American Adults Spend $1.4 Billion on Halloween Costumes

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If you don’t have a Halloween costume yet, much less one that you’ve had professionally styled and dropped hundreds of dollars on, you might be a bit behind the curve this season. With Heidi Klum’s and New York socialite Allison Sarofim’s soirées setting the bar even higher and higher for zany costumes (remember Klum aged 50 years as a grandma last Halloween?!), an increasing number of people are taking a no holds barred approach to dressing for the big night.

Stylist Renessta Olds, based in Brooklyn, NY, has already had six or seven private clients come to her for spectacular costumes. Olds conceptualizes the costume (which costs between $75 to $100 for a consultation fee), then scours costume stores and vintage stores for something between $30 and $50 an hour. And that doesn’t include the price of the costume itself, which Olds says she’s had a client spend upwards of $600 on a Marie Antoinette look. Seems like an awful lot for a one-time-use right? Yes, however, she emphasizes that pieces can be multi-tasking depending on the costume.

"When I recently did a flapper, it was an authentic 1930s dress that we sourced. Minus the Art Deco pearls and minus the shrug fur coat, it could be worn to an evening at the Met or Lincoln Center. The dress was $150 which isn’t bad." Olds adds, "You could shop in your mother’s or grandmother’s closet and come out with that."

The National Retail Federation tracks such spending habits, as Halloween marks the start of the spending spree of the holiday season in the fourth quarter. What they have projected this year is staggering: total spending on Halloween will reach $7.4 billion dollars in the United States. The NRF even provides a breakdown of cost per person, which they estimate will be $77.52, up about $2 from last year’s average amount spent. And that’s just the average American… Matthew Shay, President of the NRF, points to the fact that Halloween falls on a Friday this year which will likely mean more revelers. The real number that resonates is how much will be spent on adult costumes: $1.4 billion.

For Sarofim’s future-themed Halloween bash, man about town Di Mondo shopped his closet but it still was a glamorous costume: Maison Martin Margiela silver sneakers, Margiela for H&M leggings, and a Balenciaga jacket. He admitted the hostess was the best dressed that evening, donning a Giambattista Valli Couture skirt, custom crystal top, and outlandishly incredible silver spiky headpiece.

Between the fashion pack setting the bar impossibly high with couture, to stylists finding themselves on the hunt for authentic costumes, Halloween is trending towards the pricey. Rent the Runway was born out of a necessity for spectacular gowns for single-time use. Perhaps there will be a costume equivalent soon for over-the-top Cleopatra glamour that you just return on November 1st.