Feature - Dress up & Role Play

Make believe magic

Following a growing demand for eco-friendly and inclusive role-play and dress-up products, suppliers are revamping their portfolios with enriching new toys and costumes that feature diverse professions and popular licences. Gabriela Jimenez speaks to category leaders to find out more.

Role-play remains one of the most enduring categories within the toy industry, allowing children to feed their curiosity and explore different aspects of the grown-up world imaginatively and safely. Through role-play, kids can develop critical social and emotional skills, learn about different professions and experience being their favourite role model, whether that’s a fictional character they adore or a member of the community they look up to. Parents acknowledge the importance of their children learning through imaginative play and developing critical life skills including effective communication, independence, empathy and cooperation from a young age, therefore the demand for role-play toys that will teach these essential skills remains high.

David Lubliner, head of Customer Marketing, Europe, at Melissa & Doug, tells us that he and his team are seeing a significant trend towards inclusive and diverse role-play sets, as parents are looking for toys that represent a wide range of cultures, professions and abilities. The company’s catalogue includes 15 different role-play dress-up sets that cover a wide range of careers to enable children to experience all the professions that appeal to them. Though its portfolio of dress-up and role-play items is broad, David tells us that the company’s most popular best-sellers include the Fire Chief Role Play Costume Set, known for its heroic appeal, the Chef Role Play Costume Set, designed to encourage imaginative kitchen play, and the Doctor Role Play Costume Set, which has been a standout as children enjoy mimicking real-life heroes in the healthcare field.

Simba Smoby has also recently expanded its portfolio with creative new toys designed to inspire children to explore different roles and careers. The latest addition to the Smoby Flower Market range is the Flower Creations Kit, which includes a manual flower press and flower parts that enable budding florists to create colourful blooms for their florist stalls.

As technology continues to advance, today's role-play toys are far more than just basic imitations of everyday items. Many toy manufacturers offer realistic toys that not only resemble the real thing, but also feature recognisable trademarks and brands. Casdon excels as one of the leading companies creating role-play toys that are almost identical to their real adult counterparts. The company has established partnerships with some of the world’s best-known household appliance manufacturers including Henry and Hetty, Dyson and, most recently, Ooni, the world’s No.1 pizza oven company. The collaboration between the two companies has resulted in the launch of the Oven and Topping Station, which will be loved by children who enjoy mimicking outdoor and indoor cooking. The company also highlights the De’Longhi Barista coffee machine as a stand-out favourite this year, captivating adults and children alike with its high-quality design and impressive features.

Simone Inskip, Marketing manager at Casdon, tells us that the company also pays significant attention to how products are displayed to best appeal to consumers. “The team has worked hard to create products which not only mirror the real thing, but which are also well packaged and ‘giftable’,” she says. “Our packaging is bright and eyecatching, including callouts to emphasise the functions and features Casdon toys are packed with. For retailers who have the flexibility to showcase products out-ofbox, we offer stock to accommodate displays, as nothing beats being able to play with the toys before making a purchase.”

Little Tikes is committed to creating interactive role-play toys featuring the latest technology to simulate real-life scenarios as accurately as possible. “We have always trailblazed the role-play sector with multi-faceted products that can be enjoyed by families for generations,” says Alaina Cornish, senior brand manager for UK & Ireland, Little Tikes. “It’s important to us that our products give little ones as close to a real-life experience as possible, while helping them grow and develop.”

One of its most recent launches is the Little Tikes Adventure Rocket, designed for children who dream of travelling to space and becoming astronauts. This rocket ship featuring realistic lights and sounds, and a control centre allows young space enthusiasts to pretendpilot, look through a telescope, fix wires on the exterior maintenance panel or crawl through the escape hatch, plus a star viewer screen is included to make users feel like they really are travelling through the galaxy.

Alaina reveals that, although Little Tikes’ role-play range performs well throughout every season, the company maximises sales by capitalising on key events throughout the year. “Christmas is the time when Little Tikes can push showstoppers such as the Adventure Rocket to parents who are looking for the big Christmas gift for their little ones,” she says. “As the seasons progress, we identify national and international celebration days to target, for example, World Space Day was a great point for us to position the Adventure Rocket within the press.”

Many of today’s parents consider a toy's environmental impact before making a buying decision, which has led to toymakers prioritising sustainability to align with evolving consumer values. Commotion is just one of the toy companies taking steps towards accommodating the needs of eco-conscious buyers, after recently announcing a new collaboration with the eco-friendly brand PolarB. The brand-new partnership brings consumers a range of attractive and sturdy wooden role-play toys, including the Tool Bench with accessories and the Tool Kit, both designed to encourage the development of motor skills; the Dentist Set and Hairdressing Set, intended for introducing young children to the subjects of health, wellbeing and lifestyle; and the Cash Register and Weighing Scales, designed to teach fundamental maths skills through play. A.B. Gee is also expanding its sustainable Tooky Toy range with a new Breakfast Tray, allowing children to engage in imaginative play and learn about important daily routines.

Meanwhile, in the world of dress-up, industry-leading companies recognise the importance of manufacturing costumes that are both eco-conscious and long-lasting. “Producing sustainable and mindful dress-up costumes is a key focus for us,” says Sophie Greenbark, Product manager at Amscan. “All our costumes are now sold in a 40% recycled content bag with sustainable card packaging as we push towards this goal. We also ensure that our costumes are of high quality and are washable where possible, helping make the product last longer.”

Rubies’ head of Portfolio and Marketing, Fran Hales, also highlights how sustainability in costume production and inclusivity in design are important factors to consider when coming up with new ranges. He explains: “We are trailblazing in industry innovation with our collection of Adaptive dress-up, specifically tailored for customers who use mobility aids including wheelchairs. The Rubies team has also come up with a collection of costumes made entirely from recycled plastic bottles.”

With Halloween almost around the corner, retailers are getting ready to capitalise on children wanting to dress up as popular characters for the occasion, and there is no shortage of inspiration from costume suppliers this year. Highly anticipated movies and TV series including Deadpool & Wolverine, and Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, have inspired the launch of various licensed costumes set to be a hit for this year’s Halloween. Amscan’s Sophie Greenbark points out how capitalising on new movies and TV releases is crucial to licensed opportunities: “Whilst licensed characters are popular all year round, across all age groups, there is an opportunity for official merchandise to be more popular than ever in the run-up to Halloween. For example, The Beetlejuice 2 Movie release later this year will be very popular for Halloween 2024, and, whilst Wednesday and the Addams Family range were bestsellers for 2023, we see this continuing.”

At Disguise, Aneesa Beasley, VP of Commercial Trading EMEA, is also anticipating 2024 as being a significant year for the company, with a host of major movie releases. She says: “Content was limited as we entered 2024 due to writer and actor strikes in 2023. However, Q4 is extremely exciting for Disguise. We’re looking forward to a whole host of theatrical releases coming up including new Disney titles, plus Universal’s Wicked and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3.”

Aneesa also reports that mild horror and gaming are huge trends, prompting the company to release costumes featuring characters from some of the hottest video games: “Besides refreshing our Minecraft range, we have also recently added Pokémon rights for EMEA, as well as Poppys Playtime, Rainbow Friends and Bendy and the Ink Machine.” Aneesa adds that, although value retailers offer great-priced products for the Halloween season, they tend to have limited space, which allows the rest of the trade to provide extended ranges with broader price points and demographics.

Over the next few pages of product-focused editorial, Toy World explores some of the ranges mentioned in this article, as well as other new products entering the dressup and role-play category this year.