Hosting a Spooky Soirée with @mslucyclayton

For five-year-old Bunny, playing dress-up is all in a day’s work. And when your mum designs the dolls’ houses of dreams for a living, magic and make-believe are sure to follow. In the Clayton household, there’s no better time to don your very best costume than Halloween, of which Lucy, who is also the host of a podcast that dives into the dressing-up archives, is somewhat of an expert. “I think the wonderful thing about Halloween parties for little children is that no one is the focus,” she tells us, “so it takes the pressure off them as individuals and makes for a better atmosphere. Halloween is my favourite theme because it can be beautiful and chaotic at the same time — all the best parties are — so I like to have dramatic decorations and magical details and some spooky surprises.”

Read on as we sit down with Lucy to find out about her and Bunny’s shared love of dressing up and how to be the hostess with the mostest this Halloween.

“Every year I decorate the outside of the house in a big way. I like it to look as though Halloween is cascading out of the doors and windows, so sometimes that means there’s a lot of greenery — boughs of hops, corn, plentiful pumpkins (obviously), especially mini ones, ribbon streamers. Some years it’s bunting in autumnal colours coming from the top of the house all the way down! One year, I filled lots of jam jars with twinkly lights and tied magic labels to them all. I have a collection of giant cut-out toads, spooky signs, stars and moons; I never do anything ghoulish, I keep it pretty cheerful (no bones, no zombies, no police tape). Decorating the exterior helps with that dreary period between back-to-school and Christmas, when it’s suddenly dark at 4 pm and everything feels gloomy. Anything that lifts the spirits and feels festive is worth indulging, I think.”

“When it comes to planning a costume, Bunny and I sometimes have art directional disagreements because she likes to really layer on lots of ideas, whereas I like a concept with clarity. So, now we sit down together at the beginning and make a plan and sketch it out, and that way I can at least try to incorporate her ideas elegantly. She’s very 'method' — she likes to really embody the character. On World Book Day, she dressed up as David Hockney and wore a wig for a full eight hours and would only answer to David. She was also Cruella de Vil at a fete over the summer and enjoyed being evil, practicing an evil face. For recent Halloweens, she’s been a tattooed cat, a magic potion, Pierrot the Clown."

 

"For a long time, I’ve been interested in micro-dressing up and Bunny is the perfect age to enjoy small, everyday expressions, like face jewels or a casual tiara in the supermarket. I am obsessed by the brand Super Smalls and its costume jewellery for kids — I think it is genius. We are collecting their pieces and Bunny treasures them and spends a lot of time playing with it all as well as wearing them. We love these styles . . .”

“She recently announced that she would like to dress up as Elton John (she’s a big fan). We also have plans for a queen of the pirates costume. But this Halloween, she set her sights on this beautiful Tutu du Monde tulle dress with shimmering wings, transforming her into a mystical forest fairy. We’ve added a cute blue wig and this beautiful green crown from Bunny's own dressing-up box to complete the look. She loves twirling around in it! And it coordinates with my latest dolls' house creation perfectly too — a magical hideaway for a little fairy when she shrinks back down to size!”

“At nearly 16, I think Kit is mostly relieved to have passed the fancy dress baton to Bunny! He’s done his stint. He’s been a Pearly King skeleton, a big green monster, Poseidon, a full gingerbread cottage, the list goes on! These days, he’s brilliant at taking her photograph. He’s able to capture her best expressions because she adores him and thinks he’s the funniest person on the planet."

“I confess, I’m a hoarder! I kept all of Kit's old costumes, and Bunny has worn them a decade later. Our school does a brilliant swap shop, kind of like an ultimate costume jumble sale the week before World Book Day, so this year, I’ll be donating anything she’s grown out of there. Often, I’ll use a really fabulous dress or base garment from Childrensalon and that piece will become more than one costume — if something is well made and fundamentally beautiful it’s not just a shortcut creatively, it’s something that can be adapted again and again. I think if you’ve gone to the bother of making something substantial, it deserves to be worn and played and partied in for a very long time.”

"I’m totally fascinated by the history of dressing up, and what that reveals about those moments in time. One of my favourite examples is probably the 1920s craze for crepe-paper costumes. Very few survived (they were made of paper, after all) but I have some rare catalogues which beautifully illustrate designs for extraordinarily elaborate outfits, all made from paper. It’s a tradition that continued right up to the iconic Jane Asher's Fancy Dress book, which many children of the 1980s will remember fondly.

I also adore extreme examples of fancy dress, like the Devonshire House Ball of 1897, hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, where the theme was interpreted by couturiers like Charles Frederick Worth. The level of detail and craftsmanship in the costumes is breathtaking and inspiring. I recreated Lady Wolverton’s Britannia costume for Bunny for the Jubilee, with a lot less craftsmanship, obviously, but I like taking inspiration from the past and interpreting iconic costumes in a modern context."

“I once made a paper forest from the pages of gothic novels; my decorations are usually elaborate and over-the-top and don’t really lend themselves to a little helper! But Bunny is very used to being in our Dollshouse studio and working alongside me on whatever idea she’s interested in that day, and she’s very good at using all my scraps to make her own creations. She’ll literally sit at my feet with a roll of washi tape and fashion all sorts of things from off-cuts and spare bits. So, I’d say we tend to parallel play rather than collaborate; she has very firm creative ideas and so do I!

For someone who loves Halloween, I’m horribly bad at pumpkin carving, so I swerve that and instead we make tangerine versions — it’s something my mother used to do with us when we were children and it’s a much gentler activity than carving. Cut out curly green top knots from craft paper, glue them on and then let the children draw funny faces with a black sharpie. The more you can churn out the better and they look fabulous lined up on a mantlepiece.”

“The candy mania of Halloween is challenging! Visually, the best thing for the centre of a Halloween table is a lavish pile of traditional toffee apples (texture! shine!) but obviously they are all sugar and lethal for little teeth. So, another option is to serve decent food and find another way to work aesthetic appeal onto the table. I love Meri Meri’s Surprise Balls which come in a glorious array of designs; they have spider and pumpkin versions for Halloween and unwrapping them is very entertaining (I’ve used them at toddler and teenage parties and they work brilliantly for both). You can have fun with place-settings too, a wand and a bat bow as a name place sets the tone wonderfully!”

“I get so much joy from putting together party bags, probably more than the children who receive them! I think the perfect combination includes stickers, a making activity, a lasting memento of the occasion and a little tasty treat. I love including an iron-on patch or mini modelling clay, magic fish are a classic and, at Halloween, finger monsters are bang on brief! And for slightly older children, miniature magic tricks (matchbox size) are wonderful. I also love these fantastic themed Halloween hair ties from NAME IT, and Treat Republic’s personalised moon necklace is the ultimate party-bag favour, surely?

“Keep it short! No children’s party should be longer than two hours. And serve proper drinks for grown-ups, it takes the edge off.”

Images by @mslucyclayton and Meri Meri