Sexing Up Halloween

The only vampire attribute of Kelsey Corcoran's Halloween costume is the fangs.

Otherwise, Corcoran's outfit -- consisting of only a corset and high heels -- will resemble her costumes of previous years: Harry Potter's Hermione (scantily clad) and a Barbie doll (dressed in a bathing suit).

If she didn't dress sexy for Halloween, Corcoran said, she'd definitely stand out at parties or bars in the Ohio State University area.

"It wouldn't be unique in a good way," said Corcoran, 20, an OSU junior from Worthington, Ohio. "No one even thinks about wearing actual scary Halloween costumes anymore -- it's about how much skin can I show and who can I impress."

This October, just about any costume idea might be adapted to look seductive: On BuyCostumes.com, more than half of the nearly 2,000 female adult costumes are listed in the "sexy" category.

The outfits manage to sexualize even children's fictional characters: an Alice in Wonderland in a corset, a Wednesday Addams with a lot of cleavage and a SpongeBob SquarePants in a miniskirt.

Meanwhile, Leg Avenue, a Los Angeles-based lingerie retailer turned Halloween-costume manufacturer, imagines nurses, soldiers and Catholic schoolgirls -- in bikini tops.

Only in the past few years have costumes become so overwhelmingly revealing, said Wendy Goldstein, owner of Costume Specialists, a manufacturer with a retail store near Bexley, Ohio.

But she wonders whether the trend -- one of the most significant developments she has seen during her 29 years in the business -- might be hitting its peak, now that some ideas (sexy clown, sexy Eskimo) are becoming more of a stretch.

"First it was the basic Halloween costumes, like sexy witch," she said. "Now, it's sexy Snow White, sexy Goldilocks -- it's nuts; it's too much."

In the OSU campus area on Halloween, "95 percent and above" of girls wear skimpy costumes, estimated Corcoran's friend Jenna Schuld. Her previous costumes include a short-skirted Strawberry Shortcake doll and a "slutty bumblebee."

"Girls like to get attention from guys, and guys will gladly give it to them," said Schuld, a junior from the Cleveland suburb of Westlake.

Given the growth of Halloween as an adult holiday, the turn toward more-revealing costumes seemed inevitable, said Jack Santino, a professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University who studies holidays and celebrations.

In the past couple of decades, he said, baby boomers who never outgrew Halloween began dressing up for Beggars Night and hosting costume parties with friends.

Although the Garden and the Chamber, two adult stores, have long sold fantasy and fetish outfits, owner Tom Smith began offering Halloween costumes about five years ago based on customer demand.

This year, he leased an additional space near his stores for some of his 5,000 costumes -- advertised outside with a "Sexy Halloween Costumes" banner. Most of his customers are in their 20s or 30s, he said, but he also sells to older women.