What's hot for Halloween '04?

Hot new trends often reflect recent movies or popular TV characters, so Spiderman and Shrek characters are expected to be big this year.

“The Catwoman movie did poorly at the box office, so that probably won’t be as big a costume as manufacturers might have wanted. Also, the costume is a little too sexy—there’s a limited number of women who can pull it off anyway,” McIntire says.

“For women and girls, we expect more winged creatures—fairies and pixies. The girls’ costumes are dainty and pretty, but for women there are some fairly sexy versions of the same idea.”

What about an election-year tie-in? Halloween USA’s website is already sold out of John Kerry masks, but has a few George W. Bush masks left. Lynch’s didn’t stock Kerry masks but carries a Bush mask.

Licensed costumes seem to increase in number and variety every year, according to Grant. She believes the quality of all costumes has increased greatly in the past 10 years.

McIntire agrees that that licensed costume category is big and has gotten bigger, especially with boys—superheroes and other TV characters are safe bets.

“But no matter what, every year the most popular costumes—taken as a whole and compared to licensed costumes—are the traditional costumes: witches, vampires, devils and ghouls.”