Sunday, September 26, 2004
By RUTH PADAWER
STAFF WRITER
As fashion goes, so goes Halloween.
With female flesh in view at every turn, and hip-hop stars turning pimps into cult heroes, it's no wonder that this season's costumes are racier than ever.
Even the most mainstream companies are now in the mix: Costumecraze.com sells a "Teen Pirate Wench Costume" and a "Red Hot Mamma Pimp Costume," alongside Teen Spidergirl and Dorothy from Oz. Party City sells a pimp dog outfit ("purple crushed velvet-lined jacket and hat with a plush zebra trim"). And amid its clowns, fairies, Ninjas, and butterflies, Brands On Sale sells pimp and "ho" outfits for children size 4 and up. Company officials announced last month that its kiddie versions were so successful that they will top it next year with a pimp costume for infants.
And you thought vampires and ghosts were scary.
"I'm not surprised that these are what's popular, but I am disturbed," said Ellyn Miller, a Fair Lawn mother of an 11-year-old daughter and two older sons. "That's what's out there in the media."
Surely, there will be no shortage of princesses and pirates trick-or-treating at your door. For little kids, the swiftest sellers are always the ones linked to TV and movie characters, especially for hits released over the summer - which explains why everyone expects Spiderman costumes to top the charts this year.
For older kids, Halloween - like everything else - is fashion-driven. When avocado green is trendy, the coolest princess gowns have hints of avocado green. When skin is in, (Read: now) witches wear super short skirts and cropped tops. Heck, even Red Riding Hood wears a mini these days. Nowhere is that push for skin more obvious than in the demographic segment the industry calls "hip young adults," namely 13- to 20-year-olds eager to follow the leads of Paris Hilton, Christina Aguilera, and Lindsay Lohan.
"For that segment of our customers, the skirts keep getting skimpier, the midriffs keep getting higher," said Howard Beige, co-owner of Rubie's Costume Company in Queens, the largest manufacturer and distributor of Halloween costumes nationwide. For those customers, Rubie's sells "Wild Thang," "Luscious Leather," and "Red Hot Mama," in teen and adult sizes.
"You talk to companies that make only sexy costumes, they'll say the business in that segment is way up - and it is," said Beige. "But mainstream marketers like me have to appeal to a much broader market. The hip young adult is only one part of my sales. Children's costumes are still the biggest part of the Halloween market, and we certainly keep it toned down there."
Not everyone does.
Brands On Sale, a huge online marketer, is one of the few to sell pimp outfits for little kids, running as small as size four. Brands On Sale's 22-year-old costume designer, Jonathon Weeks, got the idea for a "Child Pimp" outfit two years ago when his then-9-year-old brother said he wanted to dress up as a pimp like the rappers he saw on TV.
Last year, the company debuted several child pimp costumes, and unloaded 500 of them at $39.99 a pop. Sure, they weren't as popular as Lady Bug and Oatmeal Bear costumes, but the interest was impressive enough to prompt the company this year to begin selling a $59.99 "child ho" (shorthand for whore) outfit (starting at size 4-6x), featuring a sleeveless black flapper dress, fishnet stockings, and a feather boa. By late August, kiddie pimp and "ho" costumes had already outsold last year's orders, and the Web site said "ho" outfits were available only on back-order "due to overwhelming demand."
"People were ordering them in man, woman, kid, and dog sizes, pimping out the whole family," said Weeks, who dressed as a baseball player and firefighter when he was a kid.
In the last few years, pimp imagery has strutted into pop culture, from the new energy drink Pimp Juice, the MTV series "Pimp My Ride," featuring souped-up cars, and rap hits that include "Pimp Juice" from Nelly and "P.I.M.P." from 50 Cent.
This is also the year Janet Jackson bared her breast for network TV; four female Olympians became pinups for Playboy and its cousin, FHM; Serena Williams' skin-tight short shorts and revealing top generated more conversation than her forehand; and the Miss America Organization introduced its teensy-weensy bikini for contestants, hoping that the "sexy makeover" would win back lost viewers.
"As the culture becomes more outlandish, so do the costumes," said Stuart Schneider, an Oradell lawyer and author of "Halloween in America." "Just think of the early monster movies, which were very scary but not bloody, vs. today's slasher movies. Back then, you just heard the screams. Now, it's all blood and guts and gore. It's the same with the costumes."
The only exception, he said, was the Halloween after the 9/11 attacks. But gory - and sexual - costumes quickly returned. With a vengeance.
At Spencer Gifts - a leading Halloween retailer hot among the teen set - the biggest sellers are still superheroes and horror film bad guys. The old standbys have been remade to become current and cool, so witch options now include Goth Witch and Renaissance Witch. There's also Graveyard Fairy and Midnight Princess. Pimp outfits hit Spencer's shelves a few years ago, after customers started asking for them. Ditto on the costumes aimed at juvenile humor: Mammogram Man (whose costume instructs women where to place their breasts), Gynecologist, and an aroused Catholic priest.
"We take our cues from popular culture and from our guests, in terms of how suggestive our costumes are and how far we can go," said Mike Champion, promotions manager at Spencer Gifts, headquartered in southern New Jersey.
Of course, not all consumers appreciate the trend.
As word spread about Brands On Sale's pimp and ho outfits for small children, the company began getting 5,000 e-mail and 400 phone calls a day, clogging sales lines with accusations that the company was prostituting children. Some even threatened to call child-services with their complaints.
"If we'd called that dress a 1920s flapper outfit, we wouldn't have gotten the negative reaction, but we wouldn't have sold nearly as many either," said Weeks. "We've done market research and we know kids don't want flapper outfits. They want to be what they see on TV."
Last Friday, Weeks yanked the kiddie pimp and ho sets from the Web, though they're still quietly available for sale. Next year, he'll reintroduce the same costumes, but "Child Pimp Suit" will become "Child Mac Daddy," and "Ho Suit" will become "Flapper."
Plans for the Infant Pimp costume, however, are still a go for next year.
"Parents are so quick to dress their kids up as mass murderers or in masks with knives through them. And they call this pimp and ho stuff offensive?" he said, adding that he was grateful that complaints have begun to die down.



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