We raided Oxfam on Botanic to see what Halloween costumes you can string together using only charity shop finds.

Great Gatsby

Charity shops are packed full of old formal dresses, and loads of them a beaded enough to work as a great Gatsby costume.

If that’s not scary enough, add some pale makeup and fake blood and you’re instantly a zombie flapper.

 

Elsa From Frozen

Of course this is an obvious choice, and there is a whole rail of frosty blue dresses to choose from.

Just please. Don’t. Sing. thx

 

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss is pretty DIY herself, so it’s an easy costume to re-create. We used brown eye shadow as face dirt and a backpack or some rope would be a good addition.

Just spend the whole of Halloween hiding in trees to be authentic.

Million Dollar arm

Another really easy (and comfy) costume, all you need is some sort of baseball top, some shorts and a cap.

But don’t bring a baseball bat. They won’t let you into the club and it’s an inaccurate anyway.

Captain Phillips

This one is basically casual wear with a captain’s hat and a name badge would really help.

So sail your ship into town and spend the night taking selfies with pirates (a bit less chill than the actual Captain Phillips).

Mad Men

If you want to be a little more dressed up find any 50s looking dress, add a neat side bun, a purse and some pearls to be from Mad Men.

If you’re ginger, go for a red dress to be Joan Holloway, If you are blond, a floral dress for Betty Draper. If you’re male, just add a glass of scotch and you’re Don Draper. Sorted.

Made in Chelsea

As much as you might hate their pretentious posh accents and permanently pursed pouts, someone from Made In Chelsea is a pretty easy to recreate.

All you need is some fancy-ish clothes, soft tousled hair and an air of entitlement. A silver spoon in your mouth is optional.

The Wolf of Wall street

If you fancy yourself a bit of a DiCaprio (aka you have a chunky neck), just wear a suit, preferably pinstripe, add some wolf-ey touches and bam, Wolf of Wall Street (almost).

We drew ears on Matt’s face and added the blood of his enemies around his mouth to show he’s a winner. Some talc around the nose wouldn’t look out of place either.

Maleficent

The Maleficent head dress is a trick, but we eventually managed to fashion one out of two witches hats (with difficulty).

Don’t forget the heavy contouring.

Annabelle

And finally, the Horror film of the year for the creepiest costume, Anabelle. Oxfam is full  of white dresses. Some of them are a little over-frilled and would serve any creepy doll costume well.

We braided Xuedi’s hair, added a red sash and she cried some blood to match the movie poster, but you could really go for it with the makeup, check out Youtube for tutorials.

We returned all of these costumes to the rails but even if the exact garment you want has already been snapped up, there’s plenty of costume material in the store.

The place is full of dresses and there are new bags of Halloween wear coming in each week, so with no excuse to be boring this Halloween, get your act together and make the trek to Oxfam Botanic.