Halloween Gets Sexy
By Joseph Dobrian, Contributing Editor

Women’s costumes, geared to a young adult demographic raised in the Sex and the City era, are showing more leg, midriff and décolletage than would have been imaginable a few years ago.

“The sexy look has exploded,” says Michelle Oumano Powell, vice president of Franco American Novelty Co. LLC. “The larger buyers are asking for more sexy costumes,” reports Doug Allan, design director at Fun World, which is adding 24 new, sexier styles to its 2006 line.

One of the beneficiaries of this trend has been Leg Avenue, Inc. The firm, long known as a lingerie supplier, cautiously ventured into Halloween costumes a half-dozen years ago and since then has been continually building its Halloween business. “We’ve been doubling our sales every year for the past few years,” reports national sales manager Robb McCullough, who says his firm now sells to a majority of the country’s costume shops.

Playboy celebrates halloween
Pony Express Creations is getting sexy with a licensing agreement with America’s sexiest brand —Playboy. Company president Ryan Rothschild says that he saw the increased interest in more sexy costumes for young women and he wanted Pony Express to be at the forefront of this trend. The costumes in the new line will include sexy versions of classic characters — lady pirates, ballerinas, and Little Bo Peep, for example. They will range in price from $60 to $120, with the average price between $80 to $100.

Another important and related trend in costumes right now is what Franco American Novelty Co. LLC president Carole Rome describes as “fashion meets Halloween.” Franco is debuting two new lines, Costume Culture (retailing for $34.99 to $44.99) and Costume Couture (retailing in the $100 plus range and also geared to the rental market), both of which are suited to adult women. She predicts that higher-quality fabrics and embellishments as well as looks that reflect contemporary styles will make these collections winners with fashion-conscious shoppers.

Suppliers note that “sexy” and “fashion” are overlapping categories right now. Everyday styles for women are more revealing than in the past, and the popularity of Victoria’s Secret has made lingerie a fashion category. And Halloween, which once existed in its own realm, separate and apart from fashion, is now very much in sync with style trends. In fact, say suppliers, women see the holiday as a chance to be a bit wild in terms of both fashion and décolletage.

Suppliers are staking out different territories along the sexy continuum. At Cinema Secrets, Danny Stein, vice president of marketing and sales, remarks that while “sexy” costumes are much in demand, especially from teenagers, some parents object, believing that costumes are getting a little too sexy. This, he says, leaves a niche to be filled.

“In 2005 there was no middle ground between ‘too sexy’ and ‘not sexy enough,’” he reports. “That’s a problem we hope to confront this year.”

And Chuck Martinez, executive managing partner, In Character Costumes, notes that although the emphasis in the market right now is on more revealing looks, it’s important to remember that not every woman wants a sexy costume. He believes that most women “larger than size 2 or older than 25” want to be flirty and playful without being too revealing. “We have our Flirty line, but we also have lots of other high-quality costumes for women, including our new line of plus-size costumes,” notes Martinez.

Quality is Key
Suppliers say that in both adult and children’s costumes, quality is an increasingly important consideration for shoppers, who are willing to pay more to realize their Halloween visions. Stein, of Cinema Secrets, says people “will spend hundreds on costumes and decorations, just to greet trick-or-treaters. This is something retailers should take advantage of.”

Interestingly, suppliers say that because of increased competition in the Halloween market, quality and creativity is higher at all price levels. The fight for market share, says Rothschild of Pony Express, is “driving innovation and creativity and squeezing margins.”

Howard Beige, executive vice president of Rubie’s Costume Co., notes that many parents still have a spending limit — he says $19.99 is still the key price point for children’s costumes — but parents will spend a little more for features like fiberoptics or a muscle chest. For adult costumes, people will spend more on accessories to complete the look: wig, eyelashes, nails, jewelry.

“In the past three years, higher price points for adult costumes — up to $150 — have become widely acceptable,” he says. “In 2005 we sold 8,000 of a Darth Vader Supreme Edition that retails for $999. Create it, make it worth its value, and it’ll sell. We’ll definitely expand our line of high-end costumes this year.”

Dave DiPietro, director of sales and marketing at Museum Replicas Ltd., says his firm is continuing to upgrade their period costumes, which many of his customers use over and over at events such as Renaissance festivals, reenactments and parties.
Pietro also notes that a new phenomenon called “cosplay” has become a factor for his firm. He notes that it started in Japan in the anime community and that players act out game-playing roles in costumes. Also new for Museum Replicas is a line of Western-style costumes, which are sold under the Silverado Mining Co. brand.

Children’s Costumes
Although suppliers say overall sales for 2006 may be hurt by the fact that the holiday will fall on a weekday, they say the trick-or-treat component of Halloween is usually unaffected by the calendar. Says Howard Beige, of Rubie’s Costume Co., “Certainly the children’s business will have normal growth, because kids celebrate no matter the day of the week on which Halloween falls, but the adult business is less when it falls mid-week.”

Suppliers say many of the trick-or-treating little girls will be beautiful — fairy princesses, perhaps — and many of the boys may be fearsome pirates or more gory characters. Deborah Zahm, senior marketing manager at Disguise, Inc., says that the craze for fairies is based on a desire to be “prettier and more sparkly.” On the other hand, she says, boys are returning to the macabre.

“For the past few years, people tried to emphasize the happy side of Halloween,” she notes, “but now we’re leaning back to the gory and sinister. Another important trend is that children will sometimes wear more than one costume per year: one for trick-or-treating, another for a friend’s party. For the party, for example, you might need a costume with which you can throw a ball through a hoop, while that might not be a consideration for trick-or-treating.”

Children’s costumes, says Zahm, are still license-driven, and children are exacting about which character they want to portray. However, licensed characters can also create demand for non-licensed products, which is why generic fairies, and mysterious or bloody characters are likely to do well in 2006. Zahm also predicts continued popularity of pirates. Although some vendors mentioned family costumes — matching costumes for adults and children — as a possible upcoming trend, Zahm says Disguise researched the subject and found that there is no demand for it. In fact, says Zahm, there’s evidence that children definitely do not want to wear the same costumes as their parents.