Feature
Dress-up & Role Play
Dress for success Dress Up and role-play forms an important part of childhood, allowing children to express their creativity and imagination. Casey Goodman finds out what the latest trends are.
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hildren have always loved dressing up – it’s a fundamental play pattern which has been around for decades. These days, however, the category encompasses far more than just costumes. Rubie’s head of marketing & licensing Tracey Devine explains: “The dress up and party category continues to get more creative and innovative each day. Dress up crosses over to so many other categories nowadays, it is becoming a mix and match process. Children wearing costumes, or part of a costume, as their everyday clothing, sleep wear, etc. We love to start dressing up from an early age in the UK and I’m sure this trend will continue.” Pretend To Bee’s sales manager Kate Skitt believes that consumers are demanding a higher quality when choosing costumes: “Parents are looking for products that are safe and durable and so we are noticing a real uptake in our lines.” Smiffys’ senior trade marketing manager Sharon Poulter highlighted that costumes are not just for children: “Our in-house creative teams design hundreds of new and innovative products each year. With a key trend in 2018 being for costumes for all the family, we have a bright and vibrant family of clowns, complete with fun accessories, and many createyour-own party looks such as mix & match pirate accessories, from eye patches and hats to blouses with waist clincher belts.” Licensing continues to play a huge role in the development of products in the Dress Up category, and Tracey explains why she thinks that licences are so important. “We are lucky to work with so many amazing licensors; not only do we bring characters to life, it allows children to bring their imaginations alive through dress up and role-play. We have a lot to be excited about for 2018, including upcoming Disney movie The Incredibles 2, Marvels Ant-Man and the Wasp, Warner Brothers Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald, Hasbro’s Bumblebee, Nickelodeon’s Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and the list could go on.” However, it’s not just films which provide characters that children want to dress up as. World Book Day is now the second biggest dress up event of the year in the UK after Halloween, and characters from books are still a popular choice for many children, as Sharon explains: “With World Book Day a firm fixture in the school calendar, children’s licensed dress-up is fundamental to the success of World Book Day for the party and toy industries.” As
a result, licences play an increasingly important part of Smiffys offering. As schools take advantage of the event to focus on literacy, dress-up plays an important role in making reading fun for school children. Popular dress-up characters born from established book titles range from Where’s Wally, Goosebumps and Horrible Histories to characters from the World of Walliams, Beatrix Potter and Enid Blyton. Enduringly popular, Roald Dahl’s infamous characters enjoy best-selling status on World Book Day, but remain in demand throughout the year. Roald Dahl Day, an annual event (13th September 2018) affords another opportunity to celebrate the renowned authors work and bring characters to life through dress-up, whilst raising money for his children’s charity.” Pretend To Bee has also seen an increase in sales around World Book Day, and Kate believes that it is a key period in the Dress Up category. She explains: “We always see a surge in sales in the run up to World Book Day across all of our ranges, as parents become more and more creative with the characters they dress their children as. We saw an 11% increase on last year thanks to new lines and a proactive marketing and social media marketing campaign prior to the event.” Rubie’s offers a range of products designed for World Book Day, as Tracey explains: “World Book Day is an amazing celebration that motivates children to read and be their favourite character for a fun day at school. Rubie’s book week classic costumes have stayed as popular as ever: Harry Potter, Horrid Henry, Marvel characters and Disney princes and princesses. We were contacted by a little girl on social media that loved her Rubie’s costume so much that she wrote her own book, so she could wear her costume. It is so heart-warming to see the love of dress-up motivating children to get more involved in reading and writing.” Another key part of the Dress Up category is the accessories which can be purchased as add-ons. These provide opportunities for retailers to create extra sales, and Tracey explains how sometimes the
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accessories can be just as important as the main costumes: “People love to make the costume their own by putting their own unique twist on things. Adding accessories only adds to their unique costumes. We pride ourselves on offering something for every budget – from the nonfancy dresser who just wants to accessorise to the hard core fan.” Kate also revealed that demand has been so high for accessories, that Pretend To Bee has added more of them to its range, with impulse price points to give added value. For example, the new Woodlands headbands complement the popular animal costume collection. Over the next few pages, Toy World presents a range of the latest products in the Dress Up category.