Tips for selling adult costumes

Are you looking for a way to beat the competition from “big box” stores, Halloween pop-ups, and low-price internet sellers? The NCA has a solution: Our new Exclusives program, which has launched with three exclusive masks from Zagone Studios.

Here’s how the program works: Zagone Studios has created three masks that ONLY are available to NCA members. When you put these in your store, you can be assured that no non-NCA member stores will have them. And Zagone Studios has filmed videos and made other web-ready promotions for them so you can easily post them on your site or thirdparty sites.

See details of the masks — Sick-O Clown, Silver Go-Rilla, and Grand Dad — in the Product Parade that begins on page 26.

NCA members play a huge role in the costume industry, based on a February survey of their buying habits. Answers to the question, “Approximately how much money do you spend on new inventory each year?” ranged widely, from below $10,000 to nearly $1 million, but the average was about $150,000. If that figure is extrapolated to the entire NCA membership, the organization’s members as a whole spend nearly $15 million a year!

Another question asked members to rank factors that go into their decision to purchase products. Not surprisingly, quality came out on top. That was followed by, “The product will be unique in my store (in my community),” which speaks to the sentiment among NCA members that they need to sell interesting products that are not easily found at the more general retailers in their community. The availability of discounts for NCA members and the in-stock status of the products also were ranked as very important by members.

Morris Costumes has enjoyed a growth spurt over the past six months. The company, which makes its own décor items and distributes other manufacturers’ costumes to retailers, is now handling distribution for Jazwares and has acquired Halco.

Jazwares is a significant addition to Morris’ distribution line because the company has the license for Marvel costumes, including Captain America, Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man. Jazwares also has a Star Wars line.

“We’re excited about the Jazwares line,” says Scott Morris, president of Morris Costumes. “It’s a quality line and we think it will be well received by the consumer.”

In the case of Halco, Morris Costumes made an outright acquisition. The company, best known for its Santa suits, had been run by Terri Greenberg and was owned by her family for 70 years. Greenberg is staying on as a consultant to ensure a smooth transition. All of the company’s operations have moved to Morris’ location in North Carolina.

“We are happy about bringing Halco into the Morris family,” Scott says. “They have fantastic family values and a deep concern for product quality and delivery. The product will continue to be made in the same manner and with the same quality as always. It’s second to none.”

Morris Costumes itself was sold to Oriental Trading Co. in March 2021.

The NCA is going to be 100 years old in 2023. And when something reaches the ripe old age of 100, you should throw a party — and it is a party we want to throw!

We want everyone to come — current members, retired members, and prospective members. It will be a weekend of reuniting with old friends and meeting the new members who are continuing the NCA legacy. And don’t forget the BIG cake! And a lot more!

So, 2023 will a big year for the NCA — plan to be part of it. Stay tuned for details.

A lot has happened in the NCA’s first 100 years! We are working on the history of the NCA.

If you have any stories that are interesting, funny, strange, or helpful about the NCA, we would love to hear them and include them in the history. We’ll also publish stories in upcoming issues of The Costumer magazine and NCA Today e-newsletter. Please send your stories to Louella Torrence at dropmealine@rcn.com. We can’t wait to hear them!

Dwayne Ibsen’s list of accomplishments reads like a Who’s Who of the costume industry: 18 years as a theater teacher and director; Director of move than 400 theater productions; Designer, creator and builder of thousands of costumes in more than 40 states; Former National Costumers Association (NCA) president; Winner of more than 18 category awards; Winner or runner up of five coveted Grand International Awards.

So it was no surprise when Ibsen, who founded Ibsen Costume Gallery in 1981, was honored in February with the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Performing Arts category during a virtual presentation of the 16th annual Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards (OEAA).

“I am honored a little bit overwhelmed to have been selected for this honor,” Ibsen said when accepting the award. He went on to thank myriad individuals “who have taken me to the place I am today,” and credited his mother for his love of all things theatrical. “My mother decided I was going to become a performer,” he recalled. “It was my parents who started this whole thing!”

