

At the top right of the Jokers' Masquerade Halloween Costume website there are 4 teaser icons that they use to highlight a few of their costumes, this year for Halloween, one of the costumes that Jokers' Masquerade wished to promote were the Ghostbusters outfits, one of them being the sexy female version of the costume. As you can seen from the screen grab below, the model's cleavage was used as the part of the costume to highlight it.



When anyone clicks on this icon, it effectively performs a search on the website for "Ghostbusters" which we can track using Google Analytics.

I bet you can't guess when Jokers' Masquerade started using this image by looking at the graph below:



On top of that, the proportion of people clicking this icon is well above any of the other icons next to it and because of this, the sales statistics show, the Ghostbusters Halloween costumes have been one of the top sellers so far this Halloween.

So there you go, I am not commenting, or judging just pointing out the facts, Breasts really do sell fancy dress costumes!

Ooh and if you want to see the icon on the website, pop over to the Jokers' Masquerade Halloween costumes and fancy dress website, but you will have to hurry as I am sure the icon will be removed after Halloween.

Kids Halloween costumes for less than $20/£10

Halloween can be expensive, but that is only if you let it! As it becomes more and more commercialised, so do the Halloween fancy dress costumes. The good news is that with all this competition around, there is plenty of competition and so if you are prepared to shop around you can find many good deals and cheap Halloween costumes. This is all assuming that you are looking to buy and don't want to make your own Halloween costumes.

Even more good news for you is that I have done a little of that research for you and so here are my top Halloween costumes for under $20 or £10 (I also get quite a few people from the UK reading the fancy dress ideas blog)

Child Little Vampire Boy



This vampire costume costs around $15 - $20 (£7 - £10) and as you can see makes a perfect Halloween Costume. There are plenty of Child Vampire costumes at this price range.

For the Girls, I found this Child Witch Costume which should only cost you around $10 (£5) ans so I think is a real bargain.




Many thanks to Jokers' Masquerade Halloween Costumes for the cheap fancy dress ideas from the UK.

Your other alternative would be to make your own Halloween costumes, but be careful as I have found, sometimes buying the materials can cost more than if you were just to buy the Halloween costume in the first place!

So there you go, unless you are looking for deluxe Halloween costumes, there is no need to spend a fortune at Halloween.... save it for Christmas!

Happy Halloween

Halloween Costumes Ideas for Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts... who?
For those of you who don't know, Matt Cutts is a pretty big cheese at Google and as the head of Google's Webspam team, he has plenty to do with search and ranking (SEO) in Google and stuff. Anyway I have been following his blog for quite a while now as it is an excellent source of information on search engine optimisation, good blogging techniques as well being entertaining.

In his latest post, Halloween costume for 2008, Matt asks whether anyone had any ideas for his Halloween Costume this year... I wonder can this blog, Fancy Dress Ideas give him any inspiration?

The Joker Halloween Costume?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Joker costume is one of the best selling costumes so far this Halloween, I feel that it may be a bit too obvious for Matt, what we are looking for is something more niche, something easier to rank for or in this case easier to stand out from the crowd in, rather than blend in with the bunch of other Jokers out there.. something that someone interested in search engines and optimising websites for them might be interested in...

The Jigsaw Puppet perhaps?
I wonder... I don't see Matt as being a very scary character although having never personally met him I could be wrong... I still can't see him in a super scary costume like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th although what about dressing as the Jigsaw Puppet from the SAW. Somehow I do imagine him enjoying those films, which I personally found way too painful to watch! The character whilst being super scary has a somehow comic appeal and I think goes with my impression of how Matt should dress up this Halloween... The films whilst being main stream, do have a sort of cult following to them and as such make you more unique, easier to stand out from the billions of websites.. er I mean Halloween costumes out there!

What about something more niche, but still something with a strong cult following, so there is still plenty of traffic.. er I mean plenty of people who could look at the costume and immediately know who you were dressing up as and you would look ubber cool?

