This Halloween, Everybody Wants to Be a Magical Blonde Woman in a Blue Dress

Have you gotten your Halloween costume yet? You’ve already seen mine, and we’ve shared a costume designer’s tips for “cheap, quick, and dirty” costumes (that look amazing, btw), but what if you just want to go to a store, buy a pre-made costume in a bag, and wear it with pride?

Odds are, you’re going to end up costuming as a magical blonde woman in a blue dress.

A recent Planet Money podcast talked to Richard Parrott of Ricky’s NYC, “one of the biggest costume shops in New York,” about how he stocks his store with costumes. One of his biggest jobs is to anticipate trends, so he’ll have enough costumes for everyone who wants to dress up as a particular character. (In 2013, Parrott failed to predict the number of people who would want to dress up as characters from Breaking Bad, which aired its explosive series finale one month before Halloween. Oops.)

What are the trends for 2014? One of them, of course, is Disney’s Frozen. I visited a Halloween store with a friend back in August and they were already out of Frozen costumes, and when I was at GeekGirlCon two weeks ago it was impossible to count the people of all ages costumed as Queen Elsa of Arendelle.

3 of the ten zillion Elsas that Ester saw this weekend

The other big trend is Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, which kind of surprises me. I mean, seriously, Dany’s arc was terrible this season, and she kinda blew her credibility the minute she started bodysurfing on the arms of brown-skinned slaves. Why are people picking Dany over Sansa or Melisandre or Arya or Brienne or Margaery or Missandei or even Cersei?

Maybe there’s just something compelling about a magical blonde woman in a blue dress.

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