Picking the right costume

Answers to costume quandaries

What to be or not to be … That is the Halloween question. According to the National Retail Federation, it is estimated that this year, Americans will spend $4.75 billion on celebrating Halloween this year, of which nearly 40 percent will go to costume funds.

“Halloween has become the second biggest holiday, period. More money is spent on Halloween on any other holiday than Christmas,” says Rick Taylor, president of Taylor Maid Beauty Supply, Inc. “Halloween is not a children’s holiday anymore, it’s an adult holiday. Probably 75 percent of all the costumes sold are adult costumes.”

So how to choose what to be? Taylor has some advice.

“Costumes are such that people don’t want to be themselves,” he says. “They pick things [where] they can change their character a little bit. It’s surprising how much their character changes once they get into costume. Shy people become not-so-shy and it’s kind of fun to see.”

This year, Taylor says that some popular costumes have been Michael Jackson; the Watchmen, Disney and Star Wars characters; Superman and Wolverine. “Any movies that come out right about this time of year are the ones that tend to be more popular,” he adds.

Since Taylor Maid in Provo is a year-round store with a wide variety of costumes both for purchase and for rental, one way to get ideas for costumes is to visit the store.

“We have books and books you can look through. We have thousands of costumes you can rent and hundreds you can buy all year long. The best way to come in and look,” Taylor says. He also adds that the website has a partial archive of rentable costumes.

With student budgets, which are often lower than one would like, there are ways to look great without eating ramen for the rest of the year.

“Personally, I think that makeup is one of the things that really makes what you’re doing,” Taylor says. He adds that you can wear regular clothes, but with an accessory, such as a hat or a boa, and high quality makeup, you can transform into someone else for the night.

Another way to save money is to rent costumes as opposed to buying them. Taylor explains, “You get a much higher quality for what you can go and buy a cheap costume for.”

He also adds that Taylor Maid gives a year-round discount to students who show their UVU ID.

“I think that with the economy and all the troubles in the world … people just want to dress up and have fun,” says Taylor. “The ability to get out and have fun and laugh and get out the doldrums, as it were.”