On the corner of a busy intersection in Culver City, an oversize inflatable witch and racks of costumes draw in customers to Robinson Beautilities.
Inside, overflowing bins of accessories sit among packaged costumes and novelty items. Although the shop’s costume rental service is open year-round, business triples in October, co-owner Dan Levin said.
For many Angelenos, Halloween is a celebration of autumn and a chance to embrace beloved whimsical traditions. It’s also an opportunity to spend as the holiday brings with it a retail frenzy — one that hit record levels last year as consumers across the country spent $12.2 billion on candy, costumes, decorations and more.
This year’s Halloween spending is expected to reach $11.6 billion, according to a National Retail Federation survey. Consumers will spend an average of $103 on the holiday, the survey found, totaling around $3.8 billion on costumes, an equal amount on decorations and slightly less on candy.
Costume hunters at his store typically spend around $150, Levin said. Gary Garland, a Pacific Palisades resident shopping for a costume earlier this week, said he would spend that amount on a costume alone, plus more on other Halloween merchandise.
“Halloween is our favorite holiday,” said Garland, who has two children ages 17 and 22. “We’re all in.”
Many customers are willing to splurge on Halloween, Levin said, especially because the holiday is so popular in Los Angeles.
“They definitely go way all out because you have the Hollywood creative community here,” he said. “This is where movies are made and this is where people dress up.”
Packaged costumes in Levin’s shop sell for around $70, while rental costumes, which are higher quality and more theatrical, range from $80 to $200. Countless more costumes are available at chain retailers including Party City and Spirit Halloween, which offers a Harley Quinn costume for $39.99 and a Catwoman costume for $59.99.
“I don’t think money is an issue, as long as it looks really good and they feel good,” Levin said of his customers. He has noticed an increased focus on accessories and costume details in recent years, he said, especially from shoppers particularly invested in the holiday.
At a Spirit Halloween in Culver City two days before Halloween, customers of all ages roamed the aisles and inspected rubber masks, body paint and wigs. Some shelves were already picked clean.
Gisele Manzella of Marina del Rey shops for a Halloween costume at Robinson Beautilities.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
The National Retail Federation survey found that nearly half of Halloween shoppers begin their spending before October because they’re looking forward to the season and want to avoid the stress of last-minute shopping.
“Halloween marks the official transition to the fall season for many Americans, and consumers are eager to get a jump start on purchasing new seasonal decor and other autumnal items,” NRF Vice President of Industry and Consumer Insights Katherine Cullen said in a statement.
Spirit Halloween, which operates about 1,500 seasonal stores around the U.S., opens their doors at the end of the summer and stays open until early November.
“A lot of people come in early to get ideas,” Levin said of his store. “Because we’re here year-round, they know they can get the items they want.”
Seventy-two percent of survey respondents said they plan to celebrate Halloween this year by partaking in modern holiday traditions, including handing out candy, decorating their home, dressing in costume and carving pumpkins.
Those traditions cost money, and as they’ve become more popular, Halloween spending has gone up. According to the NRF, national spending has increased by $4.2 billion over the last decade, jumping from $7.4 billion in 2014 to $11.6 billion this year.
The commercialization of Halloween is nothing new, and modern practices such as trick-or-treating became popular in America in the 1920s and 1930s, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
The holiday’s origins date to the 8th century Celtic festival of Samhain, which was intended to ward off the ghosts of the dead that were said to return the night before the fall harvest on Nov. 1. Festival participants wore costumes made from animal skins and lighted huge fires to burn crops as a sacrifice to the deities.
For Garland in the Pacific Palisades, modern Halloween is worth every dollar, even if his family sometimes goes overboard.
“My wife does some of the shopping,” he said. “I don’t want to know what she spends.”