Regular visitors pretty in colours (8)

I believe the answer is:

habitues

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'regular visitors' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'pretty in colours' is the wordplay.
'pretty' becomes 'abit' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'colours' becomes 'hues' (I've seen this before).
'abit' inserted within 'hues' is 'HABITUES'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for habitues that I've seen before include "Regular visitors" , "Regular attenders" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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