Costumers who have interacted with Ibsen throughout his lifetime in the costuming industry acknowledge how welldeserved the honor is.

“Dwayne is simply a creative force, incredibly talented and a truly dear friend of 30 years, says former NCA member Jim Miller. “His creativity and talent aside, he is wise, kind, wicked smart, a great colleague, life advisor and always there to listen. From our first meeting, he opened his mind, his business and offered advice without hesitation. I simply say, my heartfelt bravo and well-deserved congratulations!”

Would you like to spend time with fellow costumers? Then plan on attending the NCA’s Spring Fling on May 5 - 8 at the Dutch Host Inn in Sugarcreek, Ohio. This is an informal annual event organized by members. For more information, contact Pam Markel at 304-476-7927 or Louella Torrence 610-360-5498.

By ed Avis

When it comes to uniforms in quality movies or TV shows, there’s no such thing as “kind of” right. Uniforms are either right or wrong. That understanding has driven the success of new NCA member Eastern Costume.

“We are known as the place that does it correctly,” explains Nick Edler, general manager/ procurement for Eastern Costume in North Hollywood, California, a company that provides costumes that are used in movies, TV shows, music videos and other productions. “With military uniforms, there is always a right answer, and the networks and movie houses trust that we will get it right.”

Eastern Costume traces its success in uniforms to its founder, James Livie. Livie is a Marine Corps veteran who was giving flying lessons in the late 1980s when his in-laws introduced him to costuming. He liked the business aspects of costuming and identified a niche in uniforms. He launched the business in Florida — hence the name Eastern Costume — but soon moved it to Los Angeles to be near the movie industry.

Today the company is about evenly divided between uniforms such as military, police and FedEx — and civilian clothing. The company carries uniforms from World War I to the present day and civilian clothing from the 1930s to the early 2000s. The civilian clothing is also used in movies and TV shows, which is why their collection does not include current-day clothing — wardrobers can just buy modern clothing at a clothing store.

“We do mostly period stuff on the civilian side,” Edler says. “It ranges from casual to business to sportswear to more formal wear. And within those categories it’s based on style, such as hippy stuff.” The civilian costuming business is growing in importance for the company, but they’re still known for the military side. “Jim spent a lot of years watching TV and the movies and saying, ‘I was in the military — that’s not what they wore…that’s not what you would wear in the dessert, you wouldn’t wear the patches that way,” Edler says. “Our main goal is to portray the military accurately.” The company does not limit itself to American uniforms. For example, in 2019 the production company working on a movie about the conflict in Afghanistan ordered several Afghan honor guard dress uniforms. The real thing was not available, so Eastern Costume bought Swiss army honor guard uniforms and tailored them to match the Afghan uniforms.

“We get creative when we have to,” Edler says. “We’ll go that extra mile to make a uniform work.”

Edler says the company finds its uniforms from many sources. It helps that Livie is a veteran and has developed relationships with many vendors who can supply up-to-date military uniforms, he adds. The military frequently changes uniforms, so it’s essential for Eastern to stay on top of current wear.

They also have a variety of sources for their civilian clothing collection. “We get approached to buy a lot of things,” Edler says. “Sometimes if a vintage store goes out of business we’ll buy the inventory, and we get a lot of walk-ins. Recently a family came in whose mother had passed away and they wanted to see her wardrobe go to a good use. We also buy a lot of costumes from shows so that they don’t have to house the assets.”

And that leads to another part of Eastern’s business: In addition to providing the costumes, they offer production space where TV and movie companies can conveniently set up shop

and develop their wardrobe without the usual back-and-forth between a costume supplier and production house. Eastern provides the “cages” where productions can store their wardrobe and stage the costumes for the filming, and fitting rooms where the actors can try on the costumes.

“They can do everything short of the actual filming right here,” Edler says, adding that earlier this year they doubled the amount of space available for production. Do famous actors sometimes come in for fittings? “Yeah, but we’re not one to kiss and tell,” Edler laughs.

