So over sexy: Some seek less seductive Halloween costumes

Sexy costumes are still selling, of course; about half of the women who dress up will do so as something “attractive,” according to a national survey by Savers secondhand stores. But sexy just isn’t sizzling quite like it used to.

While a record 45 percent of all adults will dress for Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation, Yahoo! searches for the phrase “sexy Halloween costumes” have dropped 47 percent since 2010.

Even pop culture observers are fatigued by too-flagrant fashions:

“Showing off your navel is a little too try-hard/Why not just be Bruce Willis from ‘Die Hard,’ ” two New York comedians rap a video gone viral called, “Things You Can Be on Halloween Besides Naked.” Later in the song by Shamikah Christina Martinez and Molly Austin, who run the EmotiStyle blog, a Tim Gunn character exclaims, “If you’re dressed as a working girl, you’re not making it work.”

The new view

So what’s making us slightly more modest in 2012?

There have always been women who shun sexy Halloween costumes, finding them inappropriate for their age, weight, station in life or sense of propriety. But there’s something else happening this year. Maybe women are tired of how Halloween serves to turn them into sexual objects. Maybe women are stymied by the lack of self expression available to them when the choice in the costume aisle seems only to be “sexy or un-sexy.” Maybe after years of so many women using the holiday to express sexual fantasies, the transgressive fun of all that flesh-baring is gone.

Or, it could be a lot simpler than all that:

Sexy costumes are boring, said Amy Odell, editor at BuzzFeed Shift, the women’s lifestyle channel at the website BuzzFeed in Manhattan.

“People know that Halloween is just an excuse to dress sexy,” she said, but noted, “…It’s like the most obvious thing a woman can do. If someone wants to show off their body, more power to them.

“But I think it’s the least-interesting thing you can do.”

Psychologists have long said Halloween gives adults permission to safely live out parts of their fantasies in public, but experts observe that these roles, when seen in the aisles of a Halloween superstore or the pages of a costume website, feel narrow and traditional.

Typically, younger women choose sexualized versions of costumes, and young men choose superheroes and other powerful, masculine figures, said Annette Lynch, director for the Center of Violence Prevention and a professor of fashion and apparel design at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

“It’s so been-there, done-that; it’s not new,” said Lynch, whose research includes analyzing photos young people post to Facebook after Halloween. “We are so inundated with sexy costumes that you really want to look for some other alternative, something new this year. I think more people are challenging the perceptions of sexually objectified roles.”

Or maybe it’s just that we know a trend is over when Yahoo! reports this year’s most searched kind of sexy costume is “sexy Big Bird.”

Keeping it under wraps

Castaneda was at Easley’s on the first day the store extended its hours to accommodate late shoppers. She was returning an Indian costume she’d bought online that didn’t look so revealing in the pictures.

“I was like, ‘I am totally not wearing this,’ ” said Castaneda. “It was all cut out along the back, barely covered my butt. It was too slutty. This one covers my legs, covers my butt; that is the most important thing.”

Although Easley’s has a no-returns-or-exchanges policy, owner Debbie Easley said she felt obligated to give Castaneda something more modest. (Debbie also trains her staff to recommend tights instead of thigh-highs, and tank tops or turtlenecks when teens and tweens pick out costumes with short skirts or low-cut tops.)

Debbie and her mom, Carol, walked the sales floor, pointing out that of the hundreds of thousands of costumes they see every year at buying conventions, they make a point to only choose those that cover the whole torso and upper thighs.

“Let’s put it this way, if it comes with a thong or bra as part of the costume, we don’t buy it,” said Debbie.

She’s talking about a category of costume most in the industry describe as “bedroom,” but in cities with robust nightlife culture and warm October evenings, these looks are rarely left behind closed doors.

Boredom with ‘bedroom’

The bedroom-costume trend started about 12 years ago, when lingerie and hosiery manufacturer Leg Avenue developed a handful of looks. Now, dozens of companies with names like Lip Service and Music Legs make ensembles ranging from as modest as corsets and skirts to bra-and-micro-mini sets.

For a few years, these costumes followed traditional “sexy” tropes: nurse, schoolgirl, barmaid. But by about 2009, adult stores were hosting costume fashion shows in night clubs and anything could be made sexy, including Snow White, Care Bears and border patrol agents.

“Now, everything is sexy,” said Carol Easley. “I’ve probably seen more than 40 French maid costumes just this year. And how different can they all be?”

The National Retail Federation says of the $8 billion Americans will spend on this Halloween, $2.87 billion will be on costumes, most store-bought.

Choosing a Halloween costume has always involved a number of factors. Women consider their age, body type, personal style and who they’re going out with — whether carting the kids to a neighborhood get-together or joining friends at the clubs. But this season, women are talking about avoiding the sexy costumes they assume so many will be wearing.

Kate Moodey, 23, looked for costumes at Easley’s while considering a few extra factors this year. Moodey will be in Hawaii for the holiday, and wants something setting- and temperature-appropriate.

“I want (the costume) to ride a fine line; I don’t want (it) to be too big and bulky to pack; and I want to be pretty,” Moodey said.

“I think about it every year. You don’t want something too, well, you know, slutty. Some of the costumes, you might as well be wearing a bathing suit.”

That said, she and her friends are considering going as characters from the TV show “Baywatch.”

