*Photo credit: Yandy.com
Though a slice of pizza or ear or corn may not strike the average person as particularly sexy, these objects and more are being turned into risque Halloween costumes as the demand for unusual outfits grows, as "a lot of girls want to stand out from the crowd," Today reports.
Yandy, an online lingerie and costume shop, supplies hundreds of sexy Halloween outfits, including everything from typical witches and black cats to more bizarre objects like sexy sock monkeys, sexy pieces of food, sexy Mario Brothers and even sexy showers and bathtubs.
According to a recent National Retail Federation forecast, the Halloween industry is expected to rake in $6.9 billion this year, including consumer spending on costumes, treats, festivities and pets. While the forecast is down eight percent from last year, it's still 55 percent higher than 2005, and as the market continues to expand, so does the array of choices for your "sexy" Halloween costume.
"It's starting to get silly," Mandy Mandelstein, a 23-year old filmmaker exiting a Spirit Halloween store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, reflected to Today. "Why would you dress up as a bathtub?"
Boy shorts, miniskirts, petticoats and other tight, tiny pieces of clothing have all been fashioned into various cartoon and children's characters (including Barney the purple dinosaur), food items (yes, you can go as a sexy Chinese take out container), and even important American landmarks. For just $35.95, you can be a sexy Statue of Liberty this Halloween.
Chad Horstman, CEO of Yandy.com, which has the largest online selection of sexy Halloween costumes, told Today that by 2010, more unique designs started to draw customer's interests, as people no longer wanted to be limited to the traditional sexy nurse, schoolgirl or cop.
While Horstman admitted that he still has "400 corn costumes sitting in the warehouse right now," a concept that never quite took off, the odd outfit did create a viral buzz across the internet, helping Yandy.com build name recognition and gain more traffic throughout recent years.
As for how he and his designers decide on "what's next" in the anything-goes world of sexy costumes, Horstman explained that the next muse can strike at any time.
"One day we were at a state fair and some guy had an octopus hat and was wearing it around and I thought it was really cool," he said. He took a photo of it with his phone and sent it to a designer, and soon enough, the "sexy squid" costume was born into existence.
Dr. Deborah Tolman, a professor of social welfare and psychology at Hunter College who has interviewed young girls for her research in adolescent psychology, advises women to think about their choice of Halloween costume more carefully. She worries that for those women that choose to stick to more standard fare and not get "sexy," they'll feel less attractive, and for those who choose to get "sexy," they may put themselves at risk for unwanted attention at parties.
"You need to be careful," Tolman told Today. "If you're drinking, or hanging around people who are drinking, they might get too friendly."
"It really begs the question of why has 'sexy' become such an important a thing to aspire to, particularly in a Halloween costume that could be clever, funny, tongue-in-cheek, could be so many other imaginative things, but instead has essentially rendered it weird and boring."
