Tricked-out costumes 'sexy' treats for adults
Megan Finnerty
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 26, 2007 11:22 PM
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Halloween is always about fun and fantasy, but this year, costume manufacturers are emphasizing a very specific kind of adult fantasy, as they raise hemlines and the level of sexiness.

As costume spending hits $1.8 billion this year for adults, children and pets, more manufacturers are getting into the business, including lingerie companies producing skimpy costumes. And with more nightclubs promoting big Halloween parties, more grownups are looking for sexier options and finding them everywhere from Party City and Target to Fascinations.
 




This year, several lingerie companies have launched the raciest lines of costumes yet. Think of Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in a costume of a gingham bra with white puffy sleeves, a matching micromini over a pair of white-ruffled panties, with white thigh-high stockings. The red ruby slippers? Six-inch platform heels.

Thank goodness it's warm here on Halloween.

More than one-third of adults plan to dress up this year, according to the National Retail Federation. And Halloween spending has more than doubled since the mid-'90s.

Mark Franks, Castle Megastore president and chief executive, said that when he used to look for costumes for his shops, he had to choose from fewer than five manufacturers, ones that offered such year-round classics as sexy nurse, cheerleader and schoolgirl. Now, his store stocks styles from more than 20 manufacturers, including sexy bumblebees, and the newest big seller: a sultry Border Patrol agent, complete with a minidress and binoculars.

"People have started waking up to how much business is being done in adult costumes," Franks said.

New kinds of costumes from new manufacturers are driving sales dramatically at two of the Valley's biggest adult-store chains, both of which are based in Phoenix but which have locations all over the West.

Castle Megastore has seen a 75 percent increase in sales over last year, and Fascinations has seen a 20 percent increase, store managers say.

Sales also are up because they're stocking more sizes and devoting up to 30 percent of their sales floors to costumes during the season, which starts on Labor Day. Castle Megastore even hosted an in-store costume fashion show at the chain's Deer Valley location earlier this month, attended by about 200 people.


Your inner prostitute
Everyone likes to be an exhibitionist sometimes, said Scottsdale psychologist David Jecmen, who practices at Sanctuary: A Healing Place.

"And there's a part of us, too, that's more of an inner prostitute," he said. "All of us have an inner cast of characters, and one of them is a prostitute and she represents that raw sexual energy. And . . . we don't have a lot of safe places to express that."

So Halloween has become a national opportunity for adults to express themselves sexually without the fear of serious peer judgment or negative consequences, he said.

The people at Fascinations know this well. This time of year, they see countless new customers. In fact, the stores remodel to cater to them.

At the Tempe store, costumes are stocked next to seven changing rooms, five of which were created just to accommodate Halloween shoppers. In that area, they'll see only platform heels, stockings, false eyelashes and fancy panties, all products stocked year-round but moved into the costume area at Halloween.

Across town at Paradise Valley Party City, you can walk past the cutie-pie kids bumblebee costume and Harry Potter robes to the miniskirted French maid and sexed-up versions of '80s cartoon characters.

It's the same when you shop at traditional costume retailers such as Spirit Halloween Superstores, Target and Easley's Fun Shop, as they're increasingly catering to those looking to have a decidedly more adult holiday.

Phoenix's Jaraka Blair, 25, a call-center manager, picked her provocative Little Bo Peep costume from Easley's Fun Shop because it was sexy and playful.

She's wearing the white-and-pink ruffled bustier top with coordinating mini and stockings to a co-worker's Halloween party. But she's not worried about her reputation because her boss isn't going to be there.

"It's just going to be the laid-back people," she said. "It lets them see a different side of me that's not the work side. I like that Little Bo Peep is innocent but not totally. Like me."


Valley parties abound
"The adult costumes have just taken off," said Carol Easley, one of the owners of Easley's Fun Shop, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

She won't stock the "risque" costumes but said her best-selling women's costumes are "cute," with low-cut tops and midthigh minis, outfits she says moms wouldn't mind wearing.

Easley said that, in the '60s and '70s, the store sold mostly masks, capes and children's costumes. Now, the children's costumes have a small, separate room in the massive store and the rest is dedicated to more than 18,000 adult costumes for rent or sale.

All those costumes are necessary, too, in an area such as the Valley, where clubs, event spaces and organizations started hosting Halloween parties as early as Oct. 12. In the past 10 years, the popularity of club Halloween parties has exploded. This year, there are more than 70 nightclub parties from the second week of October through Halloween.

One of the biggest Halloween parties in the country is the Ghost Ball Block Party, held in the Scottsdale clubs Axis/Radius and Myst, and in the street between them. Organizers expect more than 7,000 people to pay $20 to $30 to get inside. They all will be wearing sexy costumes, of course.

Among the party's most legendary costumes: Once a group dressed as the cast of Wizard of Oz, with Dorothy in a mini, the Scarecrow in a cleavage-baring half-shirt and the Cowardly Lion in a midriff-baring fur top and hip-hugging fur mini. But even they weren't as sexy as the retired couple wearing S&M bondage ensembles.

Anything goes on Halloween, said Axis/Radius co-owner Diane Corieri, who never dresses sexily. (This year, she's going as a Twister board).

"I don't know how they could get much skimpier. You have to have your parts covered, but you can get away with anything, and they do."

Jecmen, the therapist, said that every year Americans push the boundaries of public sexual expression.

"And the more we push on them, the easier and easier it is to be comfortable with them," he said.

Even if it means showing up in your underwear to a 7,000-person party.