How to dress for the spookiest night of the year, minus the sartorial scares.

Time was when Halloween was about ghost stories and dressing up your dog as an angel or bumblebee or some such. But times, like fashion, change. Today, there are iron rules governing Halloween – or All Hallows’ Eve, as the festival before All Saints Day was once known – and they are this: dress up and dress up well and make sure whatever you choose makes you look as stylish, if not more so, than you do in day-to-day life. To help you in this end, we asked the MR PORTER staff what they will be wearing this Halloween.

In normal life, I like to think I am pretty switched on, part of the conversation, a mover, perhaps even something akin to a shaker. It’s great, but it’s a tiring game. That is why this Halloween, I intend to go as a zombie. I will cover my face in a deadening shade of grey and then go about emitting vaguely concerning guttural noises. It will be a relief as I won’t have to make small talk. But, following the rules, I will do all this in the coolest clothes, namely these pleasingly ripped AMIRI jeans and this Greg Lauren grandad-collar denim and check cotton-twill shirt (from which sepulchre it emerged I would like to know, because it aches with cool). And to top off the whole affair, I will wear them with these artfully distressed sneakers from Saint Laurent.

In my everyday life, I go casual. As my go-to brands are visvim, RRL and KAPITAL, I like the idea of completely transforming myself this Halloween and wearing something totally unexpected. I have decided to go as American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. To achieve the look, I am going to use this Sies Marjan glossed wool coat: its charcoal grey perfectly mimics the raincoat used by Bateman in the movie. It is also waterproof, which comes in handy with the unpredictable London weather. A red Kingsman tie and a blue shirt will complete the look.

This Halloween, I’ll be avoiding the rampaging trick-or-treaters (they still haven’t forgiven me for handing out oranges last year – sorry, but Haribo doesn’t count towards your five-a-day), offloading the kids on the mother-in-law and taking my partner to a screening of The Shining. (Only don’t tell her, it’s a surprise.) For the full here’s-Johnny experience, I’ll opt for an outfit that’s a dead ringer for the one Mr Jack Nicholson wore in the film – in a red (rum) palette, no less – with heavy-duty boots sturdy enough to survive a winter in the Rockies, let alone an evening out in south London. Thankfully, we’re all out of axes.

Black and white stripes and Halloween go together like witches and broomsticks. They bring to mind some of Hollywood’s most infamous ghouls and goons; the impeccably cut pinstripe suit of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas, the double-breasted jacket worn by Gomez in The Addams Family and perhaps most famously – or cultishly – by Mr Tim Burton’s belching Beetlejuice. This year, I’ll be taking my style cues from these leading men with AMI’s striped camp-collar shirt, Mr P.’s sharp-toothed derbies and a pair of Burberry’s cotton-twill chinos, to keep things smart, of course.

Up until last year, I hadn’t celebrated Halloween since my time in university. I’d like to think I’ve moved on and matured since then, but those memories still bring out the kid in me. This year, a reunion with my seminar buddies is on the cards. It’s been a while, so I want to make an impression, and there’s no better shirt in which to do so than this printed silk-twill style from Gucci. The roaring panther print is ferocious and sure to get a number of conversations going on the night. I’ll finish off the look with a pair of distressed Golden Goose Deluxe Brand sneakers. They’re already on their way so a little fake blood won’t hurt…

For the sartorially macabre among us, Halloween is merely an excuse to carry on as normal. I sometimes wrangle with winter brights and summer pastels, and I more than appreciate the variegated charm of a Sies Marjan shirt, but, most of the time, I am resolutely loyal to black. There is a twinge of guilt when admitting you love black clothes, as if dressing like a rainbow is a noble pursuit and black is the easy option, but so what? It looks good! So come All Hallows’ Eve, I’ll do what I always do, and dress like somebody’s died. This Raf Simons coat is satisfyingly vampirish (it’s that yellow satin notch collar – very Dracula), but is sophisticated enough to spare me from looking like a Twilight extra. Because it’s black, it will look great with anything, (but particularly more black things), so I’ll wear it with some suitably sable Undercover trousers and this Our Legacy bag to store all my tricks and treats in.

Shop the looks here