’Weeners & losers
From ‘Star Wars’ to ‘The Dress,’ the hottest sellers at NYC shops — and the costume they won’t sell you
IT’s one of the most popular requests for Halloween this year. But it’s also the costume most New York stores refuse to sell you — Caitlyn Jenner.
Costume sellers say they’ve gotten lots of requests for Caitlyn outfits, but most retailers decided not to carry or advertise the outfits this year.
“This has no place in our business,” says Richard Parrott, president of Ricky’s NYC. “It just made no sense to me whatso
ever to try to poke fun at that or make light of someone’s sexual orientation.”
Plus, adds Tony Bianchi of Halloween Adventure in the East Village, it’s not exactly a novel costume idea in the home of the world’s largest Halloween parade. “People cross-dress anyway,” he says. “What’s the difference?”
But presidential candidates are fair game. “Donald Trump is in our Top 10, for sure,” says Chad Horstman, CEO of yandy.com, which hawks a “sexy” Donald Trump outfit that would make Mike Huckabee blush.
Here’s what else you can expect this Halloween. MEMES: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costumes are still popular with kids, but another sewer-dwelling pizza-lover is the big hit this year: Yandy’s “sexy” Pizza Rat, going for $90. “Pizza Rat is brandnew but it’ s already flying off the shelf,” Horstman says. “More are being made as quickly as possible.”
And then there’s “The Dress,” that optical-illusion picture that infuriatingly took over social media for a few days back in February. Yandy turned it into a body con number with black and blue on one side and gold a nd white on the other. It’s been a hot seller since the season started, Horstman says. DEADPOOL: The Movie — featuring Ryan Reynolds as Marvel’s wise-talking antihero mercenary — i sn’t even coming out until February, but the costume has been flying off Hall oween Adventure’s shelves already.
“[ The manufacturers] were blindsided by that,” Bianchi says. “They ran out of them a month ago.”
CAPTAIN AMERICA: “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was one of the biggest movies of the summer, but only one of the its superheroes is having a big breakout year: Captain America.
“He has a shield, it’s patriotic ,” Bianchi says .“He’ s become the popular superhero costume.”
Cecil The lion: Yes, “sexy dead lion” is a hit costume t his year: Yandy sells Cecil costumes, which have been a popular item so far (“Pretty Little Liars” actress Ashley Benson recently took heat for posing in one on Instagram). The company says it’s donating 20 percent of sales from the lion costume to an undisclosed wildlife charity.
“We’re not doing what some of these other costume companies did, completely taste less renditions of bloody dentists,” Horstman says.
Halloween Adventure has been helping customers assemble hunter-dentist costumes with scrubs , a pith helmet, a rifle and a “bloody” doctor’s mask.
“There’s nothing sacred,” Bianchi says. (Except for Caitlyn Jenner.)
villains: Good guys are out. Costumes from “Descendants,” the TV film about the spawn of famous Disney villains, have been a hot ticket at Halloween Adventure. And young fans are gobbling up lightsabers and masks from the new “Star Wars” movie coming out in December — but Luke and his friends better watch out.
“There’s more interest in ‘Star Wars’ than I’ve ever seen,” Parrott says. “It’s actually cool to be on the dark side now.”