TRICKS FOR TREATS?
SEXY HALLOWEEN COSTUMES FOR GIRLS GIVE PARENTS THE CREEPS
Are your kids dressing up to trickor-treat — or turn tricks?
This season, sexy Halloween costumes long popular with adults are now turning up in the kiddie aisle.
Like “Cop Cutie,” whose packaging features a girl who looks no older than 8 posing with one hand on her hip, and the other, holding handcuffs. She’s sporting a fitted mini dress, fingerless gloves, and heeled leather boots.
“Available in toddler,” the promo for the illegal-looking uniform states. It’s recommended for ages 3 and up.
“That is just ridiculous. It is so unnecessary,” says Harlem dad Christopher Persley, 41, whose 3½-year-old daughter is more interested in dressing as a Hulk/Michael Jackson hybrid than a pinup.
Persley first noticed provacative preteen costumes while teaching middle school 10 years ago, when tweens started hiking their Halloween hemlines.
“It’s getting worse,” he says. “I remember seeing these types of costumes for girls in sixth, seventh and eighth grade, which made me uncomfortable then. Now it’s gotten even younger.”
Morningside Heights father Peter Armenia agrees that the provacative toddler
These costumes set girls up to be looked at as objects... Every year costumes are getting sluttier.
cop costume should be a crime.
“Why is she in knee-high boots and heels — and why isn’t she in pants? Real female cops don’t wear skirts,” says Armenia, 51. “It’s like, ‘Boy, that looks sexy. Boy, she’s 5!’ That’s really not great.”
Armenia is dressing his 3 1/2-year-old daughter as an astronaut. Last year she was covered head-to-toe in an adorable puffin suit.
Female Halloween costumes began shifting from frightening to flirty in the ’70s after the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade inspired adult revelers to show a little skin. Cut to early 2000, and suddenly every gender-stereotyped ensemble for females was not only uber girly (a pink Supergirl in a skirt) but also super seductive (a sexy Supergirl in a micro-mini).
And revealing getups are now available for girls as young as 3 and 4. “Many parents use Halloween as an excuse to dress their daughters in sexy or just plain outfits that are obviously meant to be worn by adults, and not children,” scoffs Luz Chavarrio, 25, from Ozone Park, whose daughter is almost 2. “Pop stars like Miley Cyrus push this. Kids want to look older, times are changing, and people keep pushing the envelope further and further.”
Girls have always enjoyed playing dress-up, but experts worry today’s slinky costumes are skewing their body image.
“Some argue that these costumes are trivial, the girls are just having fun, but the consequences aren’t trivial,” says Jean Kilbourne, a media educator specializing in advertising’s effect on women’s issues, and author of “So Sexy So Soon.”
“Girls who are exposed to sexualized images from a young age are much more prone to eating disorders, lower self esteem and depression,” Kilbourne says. “These costumes set girls up to be looked at as objects by men, and also lead them to see themselves as objects to be ogled. Yet every year costumes are getting sluttier.”
New York parents are equally outraged at some of the racy Halloween looks being sold this season.
At Ricky’s Halloween Superstore, a barely-there sequined Hello Kitty minidress leaves little to the imagination. “That’s just an excuse to wear a super short dress,” says Persley.
The same shop’s Kids Purrty Kitty costume looks like something a Playboy bunny would wear, featuring a short leopard-print dress trimmed in pink faux fur paired with fuzzy leg warmers and a collar.
There’s also a “Major Flirt” military outfit for tweens at Ricky’s, featuring a flared minidress, mesh arm glovelette and studded belt.
“The title itself sends the wrong message to young girls,” says Astoria mom Jennifer Pehr. “The hypersexualized version of this costume shouldn’t even be a choice for a child.”
Kilbourne agrees. “It’s putting heavy emphasis on girls that they should aspire to be major flirts,” she says, “and then it normalizes the idea that little girls are looking for sex.”
Party City’s “Midnight Mischief” and “Fallen Angel” outfits for kids feature fitted bodices, short skirts, arm warmers and fishnets. “No kid should be wearing fishnets,” rants one customer in the comments section on the store’s website. “Fallen Angel = trash!”
Armenia agrees. “These costumes are outlandish,” he says. “Get rid of the fishnets.”
Kmart is selling a streetwalker outfit for ages 14 and up that’s actually called “On the
Hunt.” Looking like a cross between Pebbles Flintstone and a prostitute, the costume includes a short, tight leopard print dress and lace-up corset paired on the packaging model with tall boots.
“Even the poses are seductive and provocative, so there is no question about what they are aiming for here,” says Kilbourne.
The retailer disagrees. “Some of the costumes are whimsical, reflecting today’s social and fashion trends, and some are modeled after characters from popular teen TV shows,” Kmart responded in a statement.
Parents may feel pressure to buy a costume they disapprove of because other kids in the store are snapping them up. So go in with a plan.
“Set up some ground rules before you get to the store — no skirts above the knee, no bare midriffs,” advises early childhood psychologist Dana Levy, from the NYU Child Study Center. “Better yet, go to the store without your child, pick out a few costumes that you approve of, and bring them home and let her pick one out.”
Two of this year’s hottest costume franchises are “Monster High” and “Ever After High,” based off the popular Mattel dolls. The looks include the “Apple White Child’s Halloween Costume,” a body-hugging thigh-high dress paired in the promo photo with fishnets and sky-high platform heels.
But retailers wouldn’t stock the risque costumes if there wasn’t a demand. “Last year, Monster High was the No. 1 girls costume brand at Party City and the retail response has been great for both brands this Halloween season,” says a Mattel spokesperson, arguing that adults are the ones sexualizing innocent kid costumes.
“Adults bring a different lens of mature notions and experiences that children simply don’t possess,” says the rep.
“Girls see the Monster High and Ever After High characters for who they are — relatable and humorous characters who are experiencing the trials of being a teenager in high school.”
And Ricky’s president Richard Parrott says his franchise “has received no complaints about any of the girl or tween costumes we currently carry.”
Woodhaven mom Tina Marie, 26, has no issues with the over-the-top outfits. “I don’t find these to be terrible,” she says. “I don’t know if teaching our little girls to be demure and ashamed of their bodies from the beginning is a great thing.”
Kilbourne has seen some parents actually encourage flirty costumes for kids.
“I use one slide in my presentations where a parent had a pimp costume for her son, a little ho costume for his sister,” she says. “Some parents think this is cute.”