Eastern Costume employs 15 people, including many veterans. They have one full-time tailor and a handful of other costumers who can help as needed. Everyone wears multiple hats, says Edler, who joined the company 8 years ago after a dozen years playing drums in a band in Nashville. Business at Eastern Costume has grown considerably in the years Edler has been there, he says.

“I think 20 or 30 years ago a lot of costume houses were doing the majority of costuming for one large feature and a few TV shows, but now the designers are spreading the work out among different costume houses,” Edler says. “And with all the streaming services you have a lot more content. There’s just a lot more quantity than there used to be. I would say the output has quadrupled since I’ve been here.”

Edler says he’s looking forward to becoming part of the NCA family. “I’m a big believer in community and being a part of it, and I want to help build it. It’s an arts-based community we are working in, and we all should be proud of what we’re doing.”

In addition to Eastern Costume in Hollywood, in the past three months we have been pleased to welcome these new or rejoined members:

Abracadabra, New York City Balloons Etc. and the Costume Emporium,

Cedar Rapids, Iowa Costume Corner Shop, Rowlett, Texas DLP Unlimited, Sandy, Utah Fantasty Costumes, Chicago Floretta’s, Atlanta The Junkman’s Daughter, Atlanta Les Folleries Fleuries, Granby, Quebec

Jacksonville, Florida Milwaukee T-Shirt Vendors, Milwaukee

Product Distributors, Hallandale Beach, Florida Solstice, Nevada City, California

We’re pleased to announce the addition of several companies to our growing list of vendor members. Make sure to support these companies when buying inventory for your stores.

Tish (left) anf Snooky Bellomo The NCA has many fantastic vendor members with interesting back stories, but few can match the origin tale of Manic Panic. This New York-based company, which sells a line of hair color in three styles and 60 colors, is led by sisters Tish and Snooky Bellomo, who launched it while immersed in the ‘70s-era New York punk rock scene.

The sisters were singing and dancing in the off-Broadway show The Palm Casino Review when they met Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, co-founders of the punk and new wave band Blondie.

“They came back-stage after the show and asked us if we’d like to come to their rehearsal,” Tish says. “And so, a couple of days later we went to the rehearsal, and then we were in the band.”

The sisters were back-up singers in Blondie for about a year. The group briefly disbanded after some key performers left, and when Harry and Stein restarted the group, the new version did not require back-up singers.

By then, Tish and Snooky had another gig going: They had realized that the “look” of the punk scene, which they were masters of, fascinated a lot of people, so they opened a retail store, Manic Panic, to sell hair color, clothing and other punkrelated merchandise.

“We just figured it out as we went along,” Snooky says. “It was the first punk store in America.”

Eventually word spread about the quality and variety of the store’s hair dyes, and by about 1980 they were wholesaling those products to other retailers. A turning point came in 1994.

“Our supplier of the hair dyes started selling to our customers behind our backs even though we were supposed to be the exclusive distributor, and they weren’t able to ship to us in a timely fashion anymore,” Snooky remembers. “So, we found the person who originally made the formula for the dyes and he created a new set of them to our own specifications.”

From that point on the sisters had complete control of their product. Today, they sell dye in multiple formats, including semi-permanent dye, temporary spray dye, and “Dye Hard,” which is combination of temporary dye and hair gel.

The sisters are excited to be NCA Vendor Members: “We’re independently owned and operated and have been for the last 44 years,” Snooky says. “We love the idea of mom and pop stores — that’s our roots, that’s where we came from. We love independent stores.”

What do kings, Santas, hippies and cowboys all have in common? They’re all known for facial hair. Beards and mustaches are essential components of countless costumes, which means they could potentially add to your bottom line. And Mustaches, based in Lithuania, has everything you need to create or expand your store’s fake facial hair department.

“We have 1,500 SKUs of fake facial hair, probably any mustache or beard you can imagine,” says owner Tomas Siuipys.

