Halloween is coming and I'm a bit of a fan.
Throughout October I'm going to be sharing a few Halloween posts to accompany my ghost- and horror-themed tours over the season.
This week it's Dracula Week on the Daily Constitutional.
Are you dressing-up for a Halloween Ghost walk? Today I'm looking at the most famous monster in movieland from a sartorial perspective…
The Dracula Cape
The opera cape is always a good look for a villain. And we have the original movie Dracula, Bela Lugosi, to thank for bringing the costume to the role.
Lugosi had originally played Dracula on stage, where the long opera cloak was employed to conceal trap doors in the stage to make the wicked Count’s disappearances more sudden and dramatic.
Spencer Tracy adopts it for his Doctor Jekyll (and, of course, Mr Hyde) in the 1941 movie…
And right here in London, the popular myth of the gentleman killer in the Jack the Ripper case is, for many, incomplete without the swirl of an opera cape in the smog.
This last, persistent image, for many, functions as a metaphor: a wealthy man descending upon the poor and causing untold suffering, mirroring the real life modus operandi of many a mill and factory owner.
Christopher Lee retained look when he took over the fangs in 1958 – why spoil a winning formula?
Here’s Christopher Lee in action…
It's also a look favoured by my fine colleague The Duke of Darkness Shaughan when he leads his Saturday night ghost walk…
Join me on the London Horror Story Tour here in London this October. I'm leading the tour on Tuesdays 8th, 15th, 22nd & 29th October & Saturdays 12th, 19th & 26th October. Book here…
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