Britain Embraces Halloween and Cashes In on Ghoulish Celebration

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/business/international/uk-makes-halloween-big-business.html?_r=0

LONDON — This Halloween, skintight full-body leotards are a sellout in Britain.

Morphsuits, the Scottish company behind the goofy, often garish bodysuits, transformed a drunken prank at a stag party into a multimillion-dollar costume phenomenon, thanks in part to the growing popularity here of celebrating All Hallows’ Eve each Oct. 31.

Much to the consternation of some, Halloween, with all its silliness, is even eclipsing Guy Fawkes Day, the 400-year-old British festival on Nov. 5.

“We are very much in the throes of Halloween mayhem at the moment,” said Gregor Lawson, one of three founders of Morphsuits, a unit of AFG Media based in Edinburgh. “Halloween seems to just get bigger and bigger and bigger, in more and more countries and the United Kingdom is certainly catching up.”


Queen Elizabeth II meets children making Halloween cakes in Lewes, England.

[Laelth]

1. That's awesome.

The Queen's sly grin with her little witchy-hat is just perfect.

This picture made my day. Thanks.



-Laelth

[steve2470]

3. you're very welcome ! :) nt

[tclambert]

2. Great Queen Elizabeth II costume.

The smile spoils it a little.

[trumad]

4. LOL---

My very thought. Seriously---Queenie looks great.

[MADem]

5. They're skirting the bounds of bad taste and outright stupidity in some instances.

It certainly ain't Shakespeare....any excuse for a drunken party, I suppose; and any opportunity to indulge in "fancy dress" (the phrase over the pond for "costume&quot is always fun....

Asda, a supermarket chain owned by Walmart Stores, and the grocery giant Tesco withdrew two costumes after complaints that they made light of mental illness. One of the costumes featured a mock meat cleaver and a fake-blood-stained straitjacket.

In Lancashire, a county in northwestern England, Scare Kingdom Scream Park was accused of simulating rape in one of its “scary entertainment” attractions, involving visitors who were strapped to a bed with a cushion held over their faces as a man with a sex toy threatened them.

What genius thought that one up? Could they have been more obtuse?

When I was a child, Halloween was an occasion for children. Parents didn't wear costumes and get drunk, they stayed home and handed out candy. There might have been one or two over-enthusiastic mothers (and it was always mothers, it seemed) who would decorate their houses to the max and maybe put on a witch outfit, but adults in costume were rare in the extreme.

You were expected to "mind" an older sibling as you ran from house to house with a grocery store double-bag brown paper bag or (clever kid) pillowcase collecting the (full-sized candy bar) goods. There were no plastic pumpkins or decorated "candy" bags.

Now, the adults seem to have appropriated this child's holiday, and many use it as a "warm up" for New Year's Eve...!

[Fawke Em]

8. So what?

Your entire post sounded rather "tisk, tisky."

I, for one, adore Halloween. I love spooky movies, pranks, candy and fall. I don't necessary get drunk because I'm usually taking the kiddies door-to-door.

Granted, the prank you posted was too over-the-top, but who gives a flying shit if adults want to have a little fun, too? The origins of Halloween certainly weren't relegated to children-only, so why should it be so now?

And adults have most certainly always dressed up. Check out these vintage Halloween costumes. I see a nice mix of children and adults celebrating here: http://www.wackyowl.com/creepy-vintage-halloween-costumes-1800-1959/



Your childhood neighborhood must have been boring. When I was growing up, most adults always dressed up and decorated - and I'm in my 40s.

[MADem]

9. My comments in disapproval were about the "mock rapes" -- which I thought were horrific.

That's what I was referencing.

How nice that the adults in your life partied, decorated, and dressed up, but that's not where I was going when I made those comments. And if you want to dress up and run around with your children, go to town.

No one is stopping you, and not everyone has to like what you like. You don't have to turn around and get nasty, and call me 'tisky tisky' and 'boring.' It's a big wide world, full of opinions, ya know.

Also, I can't help but notice that the "adults" in your collection of photographs predate the 1940s. The latter photos in that grouping are all of children, to include the occasional teens. That was the paradigm in USA for many, many years, that Halloween was a child's holiday.

I can't help but notice, though, that the holiday these days is as much--if not MORE-- about childless, drunken adults in all manner of outrageous or "sexy" costume as it is about little kids getting a bit of candy. It's a different emphasis than in years past.

[MisterP]

6. they do dress up, do vaguely Celtic stuff, and tell ghost stories--on Christmas

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. The Queen gets happier and happier looking as the years go by...

We hardly ever get to see her "Miss Piggy" face anymore...