Sexy costumes still in the scene

“Halloween is the only night of the year when a girl can dress like a real slut without any other girl saying anything. ”

Catherine handfield
Press

In the movie Mean girls, released in 2004, the character played by Lindsay Lohan makes this reflection when arriving at a party Halloween. She disguised herself as an “ex-wife” zombie, with a wedding dress and fake teeth, while the other teenage girls all donned costumes worthy of the universe. Playboy. Whoops. Poor Cady did not know the slut rule – the rule of wanton.

Fifteen years later, are Halloween costumes for women still so revealing?

This week, a friend posted on social media photos taken in a Plateau Mont-Royal Halloween store that tend to show that nothing has changed. On the men’s side, the clothes of a doctor, a knight, a prisoner, a sailor. On the women’s side, sexy pixies, sexy prisoners, sexy nurses, even sexy carpenters.

On site, at the Halloween Party Center store, we can see that a good proportion of the costumes in the women’s section are very revealing. According to the manager, Mohamed Moutaoukil, this is mainly the unsold stock from last year. “Witches and zombies are the most popular,” he says.

A renewed interest?

It is not the retailers, but the big American manufacturers who are guiding the trends. Some, like Rubies, offer diverse women’s costumes. Others, like Leg Avenue, make sexy costumes their trademark.

In Quebec, the appetite for revealing costumes has diminished over the past five years, according to Oya Costumes and the Party Expert group, two Quebec companies.

The president of the Party Expert group, Lynda Bouvier, nevertheless feels a renewed interest this year, both among customers and suppliers. “The costumes produced at the last minute were all sexy,” she says. We got on board, but with chills, because it’s been a few years since girls don’t want to be too discovered. But no, they want to be discovered, they want to be beautiful, they want to be sexy. And there is nothing wrong with that. Lynda Bouvier attributes this enthusiasm to social networks, but also to the pandemic. “People want to go out and have fun,” she says.

At the Party Expert branch of the Central Market, Maude Pilon Lauzon walked the rows with her lover Jérémy Chénier, in search of the perfect costume for a dinner with friends. At first glance, about half of the women’s suits were revealing: either tight, very short, or low-cut. “Everything’s super sexualized,” Maude said with a sigh, looking at Batgirl’s miniskirt and ‘sexy Chucky doll’ outfits. In the guys section, we can’t find that. ”

Annie Viau, for her part, was looking for a comic costume to wear in the retirement home where she works. Sexy or not, she doesn’t care. “With a good tights, there is always a way to average,” said the cook before setting her sights on a witch costume.

Choice or hypersexualization?

At Oya Costumes, an online store, we don’t see a growing interest in sexy costumes this year. They represent a much smaller portion of sales than 10 years ago, says company president Faten Hodroge. They are not particularly highlighted on its website.

“It was the young people who wanted the super sexy; it has evolved and we are very happy with it ”, says M^me Hodroge. According to her, the woman no longer wants to be hypersexualized.

Sex therapist Laurence Desjardins takes a critical look at the manufacturers of these revealing costumes and the promotion surrounding them. They’re only meant for women, she points out, and they convey a unique way of being sexy. Laurence Desjardins also wonders about the mania of manufacturers to produce sexy versions of all possible and imaginable costumes. Professions, characters for children, combination of the series Squid Games : everything goes there.

“The distributor is responding to the demand, but basically who asked to make a sexy Nemo fish costume? ‟Please put me a cross between the stereotypical image of a porn star and a child character. “We’re gonna make money selling sex. And that’s pure hypersexualization. ”

When little girls go shopping with their parents, she says, they get the message that their costume options are “in high heels with resin stockings.” “Is it our consent, our desire?” Or is it a desire a little acquired through a global culture? ”

Lynda Bouvier, of the Party Expert group, agrees that young girls also want to wear sexy costumes. She understands that it does not suit the parents, “with good reason”. “We suggest they put on pantyhose underneath and a tutu to make the costume more palatable,” she says.

Laurence Desjardins does not judge young women who want to wear very revealing costumes. Faten Hodroge either, by the way. “Halloween is a day to do what we want to do,” emphasizes the latter. If that’s what you want, go for it! ”