Fright night is approaching, but forget pumpkins and skeleton onesies – this year you should shape your nails into deathly claws and give your jack-o’-lantern a mohawk twist

It’s Halloween, the annual celebration of the basic and the banal. But wait – there is still room for originality in the fog of fake cobwebs and pumpkin spice. An Instagram trawl reveals the big (and small) trends for 2017, from the edgiest costumes to an unlikely use for pineapples …

Pineapples

Happy Halloween 2015! #halloween #pineapplecarving A post shared by Sam G Dalzell (@samgdalzell) on Oct 28, 2015 at 3:47pm PDT

Yes, pineapples. They’re a thing this year. Not content simply to colonise our pretentious mid-century interiors in the shape of those ubiquitous bronze cocktail shakers, they are now usurping the pumpkin. People are carving them in a sweet, mohawked twist on the traditional jack-o’-lantern. At least they’re not going on pizzas, right?

Costumes

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pennywise the It clown. Photograph: Brooke Palmer/AP

If you find yourself Amazon-Priming a crap skeleton onesie and expect to wow your friends, save yourself five quid and stay inside. Or stay on the money by going as one of the best screen characters this year. That means: Pennywise the It clown; a handmaid (don’t forget to add “Of” to the start of your name); new Wonder Woman; or – again – Eleven from Stranger Things.

Nails

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Halloween nails, as seen on Instagram. Composite: cannibaliskilledthecat & dramaocelotnails/Instagram

Halloween-inspired nail designs start to grip Instagram at this time of year. Depending on your varnish mastery, try a cobweb pattern (as intricate as you like), a zombie-attack blood-drip effect or simple black, painted to a sharp tip to give the impression of a deathly claw. Oh, and the already-a-thing “squareletto”, AKA a coffin-shaped tapered nail with a squared tip, really comes into its own.

Lunchboxes

Why not pack a bit of terror into your kids’ lunches this Halloween? Japanese Twitter is awash with images of elaborate bento boxes made by time-rich parents. Sausages cut to look like severed fingers with fish-roe “blood” pouring out? Easy. Little balls of rice topped with seaweed discs to resemble gouged-out eyes? It’s been done. Don’t hold back, parents.

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