From the Front Lines

Costume shop owners share post-pandemic tales

By Kathleen Furore

As stores slowly reopen across the country, costume businesses are refecting on the challenges they’ve faced during the past few months while doing all they can to get sales moving once again.

An NCA member survey in mid-May revealed that almost everyone had experienced a tremendous loss of business since the March shut down. “In fact, it was surprising to see that 10 percent of the respondents actually had business that was the same as before,” says Ed Avis, the NCA’s executive director, who noted that only 20 percent of survey respondents hadn’t been forced to lay of staf.

Here, NCA members Caren Bricker, owner of Vintage Ooollee in Augusta, Georgia; Janine Caufeld, an owner of Caufeld’s in Louisville, Kentucky; and Helen Goncalves from Metro Boutique in Portland, Oregon, ofer an inside look at how their businesses are rebuilding and what they predict lies ahead. (Comments are from an NCA webinar held May 28 and have been edited for space and clarity.) interested in makeup, we can get it out for them and we get

THE COSTUMER: WHAT ARE SOME SAFETYMEASURES YOU’VE PUT IN PLACE?

Goncalves: Our sales are fnal for anything for the face like wigs or sunglasses and we limit how much people can touch things—we put that stuf in the back of the store.

Bricker: We wear masks, we request our customers to wear masks. We have marks on the foor, we have hand sanitizer. Te other thing I was concerned about—because I sell vintage clothing and rent costumes—was, ‘What do I do with the clothes that people have tried on?’ I spoke with someone and what we came up with was I’m steaming them because they say that a certain temperature and humidity will kill the virus and that was the best resolution I could come up with. I have a rack for everybody to return anything that is tried on so we can be sure we steam those items. I would do it right away. Te only reason I would postpone it would be because I was busy helping other people.

Caufeld: Before we opened up, we had to submit a proposal to the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and we had to ensure that we took care of our employees and our customers. So every day, at the back door before our employees come in, I have to take their temperature. Tey are required to wear a mask when we have customers in the building. We have hand sanitizers throughout the whole building. Tere are no exchanges, no refunds. If someone comes in without a mask, I have one there for them…there’s a sign on the door, but if they feel like they don’t want to, I’m not going to be the police and say you’ve got to put a mask on. We require the six feet [of social distancing], which we’ve got marked on the foor, and we have the plastic for the cashier register. If anybody touches the keypad with their credit card or anything, [employees] au

Te Costumer: What about makeup?

Caufeld: I have a makeup artist who handles [demos] in a very sterile way. We have Q-tips and pads and we do not let the customers double dip. We have sample boards, but we don’t have them where customers can get to them. If they’re tomatically wipe the counter down before the next transaction.

little Q-tips and let them try it on. We’ve always done that— there’s not been a change.

Goncalves: We have removed all testers and, unfortunately, we are no longer allowing anybody to test the makeup.

Bricker: I follow the same lines that Janine does…no double dipping allowed. I keep the makeup, the samples, behind the counter, so we have to pull them out for people to see. I usually do the makeup demo, so I’m controlling it.

THE COSTUMER: HOW ARE YOU PREPARING FOR HALLOWEEN AND HAS THAT CHANGED SINCE THE PANDEMIC?

Goncalves: We already had placed our orders. I have not added any new orders. I really don’t know what Halloween is going to be like this year…I’m not spending any more money for anything that I haven’t already ordered until I see sales change in maybe the end of the summer. [I have not canceled any orders] at this moment.

Bricker: When I frst closed, the frst thing I did was I inventoried anything that I would have to order, like makeup and wigs...I haven’t placed any orders. Te tricky part for me is going to be the whole steaming [process], and holding something for 24 hours…I guess I’ll have to make a list [of people] who may want to try it on, because I will hold a costume for 24 hours before I let somebody else try it on—even after steaming it, I think that that’s the prudent thing to do, because we don’t know. Tere aren’t enough answers. Caufeld: When this happened, I put all my orders on hold because I don’t want all this big stuf coming in right now. I’ve heard through the grapevine—I don’t know how true it is, but I might as well just say it: Party City should be fling bankruptcy is what I’ve heard, and they’re expecting it to be a good Halloween. We’ve lowered several of our orders…I don’t know what the future holds. I just worry that if we have a spike, they might cancel Halloween.

THE COSTUMER: DID YOU HAVE ONLINE SALES DURING THE COVID CRISIS, AND IF SO, WILL YOU CONTINUE WITH THAT OPTION?

Bricker: I did not have online sales. Originally, I just had a vintage clothing store and then a local costume shop that had been here in town for 50 years closed. I got the opportunity to buy their inventory, which made me into a costume rental and a vintage shop. I never had gotten around to that. Now I hope to be going live within the next month—we are working on that right now.

Caufeld: We’ve always had online. While we were closed, our community really supported us with curbside pickup and ordering through Amazon or through Ebay. We will continue doing that. I would say that that’s what kept our lights on and paid our bills while we were closed.

Goncalves: Unfortunately, we never had a website. Tis store has been around for 20 years and since this all came down, I’ve been working on a website to go live.

