Trick-or-treat night is next weekend in most Iowa cities, and adults and kids alike are working to assemble their costumes, whether they want to be creepy or comical.
Juanita Cameron, at the Theatrical Shop in West Des Moines, says as Halloween draws closer, they’re getting much busier.
“Last year, the KPop Demon Hunters were favorites and they’re still up on the top this year,” Cameron says. “A lot of people are having theme parties and we have some pirates and some people are just piecing together their costumes. I guess they want to stick out from the rest of the people so they come in here and get all the accessories.”
Sometimes the youngsters are all about fads, and this year’s no different, as Cameron was asked about their hottest seller.
“It’s kind of funny, but we sell those little dumpling things that they squeeze and that’s not even a costume,” she says. “I don’t even know why they squeeze them. We sold a lot of those and I have no idea.”
She says many customers are coming in two-by-two to survey the selection of costumes.
“Most of the things that we’re selling this year are basically a lot of accessories and a lot of costume rentals,” Cameron says. “They’re renting costumes because they want to be a couple, like they want to be a flapper and a gangster or they want to be a cowboy and a barmaid, or something like that.”
Even though it’s not a presidential election year, Cameron was initially thinking Trump masks would again be popular this fall, but they’re not selling.
“I was kind of looking forward to that and I even put out a president’s mask and I even showed it to a customer,” she says, laughing, “but they were not interested in being politically correct this year for some reason.”
The midterm election is November 3rd, just a few days after Halloween.