An Orange Clock?
That's it!... What about dressing up as Alex from A Clockwork Orange? I do hope you guys in the US and especially you Matt know the classic film from 1971 based on a novel by by Anthony Burgess that looks at Britain in the future and how a charismatic delinquent Alex DeLarge is jailed and later volunteers for an experimental aversion therapy developed by the government in an effort to solve society's crime problem... but not all goes to plan. His character makes a perfect Halloween costume, he is super cool as well as scary, the film is well known (here in the UK anyway!) and has a cult following. Perfect!





So there you have it, my idea as the perfect costume for Matt Cutts: Alex from A Clockwork Orange, hope you enjoy the read!

Happy Halloween!

Super Hairy Fairy Scary Halloween Costume!

Super Hairy Fairy Scary Halloween Costume!

It is not often that a fairy costume makes it into my top 10 scary Halloween costumes category, but sometimes it is not so much the fancy dress that is scary and more to the person wearing it!

The combination of a bearded man in a fairy costume, you have to agree is pretty scary stuff! I am not sure how well this will go down as an adult mens Halloween costume for the masses, who knows it may just take off this year.. or not!

Anyway, I have dubbed this costume a Super Hairy Fairy Scary Halloween Costume!

Happy Halloween!

Joker costumes popular this Halloween

So far this year, one of the most poplar fancy dress costume for Halloween is the Joker, based on the Heath Ledger's character from the Batman film, The Dark Knight.


Some people have gone as far to wonder if it is a macabre attempt to exploit his death or a way to honour the late great Australian actor? What ever the case according to sales statistics leading up to Halloween the Joker costume has been flying out of the door. There are even some Halloween shops in the US that just can't stock enough of the costumes. Across the pond in the UK, on-line fancy dress companies are also experiencing the massive increase in sales of the costume. "The Joker Costumes are definitely one of our best selling lines this Halloween" This is according a representative of Jokers' Masquerade fancy dress and Halloween costumes in the UK.

Halloween Homemade: Homemade Halloween Costumes

I must confess that I, like everyone else concentrate most of my efforts when thinking of fancy dress ideas towards buying costumes. Hiring a Halloween fancy dress costume seems old hat and well, making your own costume is just plain prehistoric and silly.... or is it? In this article I discover why Halloween Homemade may be the way to go.

One thing that really bugs me about Christmas is just how commercial it has become. In fact it bugs me so much that last year my partner and I decided to skip it altogether and we went traveling in The Gambia where the majority of the population is Muslim and Christmas passed us by almost unnoticed, it was fantastic. Then earlier on in the year we traveled again to the island of Malta, where they are very strong Catholics. It was so refreshing to see how they celebrated Easter in the traditional way. Don't get me wrong, I am not overly religious and I do think that it is great to buy presents for your loved ones over Christmas, I just also feel that the commercialism of it all has just gone too far. It is only the 1st of October and I have already seen the first Christmas advert on the TV!

What saddens me, is that I see Halloween becoming more and more commercial every year. It is just much easier to buy a fancy dress outfit than it is to make one. But think of it this way:

Halloween for teens & Children
If you just buy a Halloween costume for your kids, instead of making a homemade Halloween costume for them, you will be missing out on spending quality time with your children as well as it gives the kids something creative to work with and they can develop some core skills, like sewing, reading and understanding the patterns for the costumes.

Homemade Adult Halloween Costumes
Making your own Halloween costume can be fun as well although I think that most people would probably feel that if they were the only people at a fancy dress party with a homemade Halloween costume they may look "cheap" in some way. so if you are planning on hosting a party - why not insist that everyone makes their own costume? We were at a Safari Lodge on the Hwange National park in Zimbabwe over New Years eve once, this place was really remote and for a bit of fun everyone at the lodge had to come to dinner in fancy dress, making the costume out of anything that you could find in your room. I learn't that you can make so many different costumes from a sheet! It was also an excellent ice breaker as even though we did not know any of the guests, it put us all on a level playing field and we all had an excellent time that night.

So why not get back to basics and try making your own Halloween Homemade with some homemade fancy dress costumes this year!