Siuipys’ business began 25 years ago selling balloons. The company expanded to other party- and costume-related items, and eventually had 12 retail locations across Lithuania. That business was successful, but Siuipys started noticing that many

customers wanted quality beards and mustaches — and the company didn’t have much to offer.

Since the factory in Lithuania already existed, the company designed some beards and mustaches, added them to the line, and exhibited the facial hair at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany. Sales took off — a fact Siuipys attributes to the decision to focus on quality.

“Our beards and mustaches are handmade and very thoroughly combed,” he says. “And they’re very clean. They’re not itchy when you put them on your face. Another thing that distinguishes us from lower-quality products is that we use 3M surgical tape to stick them on. That tape is anti-allergic and it sticks very well.”

Today, Mustache’s product line includes all the standard hair colors, ranging from ginger to black to salt-and-pepper. Rainbow colored beards are popular at pride events, and national flag colors are great for patriots. Siuipys says his best seller is the classic walrus mustache.

The products ship directly from the Mustaches’ factory in Lithuania, which Siuipys assures is not a problem. Because the products are very light and small, even a large order fits in a small package that arrives in the United States in just four to six working days. Perhaps best of all is the discount Siuipys offers: NCA members get 30 percent off the wholesale cost, and the minimum order is just $300.

When you imagine customers in your store shopping for Halloween, you probably envision them buying costumes. But the trick-or-treating experience these days goes beyond dressup. You also should think about selling pumpkin-shaped candy holders, cauldrons for candy and décor, and assorted other addons — all available from Blinky Products. The company, which joined the NCA in January, has been making plastic goods in their Massachusetts factory since the early 1970s.

“The company was founded by an elderly couple, the Wilbers, because they were worried about the safety of trick-ortreaters,” says owner Pat Magnus. “They came up with a handheld pumpkin with a blinking light inside it and said, ‘Let’s call this a “Blinky,”’ and that’s how they came up with the name.”

Today Blinky Products is known for more than the original Blinky. The company makes plastic cauldrons in six sizes, a Santa boot that is used as a gift basket or poinsettia planter, and a line of products for spring and summer, including pails and shovels for the beach.

“We never require a minimum order because a smaller store may not have as much floor space as a larger store does, and we don’t think they should be penalized because they can’t meet a minimum order requirement,” Magnus says.

Blinky’s current success is largely due to Pat Magnus’ mother, Patricia Magnus. The Wilbers had grown the company over a couple of years and had regular orders from retailers — then Mr. Wilber passed away. His widow did not want to run the company alone, so she contacted Regis Magnus, Pat’s father, who owned a plastic supply distribution company. Regis presented the opportunity to his wife, Patricia, and she jumped at it.

“My mother bought the company in 1975 and rented a garage to start filling the orders,” Magnus remembers.

They made the Blinkys themselves using a plastic blow molding machine in that garage. Within three years they had outgrown the space and purchased an old printing shop as their new factory. Regis Magnus’ plastics company — Plastic Distribution Corp. (PDC) — was located next door, so they had a ready supply of raw materials.

Pat Magnus was just a kid then and loved that his mother owned a company making such fun things. “I would bring garbage bags full of Blinkys into my classroom and hand them out to the kids,” he recalls.

When he turned 12, he became an employee, first painting faces on the pumpkins, and later working the blow molding machines or grinding up rejected products so they could reuse the plastic. In 2003, he hit the road as a salesman for the company. In 2010, his parents retired and he took over the business.

“Once NCA members get to know me, I think they’ll like my service and my company,” Magnus says. “We’re a familyowned business just like them, and we love working with other independent companies.”

Ed Avis is the publisher of The Costumer.

In addition to Manic Panic, Blinky Products and Mustaches, the NCA is pleased to announce that the following companies have joined or rejoined the NCA as Vendor Members in the past six months:

aeromaxtoys.com 877-776-2291

www.goodsforgeeks.com 970-414-0857

www.appliqueswithglitz. com 888-344-5480

loftus.com 800-453-4879

www.sassyroyals.com 337-540-3098