Tara Hefter
Tara Hefter
Editor’s Note: Disguise was one of eight NCA Vendor Members who supported the association’s Help Halloween Happen campaign. In this Q&A with NCA Executive Director Ed Avis, Disguise General Manager Tara Hefter explains how the company finds and develops its costumes.
Ed Avis: How are things going for Disguise this Halloween season?
Tara Hefter: We’re doing much better than a lot of other companies. We’ll be down overall this year, but a lot of that is because last year was massive for us. We had costumes for four Disney movies last year, and this year there’s only one. We’ll also have some decline because of COVID, but the biggest reason is the movies. Last year was the biggest year in Disguise’s history.
We do costumes related to the Trolls movie, and that went out on paid video on-demand, and that was successful. We’re optimistic for sales of Trolls costumes this year. It’s a great dress-up brand. I have a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old, and they have watched it several times.
Avis: How does Disguise develop its costumes?
Hefter: About 95 percent of our costumes are licensed; we don’t pursue generic costumes. We get the licenses several ways. Sometimes the brand owner just goes with the incumbent – for example, we’ve been a Disney partner for 30 years. Sometimes it’s a bidding process. Sometimes it’s just who gets to the brand owner first.
Gaming is a focus of ours. We received the rights to Nintendo costumes in 2013 and it’s grown from there. We now have Pokemon, Minecraft, Halo and a lot of niche games, too. We’ll look at a game and ask, “Does this make sense for our portfolio?” That has worked out well for us because gaming is significantly up, and COVID has increased it even more. When kids, and even adults, play a game they’re into that brand every day, whereas with a movie you’re not necessarily living it every day.
Avis: How do you design the costumes?
Hefter: Some of them are very literal – we find the most popular and most iconic character and create the costume for that. Especially for the younger ages. For example, in Mario Brothers, Mario and Luigi and the key characters. Tweens and adults look for more unique character costumes, more obscure characters. They might look for different versions of the Mario character, so we might be able to extend the brand that way.
We start out with a sketch and fabric swatches and move on to a sample. If it’s an exclusive for a retailer we have to get approvals from them. It’s a back-and-forth process. Then we involve the pattern makers. We’ll probably start working on 2022 costumes in November.
Avis: What’s popular this year?
Hefter: In addition to Trolls, Frozen will continue to be strong. On the gaming side, Nintendo and Minecraft are projected to do well. Power Rangers always hits – some brands always do well.
We worked closely with Disney on adaptive costumes this year, and that has gotten a lot of pick-up and response. The adaptive Incredibles Car and Cinderella Carriage are available now We’ll continue to expand that line.
Avis: How do you feel Halloween will go this year?
Hefter: I think there’s going to be dressing up in costumes, even if kids aren’t going door to door. Parents don’t want to disappoint their kids. I think there will be a little more planning this year than usual – you’re going to see a ton of people coming up with ideas on how to have a safe Halloween.
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