“But I can wear boy shorts with it still, you know?”

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The art of bespoke: how fashionable shoppers are investing in individuality

We want everything and we want to make it our own. The cynical might say it’s simply a reaction to the ubiquity of, well, pretty much anything these days. Others may suggest that it’s simply nice to be in possession of something that entirely reflects you and your tastes.

Either way, customisation and bespoke services are on the increase among fashion houses this season, with two major launches for the pickiest aesthetes at ultra-luxury labels Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton. The first takes inspiration from the brand’s elegantly understated tagline “when your own initials are enough”, and gives customers the chance to decorate its distinctive woven leather holdalls and handbags with chunky, Scrabble-esque letters in a range of eight colours.

“It allows us to take the customer-centred philosophy of Bottega Veneta one step further,” explains creative director Tomas Maier, whose aesthetic at the label is very much about individuality and personal taste. “The process is fun.”

Likewise with Louis Vuitton’s new Haute Maroquinerie service, which now operates from a private salon in the London Bond Street store. Customers are involved in every stage of designing their handbags – choosing from five styles (three of which are already iconic among the Vuitton back catalogue) and then deciding on colours, lining and hardware. When you’ve finished playing with supple and smooth fabric and leather swatches, or picking from the coffret of zips and clasps, the entire package is sent to the house’s workshops in Asnieres to be made up by Vuitton’s own in-house artisans.

But it doesn’t end with bags. Of course, bespoke has its roots in clothing, from the ateliers of Paris to London’s Savile Row – but the trend for one-offs now extends to stationery (at Smythson, initials can be added for a small fee), life admin (Anya Hindmarch’s bespoke services will create document wallets and files decorated with names and other details) and even your underwear drawer. Loredana Tarsia’s firm Lingerie d’Elia is an Italy-based company which has created made-to-measure silk and lace pieces for the likes of Lauren Bacall and Princess Diana from its boutique on Rome’s Spanish Steps.

“In a world where everything is available, a truly handmade and bespoke product is very hard to find,” she says. “A bespoke service places customers at the centre – their desires are handmade for them.”

“‘Bespoke’ is used pretty loosely in the world of luxury at the moment,” says Penny Martin, editor of The Gentlewoman. “It can refer to services that will guarantee a better fit, customisation to ensure your expensive garment or accessory is somehow distinct from all the others in the room, or some expensive handwork so tricky to reproduce that nobody could turn up with a fake – perish the thought.

“What unites all of those options is that they require the purchase of a fairly simple, classic item in the first place: not an outlandish one-off,” Martin continues. “So what the rise of bespoke tells us is that it’s aimed at a fairly conservative consumer who is prepared to decorate a staple item that will last them several seasons rather than invest in radical design.”

Certainly this is the case with Prada’s popular Made To Order service on handbags and leather goods, which means customers can choose the colour and finishing details of their purchases – the label’s Galleria tote is a popular choice to reinvent in any shade, made from a range of leather, skins and silks, and is a suitably timeless piece of arm candy.

It re-enforces the point – and it’s a significant shift in the market – that those clients who may once have traded in their It-bags with the arrival of the each new season’s range are now looking for something that stands the test of time; that they won’t tire of or see thousands of being carried down the street in front of them.

If the It-bag was a status symbol, then the perfect-fit bag is even more so, as it implies one has opted out – or is above – the vagaries of relentless trend cycles.

“Customers are looking for exclusivity, quality, creativity and timelessness,” says Erich Hager, European Retail Manager at Goyard. The French house has been creating made-to-measure trunks and luggage sets since 1853, and is able to cope with even the most unusual requests, perfectly calibrating its hallmark tessellating prints to each order, be it for a tea-chest, a case for a folding bike or even a jet-set canine armoire.

“At first, we have an interview to understand the expectations of the customer,” continues Hager. “Then, from personal requirements given to satisfy a need or eccentricity, we realise sketches with measurements and then a watercolour. It is a real exchange because a special order is a unique item marked with the personality of the customer.”

Personalised luggage first came about organically, in an age when a travelling bag was much of a muchness. The seasonal migrations and grand tours of the upper classes necessitated the marking of luggage with initials and, for the showy, coats of arms, all carefully stencilled onto pigskin and leather-bound trunks placed on steamers and locomotives. Through the ages, famous faces such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Joan Collins and Liza Minelli have all trundled their very own, embossed baggage through the arrivals hall. While you might not have the budget to stretch to luxury luggage – and you might not spot a Goyard sailing round the luggage carousel after your Ryanair flight, either – customisation is becoming big news on the high street too: initials, it seems, are one trend that everyone can buy into, whether Varsity-style on Whistles’s autumn baseball jacket (the letters are applied free of charge, subject to availability) or stencilled onto a trusty retro bag.

“We have seen a steady rise in the proportion of bags that customers would like embossed,” says Julie Deane, founder of the Cambridge Satchel Company, which offers a customisaton service on its nostalgic leather schoolbags.

“The most popular request is for initials, but we’ve had some more elaborate ones – including one for a marriage proposal! Receiving something that has been tailored especially for you makes it feel that little bit more special.”

That sense of individuality and uniqueness is perhaps what has been missing from a homogeneous high street offering and designer handbags that are copied as soon as they are unveiled in the showroom. Customisation, while reassuringly expensive, is just another way we can treat ourselves.

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