NEW YORK (AP) — Yes halloween The horizon is packed with Chicago costumes. Packaged costumes including superheroes and costumes Japanese anime characters They come in both child and adult sizes and hang near colorful wigs and bottles of fake blood. Downstairs, vintage clothing from the 1970s awaits another night of fun.
The work that goes on behind the scenes to keep the family-owned store and its sister stores stocked is overshadowed by frightening possibilities. spooky season. Owner Courtland Hickey said orders for costumes are down 40% this year due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products.
To fill this gap, Hickey and his mother, Chicago Costumes founder Mary Hickey Panayiotou, looked at a decade’s worth of unsold costumes and accessories to see what could be repackaged or repurposed. Price list New imports will be more expensive and store-wide price increases could scare off customers, he said.
“If people have less money to spend, costumes are going to be lower on the list,” Hickey said. “So the more you have to invest in a new product, the more risk it becomes for your business, because you’re not going to sell it.”
Identifying outdated inventory required organizing thousands of items stored in back rooms and warehouses. Vintage items and fresh items that were once reserved for rental are now available as a set. Hickey said the surplus black robes became the basis for Halloween wizards, judges, choir members and graduates.
“These are staple pieces that change depending on the accessories you pair them with,” he said.
Some of Chicago Costume’s 35 employees were busy sewing scraps of cloth and foam together to create replicas of the clasp headdresses worn by Catholic prelates. Pair this hat with a robe and you’ll be dressed as Pope Leo from Chicago.
Panayiotou founded Chicago Costumes in 1976 to custom design and rent costumes for Windy City theater companies. It quickly became a destination for non-actors looking for Halloween costumes.
Commercially made children’s costumes followed, and from there a growing stockpile of cloaks, masquerade masks, “Star Wars” kits, and other leftovers.
“I’m a hoarder,” Panayiotou says. “I don’t want to throw anything away, so I have a lot of accessories and small items. This is the dress, but I only have one pair of gloves.”
Retailers typically avoid carrying excess inventory, but this practice provided Chicago Costume with a supply cushion during 2025, an unpredictable year for import-dependent industries such as: toy manufacturers and toy stores.
Hickey said the tariffs hadn’t occurred to him until he and other Chicago Costume staff met with suppliers at the Halloween and Party Expo in January. Will President Trump impose tariffs? About Chinese products The following week’s presidential inauguration was a big hit at the Las Vegas event, he said.
On February 1, the President signed the first tariff order of his second term. Hickey had already ordered the usual number of new costumes, but shipments and deliveries were put on hold after tariffs on Chinese imports rose to 145% in April. He said nearly 90% of the costumes Chicago Costume sells in stores and online are made in China, which is in line with the costume industry average.
Hickey said some suppliers have already prepared the product and said they won’t charge extra. Some believe they will need to pay more to cover the cost of tariffs. “Take it or leave it,” he recalls being told. “I left most of it behind.”
Other small businesses that rely on Halloween say they’re having similar tariff-related headaches. Design masks based on characters from Trick or Treat Studios popular horror movies In addition to costumes and props, the company laid off 15 employees, a quarter of its staff, in May, co-founder Christopher Zefro said.
Zefro uses factories in China to make plastic masks, but said it is reducing the amount of work in China and moving it to Mexico, where it makes latex masks. During that time, he increased prices by 15%.
At Chicago Costume, which has annual sales well below $1 million, shoppers will see fewer promotions and discounts, Hickey said. Children’s costumes and bulky sets featuring officially licensed characters will cost at least 25% more. For example, a lederhosen costume costs $49.99, which is $10 more than a year ago.
Hickey, who has served on the board of the National Costume Institute for 20 years, initially saw a silver lining in Trump’s tariffs. He said big retail chains are siphoning sales from independent costume stores with the help of cheap costumes from China.
In May, Hickey published the following paper: column The Costume Institute of America’s website outlines the environmentally friendly approaches Chicago Costume can take this year. He hoped this would energize the trade group’s 100 independent retailer members (up from 220 a decade ago) to shed old inventory, reorganize stores and prepare for “a potentially great Halloween.”
The tariffs “revealed how deep our dependence on cheap overseas manufacturing has become,” he wrote. “I won’t bemoan this change if it hurts Amazon’s dropshippers, Spirit Halloween, or Walmart’s over-imported costume line. Rather, I see this as an opportunity to restore what makes local retail special.”
Some of Hickey’s idealism has since disappeared. The impact of tariffs on Halloween has played out differently than he expected. The biggest retail chains doubled in size, flooded the market with cheap costumes, and lowered prices to retain customers.
“It has been much harder than I expected, but I still believe that optimism, adaptability and differentiation are what keep independent costume shops like ours afloat,” he said.
The Chicago costumer is no stranger to accepting challenges. To maintain profitability throughout the year, stores meet the following needs: cosplay fan and theme party. The Hickey-Panayotou family, which has a separate business making mascot costumes for the Chicago Bulls and other professional sports teams, acquired a theatrical services company founded in 1886 along with a collection of period dramas.
Diversification has made it easier to rotate and refurbish old inventory instead of lowering prices or scrapping parts after Halloween, he said.
For a client who wanted to be a Hollywood diva, Chicago Costume’s wife Erin, who handles social media, paired a robe trimmed with a feather boa from the Vintage collection with a new cigarette holder, hat, and sunglasses. Total cost: $65.
Damian Johnson, 53, is a longtime Chicago Costume customer and his birthday is October 31st. He said he spent $300 on a Halloween costume and never shops online or at discount stores.
Despite his loyalty, Johnson delayed purchasing his costume by a month this year. He also imposed a spending cap on himself. The cost to transform into Pennywise, the clown-faced character from Stephen King’s “It,” is $90, including hair and makeup.
“I always bought too much,” he said. “I’m doing well this year.”
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Terry Chea contributed from Santa Cruz, California.
