A women’s Halloween costume designer reveals her secrets
My fashion company revolutionized the Halloween costume industry when we introduced a new product line specifically for men — sexy costumes for women. Our goal? Take high-paying professions like doctor or lawyer, and sex them up for Hallows Eve. People ask me how I developed the concepts for our biggest hits. Am I a genius? Some say so, but I can’t hog all of the credit. I have a fabulous team that follows simple but essential principles when approaching costume designs for women for men.
For years, we’d generated plenty of revenue with conventional costumes — maid, bar maid, princess, hooker, stripper, life guard, ballerina. But we had lots of competition from generic costume shops. We needed to set ourselves apart from the herd. So we did some focus groups with young professionals, interviewing men and women alike for what they secretly desired in a Halloween costume. They all said the same thing: They all wanted sluttier versions of themselves.
Let’s begin with our top seller, Sexy Cop. Starting with a basic police officer’s uniform, our team brainstormed ways of making it sexier. We spent weeks on sketches and mock-ups. After a dozen sleepless nights, we hit on something big, our defining element — think about every uniform the way a porn director would. So we replaced the pants with a pleated skirt, the shoes with leather boots, and the hat with a beret. Then we made the shirt smaller, and stretchier. Voila! I give you sexy cop.
That first costume really put our company on the map. After its debut five years ago, we’ve gradually built a comprehensive line of costumes that morph respectable careers into men’s deepest fantasies. Some feminists have charged us with catering to sexist ideologies for profit. In our defense, many of our customers have found these outfits empowering. We don’t know how exactly, but that doesn’t matter. Once I use the word empowering, you have to shut up and go away.
Our second project proved a little more challenging, but our hard work and dedication paid off when we released Sexy Lawyer in the fall of 2013. The biggest road block? Lawyers don’t exactly wear a uniform. My team and I watched countless hours of legal dramas on Netflix. The lead women did have one thing in common — they dressed like they had lots of money, even if they worked as public prosecutors. So we replaced the pants with a pleated skirt, the shoes with stiletto heals, and added a gavel. Then we made the shirt smaller, and stretchier. Voila!
Around that time, people started sending us requests. We opened a small office and spent hours leafing through suggestion emails. That’s how we stumbled upon Sexy Doctor. A med school student wrote a passionate plea to us, describing all the problems with wearing her scrubs to a party. She’d done that the past two years, and nobody even glanced at her. So we dove into a week-long binge fest of medical dramas, starting with ER. That’s when it hit us. We took a basic scrubs outfit and made it smaller, tighter, and stretchier. We made special sneakers with a 2-inch heal to make your calves and butt look better in the costume, which also comes with a latex accessory package for a little fun with your date.
As our company went public, and our stocks soared, we began looking for ways to expand. That’s when we started researching men’s clown outfits as a potential growth market. We launched a massive survey project and conducted hundreds of focus groups, which led us to the discovery that thousands of women felt held back by the dearth of clown costumes. The main problem? Clown outfits were too yellow, baggy, and in general not very sexy. So we made a new version that’s smaller, tighter, and stretchier. We made another version with a pleated skirt, boots, and striped stockings. Lots of color, so much more color.
We also overhauled men’s cowboy outfits, replacing the pants with a pleated skirt, the boots with boots, and we made the shirts tighter and stretchier.
Last year, we started gravitating into niche markets. Lots of women like this new show, Orange Is The New Black. But they wanted a sexier version of the jumpsuit. So we made one that’s tighter and stretchier, with a zipper that goes all the way down the front.
Our latest market research shows that many female professors want to dress up like professors for Halloween, so we replaced their pants with a pleated skirt and added a short clip-on tie. Some people describe it as the new Catholic School Girl outfit. We’ll admit, we did draw some inspiration there. But the branding was all us.
You’d think that a company like ours would run out of ideas after designing more than 300 different costumes. Hardly. This year, we’ve been proud to release a new line of military-inspired costumes. In fact, one dollar from each sale goes to support our troops.
Redesigning military uniforms proved to be our toughest challenge yet. Military uniforms are made for utility, durability, and stealth. But after watching J.A.G. and M.A.S.H., we found a way. We took the basic camouflage pattern and made the greens brighter. We replaced the pants with pleated skirts, and we made the shirts tighter and stretchier. For accessories, we’re proud to offer 5 different berets with custom colors and military insignia. We’ve even made jewelry inspired by different mission and combat medals. You’ll be the life of the party with your purple-heart earrings.
Do you have ideas for a new line of costumes? We’ll be happy to take any profession requiring an advanced degree and sex it up, so that more drunk guys in their 20s will hit on you at parties. Fair warning, you’ll probably need an advanced degree and a high-paying job to afford our outfits. We aren’t interested in just anyone sporting our brand.