THE COSTUMER: WHAT DID YOU DO FOR ORDERS THAT WERE PLACED BEFORE THE CRISIS HIT?

Bricker: When we closed, I was in the middle of six plays. Tree of them went out right before we closed and three of them canceled. I didn’t know what to do. One was a very good customer, a school that rents a lot. Tey called and said, ‘Send us a bill for the fttings and what you’ve done,’ and I did. Tey were gracious about it and happy to pay. I told another person I had rented to, ‘I’d be happy to give you a refund, but if you would be willing to take a gift certifcate, if I could do that, that would be helpful to me because of this but I understand

because of the pandemic if you need the money.’ Tey said, ‘No, I’ll take a gift certifcate, because I know I’ll be renting again.’ Tat was a good suggestion to go that route.

THE COSTUMER: DID YOU DO SOMETHING SPECIAL TO GENERATE ATTENTION DURING THIS TIME?

Bricker: I personally didn’t do it, but a local business downtown did this campaign called We Give A Shirt campaign. best free advertising I’ve ever done. So, I am prepping my

Tey ran the whole thing. I requested a T-shirt, they designed it, they put it on their website, they promoted it, they did a sale that only went for seven days, which created this sense of urgency. Tey charged $20 a shirt and had to get 50 orders to do it to make it cost-efective. Ten they shipped the shirt to the person. Tey gave me $10 of every $20 they got. So, I got $780 because I sold 78 shirts…then I turned around and spent some of the money and bought more T-shirts to have in my shop to sell because I had so many people requesting them. It put my name out there in a way I never saw coming.

Another thing I am working on…I pull old costumes all during the year because we end up getting in rental costumes Goodwill or donating them somewhere, in the summertime when it’s slower for costume rentals, I do a dollar rack. Many times, these things are worth more than a dollar—but it’s the

that have seen better days. Instead of just taking them to the dollar rack and I’m going to send out an email to a group of theater people frst and let them come in…then after that, I will put that on Facebook. Tat usually generates a good bit of business for me.

THE COSTUMER: HOW DO YOU BELIEVE YOUR SALES WILL BE AFFECTED OVERALL THIS YEAR?

Goncalves: I think they will be down 40 to 50 percent…it’s going to be scary.

Caufeld: We expect it to probably be down, but it really depends on if they open it wide up or if there are going to be Halloween parties. I mean it’s really ify, it’s kind of up in the air. We’re hoping that it’s going to be up but we’re buying like it’s going to be down. I’m not buying a lot of new stuf this year. I’m going to try to go with what we’ve got.

THE VENDOR PERSPECTIVE

NCA Executive Director Ed Avis recently chatted with several of NCA’s vendor members about how they are navigating the coronavirus crisis.

“Every vendor I spoke with is confdent that our industry will rebound—that the love of costuming is not going away. And everyone is happy that Halloween will be on a Saturday!” Avis recalls.

“Halloween will be interesting— people are going to want to have a party!” said Janine Wardale, owner of Graftobian, who thinks happy, glittery, glitzy costumes will be in demand at Halloween. We’ve seen enough real death and misery lately, she asserts, so people will want something cheery come October.

Sean Morris of Morris Costumes echoed Wardale’s thought: “Halloween will be as strong as ever. Everybody has been cooped up and will be wanting to get out.”

BEING INNOVATIVE

Many vendors are being innovative as they await better times. Kalan has been selling “Back of, I’m social distancing” buttons and other Covid-19-related items their retail customers can sell by the cash register.

“Stylus pens are also fying out the door, because people don’t want to touch anything,” Kalan president Dan Shoemaker said.

Kryolan has tapped its makeup manufacturing skills to produce hand sanitizer, while Morris Costumes has been sewing medical masks to help keep frontline workers safe.

VIDEO ENGAGEMENT

Some vendors have been posting videos to keep customers engaged. Mehron has been live-streaming makeup lessons and has videos that stores can post on their own sites.

Videos that emulate canceled tradeshows are also a trend. Graftobian created a video that shows of their makeup products for Halloween, and Zagone made a video showcasing Halloween haunt décor.

INTACT SUPPLYCHAIN

Another positive note is that the costume supply chain seems mostly intact.

“We want to let the costumers know that we’re producing our entire line, so when they’re ready we’ll have it available,” said Gihan Gabor of Dreamgirl.

“We’ll have plenty of inventory,” echoed David Coggin of Disguise, who says characters from the movies Trolls and Frozen, and video game costumes such as Halo are expected to sell well for Halloween 2020.

Of course, not everything is rosy in the vendors’ world. Tere have been many canceled or reduced orders, which has caused many layofs. It will take a long time—and some amazing holidays—to make up for this crisis.

But in the end, the industry is sticking together—and that’s what will help everyone survive.

As Leslie Wandell of Ellie Shoes concludes, “We are hopeful that all of our beloved NCA members are staying healthy and safe and that we can all survive this uncertain time together. Ellen [Renger] and I spoke today, and she did want me to mention that she was so touched and heart warmed to see NCA members making masks and stepping up to help out. Tis is why we love our industry so much. She said keep up the good work, and we can’t wait to do business again soon!”