10 iconic Halloween costume ideas that will never get old

From couples costumes to something scary for the kids, we’ve got you covered when it comes to finding a Halloween costume for your NZ bash.

First on our list of classic Halloween costumes: Dracula. He’s dead, sleeps in a coffin and sucks blood to stay alive, do we need to say more? This dude is the OG creep.

The good news is, you can pull together a cheap dracula costume easily with items you can buy on Trade Me. All you need is a set of vampire fangs, some fake blood capsules a white button-up shirt and a black cape, and you’re all set to hang (upside down) with your spooky mates.

Now, there are two approaches you can take here.

If you want to get all professional about it, you can buy a readymade mummy costume on Trade Me. If you’re looking for a funny Halloween costume, however, you might want to use the tried and tested method of wrapping yourself in toilet paper or bandages. It might not be the longest lived costume of the night, but we can guarantee your friends will die laughing. Just remember to put all of that paper in the recycling at the end of the night!

You have so many options when it comes to couples Halloween costumes. Here are 10 classic choices for women’s and men’s Halloween outfits:

• Fred and Wilma Flintstone
• Superman and Superwoman
• Barbie and Ken
• Captain Hook and Tinkerbell
• Squid Games
• Bonnie and Clyde
• The Joker and Harley
• Mario and Luigi
• Danny Zuko and Sandy
• Axl and Slash

Pumpkins and Halloween go together like…well, all of those couples’ costumes we listed above.

Now, we don’t recommend you copy Dwight’s example from The Office and stick a pumpkin on your head – we all saw how that ended.

Instead, why not keep things simple by buying a fun pumpkin costume from Trade Me. Pumpkins can also be a great Halloween costume for kids, and we have some adorable options available on site.

A favourite for NZ Halloween parties, Frankenstein is another costume you can put together easily by yourself.

All you need is some green face paint, an old black jacket, and then simply repurpose a headband to make the iconic metal bolt, which can be easily made out of cardboard.

Thanks to films like IT, clowns will be in our nightmares for many years to come! Whoever said clowns are funny was absolutely lying because we reckon they have rightly become an iconic Halloween costume in their own right.

If you’ve got the face painting skills and the time to source the materials for clothes, have a crack at making your own clown Halloween costume, if that’s not your style then we’ve got you covered with heaps of terrifying killer clown costumes.

Despite only being released in 2014, Maleficent has become an established costume choice for those seeking to get a good jump out of their friends at Halloween.

If you want to make your own Maleficent horns, rather than buying one, you’ll need the following:

• A headband
• Two cardboard tubes
• Foil
• Black spray paint
• Masking tape

With all of this gear at your fingertips, you’ll be able to find heaps of great online tutorials to help you bring this character to life.

Looking for a quick Halloween costume that won’t take much planning? Zombies are your friends.

One of our favourite things about zombies, apart from their kind and gentle nature, is the amount of flexibility this costume choice gives you. You can either go for the classic ripped white shirt, fake blood and make up approach, or you can zombify one of your favourite celebrities to put your own stamp on things.

Does anything scream Halloween more loudly than a skeleton costume? This retro classic is another one that gives you plenty of scope to do it in different ways.

A popular, and particularly easy, option is to go with a skeleton onesie. Scary and comfy – the dream. Alternatively, you could jazz it up a bit and go as a skeleton ballerina or find a costume that glows in the dark (the kids will love this!).

Last, but certainly not least, no list of great Halloween costumes would be complete without a ghost.

Three words: bedsheet, eye holes.

Somehow forgot that October 31st is around the corner and need a quick last minute Halloween costume? Find the nearest, inexpensive white bedsheet, your trusty scissors, and get making those eye holes.

Alternatively, if there are no bedsheets to butcher, we have plenty of slightly more sophisticated ghost costumes on Trade Me, as well as their arch nemeses, the Ghost Busters.