Celebrating Halloween Around The World

Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead – Halloween in Mexico

Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican holiday held in early November that’s growing in popularity outside of the Mexican community, especially in Spain which has many shared cultural components with Central America. It’s become so popular in fact that Disney’s Coco movie is set during the holiday. During this period, locals paint their faces with elaborate skulls and wear costumes to ‘blend in’ with the roaming spirits. Parades and parties with an abundance of singing and dancing also take place to celebrate the return to earth of friendly spirits. Mexicans use swathes of flowers to decorate the towns and homes, in bright, bodacious colours. As a result, to reimage a Day of the Dead theme in your home this Halloween, use floral prints and rich shades of red and pink to capture the essence of this festival.

Ognissanti – Halloween in Italy

Italians have a strong rooted connection with family and even in the modern day, it is still the normal occurrence for multiple generations to live under the same roof. During Ognissanti (All Saints’ Day) there is a focus on decorating homes and graveyards in a beautiful manner to welcome back spirits. Vibrant flowers are the main form of decoration, with Chrysanthemums being the popular choice. If you want to celebrate All Saints’ Day like the Italians, mixing florals with your spiders and pumpkins is the ideal starting point.

Halloween – United States

America loves Halloween. You need only watch a sitcom from the US and alongside a Christmas special, there will almost always be a Halloween spooktacular! Over the years, Halloween has evolved throughout the United States with a focus on transforming homes into haunted houses and for kids and adults to dress up in scary costumes for trick-or-treating. Decorating homes is a particularly popular activity for Americans, where communities often award prizes for the best display, and kids chatter about who has the best candy. One theme we are seeing taking centre stage this year in the states is interpretations of scenes from the incredibly popular Netflix show ‘Stranger Things’, where shades of reds and browns are being used to replicate Vecna’s home in the upside down! Pretty spooky.

Halloween in the UK

Halloween is a magical time for children across the UK, and every year, thousands go to farms to pick a pumpkin of their own. Historically, bonfire night was the bigger and more popular of the pre-christmas holidays, with little ones eagerly giving a penny for the Guy, but in recent years, we’ve adopted more of the American attitude to Halloween. In many ways, Halloween has evolved with traditions spreading from country to country, as we’ve seen with the Day Of The Dead becoming popular in Spain. Trick or treat, for example, was an age-old aspect of Halloween in Scotland and Ireland before immigrants to the new world made it a core part of the American celebration. From the 1970s, trick of treating has returned to the UK with children dressing up in costumes and filling bags with tasty treats!

Oranges

Orange is the most iconic Halloween colour. Orange mirrors the autumn, and shades can be seen across the landscapes in the changing leaves, pumpkins and also in twilight – the time when ghouls and gremlins come out and play! However, orange is a fabulous accent colour in interior design throughout the year. Whether you go bold with orange curtains or roller blinds or implement small pockets through orange lampshades and cushions, orange is a fun, easy way to have an underlying Halloween colour scheme all year round.

Blacks

Perfect for adding depth to any space and keeping whatever is lurking in the shadows under wraps, black is another colour closely associated with Halloween. From witches’ hats and their black cats to a skull’s eye holes, black is very spooky. That said, black is growing popular within interior design, and is a core colour for the rising Dark Academia star. The key to a successful dark interior is the lighting, ensuring you have a warming glow being emitted from lamps is key to creating a cosy, atmospheric space. Increase the warming glow in the space by using a gold lined or copper lined lamp shade – the warm metallic finish will reflect the cosiest of glows!

Greens

With a history of representing monsters from the colour of Frankenstein’s skin to bubbling potions of warlocks and witches, green is another ‘go to’ decorating shade for transforming your home into a haunted house. Despite its strong connection to Halloween, shades of green are a trending colour for interiors, from eye-catching green velvet curtains in living rooms to practical green roller blinds in kitchens, the diversity and adaptability that this fabulous colour provides is extraordinary, and offers a subtle nod to Halloween throughout the year – perfect for us Halloween fanatics!