Halloween vamping for girls wears thin

Pat Greenhouse/Globe StaffMeredith Sullivan (left) and Maggie Ryan chose Flintstones costumes last week at iParty in Natick. The 13-year-olds professed little interest in provocative garb being marketed to their age group. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

NATICK - Hold off on the come-hither "divine devil" outfits with high-cut, ragged velveteen skirts and "sassy vampiress" costumes with pink and black corset-style low-cut bodices. Suggestive Halloween costumes are not making the sale with 13-year-old trick-or-treaters Maggie Ryan and Meredith Sullivan.

"Not our thing," Ryan said drily.

"I wouldn't wear it," added Sullivan.

The friends instead chose Wilma and Pebbles Flintstone costumes, the decidedly unsexy, body-covering garb of a prehistoric cartoon character to collect candy around their Natick neighborhoods tonight.

An era when Halloween costume shopping for girls could be confused with exploring a Victoria's Secret lingerie trunk may be fading. Girls between the ages of 6 and 14 and their parents seem to be gravitating away from revealing costumes this year.

Consumers are expected to spend nearly $5.8 billion this year on the holiday, up a half-billion dollars from 2007, according to the National Retail Federation, but for the first time in years, they seem to be demanding more fabric for their cash.

Bumblebees, ladybugs, and superheroes like Wonder Woman and Batgirl are the hot garb this year, said Pam Harding, manager of the state's largest iParty store, on Route 9 in Natick, where Ryan and Sullivan shopped last week.

"Athena" Greek goddess outfits and 1950s "Pink Lady" getups are selling briskly, too, she said. Revealing costumes do sell well to older teens who are able to buy without parental oversight, she said, although last year, some of the most suggestive costumes were left unsold by season's end.

Dorice Dionne, iParty's cofounder and vice president of merchandising, said there are no firm numbers to report, but she has seen more retailers demand more wholesome options. That includes her own 50-store party supply chain, based in Dedham.

"When we're buying, we're certainly considering the age group and what their parents would want to see them in," she said. "As a parent, you want something not terribly revealing. We aren't trying to take a moral stance. It's what we think our customers are looking for."

Dionne said that last year and this year she passed on ordering some lines of youth costumes for which she felt the "skirts were too short or the tops didn't have enough coverage."

That's fine by Meredith's father, Tim Sullivan, 61, who recalled a time his daughter chose something racy for a Halloween party and he quickly ordered it returned.

"It has to be in good taste," he said. "It needs the Dad stamp of approval."

Or a mother's firm touch, said Bonnie Britt of Westborough, as she shopped for her 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, at Target in Framingham last week.

Rachel has her heart set on dressing as Hannah Montana, the schoolgirl-rock star character popularized by 15-year-old actress Miley Cyrus. Despite Cyrus's controversial partially nude photo spread in Vanity Fair magazine earlier this year, Britt said she has no particular objection to the Hannah Halloween theme.

But she was thoroughly unimpressed by Target's $25 version of a costume, a barely-there swath of rayon and matching go-go boots. No way, she said.

Rachel will instead get a Hannah T-shirt and be permitted to affix a riot of rhinestones with a gluegun. She'll wear a blond wig and her own boots, and will make a microphone, with an empty toilet paper roll and a spool of thread covered in gold spray paint.

There will probably be a short skirt, but not without leggings underneath, Britt said. It's partly a function of warmth - temperatures could drop into the 40s tonight - but very much about modesty, as well.

"There is a way to be what she wants, but also to be more covered," Britt said.

The attitudes of girls like Ryan and Sullivan and mothers like Britt could signal the earliest cool-down stage of a powerful, decadelong trend toward the hypersexing of girlhood, said Newton filmmaker Jean Kilbourne, author of a new book, "So Sexy So Soon."

Kilbourne's landmark film, "Killing Us Softly" (1979), examined sexism in advertising. She collaborated with Wheelock professor Diane E. Levin in the latest work, a chronicle of cultural influences and advertising messages the authors assert encourage girls as young as 5 to behave and dress provocatively.

"Women have been told forever that they need to be attractive to men," said Kilbourne. "It's more recently that girls are getting messages to be hot and sexy so young."

The book argues that the messages and images contribute to increased sexual activity among children at younger ages and can damage the self-esteem and mental health of vulnerable girls and encourage boys to sexualize girls at very young ages.

The trend can be traced to 1984, when the federal government deregulated television advertising aimed at children.

But oversexed childhood's poster child is Britney Spears, one of the first teen rock stars whose provocative music, dance moves, and wardrobe were marketed to very small girls, the authors say.

"When girls are 5, parents see it as kind of cute and even encourage it. But even they are horrified when the kids hit their teens and it moves into actual behavior," Kilbourne said.

Boys are less often the victims of overt sexualization, Kilbourne and Levin say, but violence is often a theme in entertainment for teens and younger tweens. That seems to be playing itself out in Halloween selections for boys this season.

Last week, Target in Framingham boasted enough plastic weaponry to supply a medieval armory, including a $4.99 "Grim Reaper" sword with a red-eyed skull handle marked for ages 4 and up and a "Bleeding Skelebones" costume with hooded robe and skull mask that circulates "fun blood" with a hand-held "heart-shaped blood pump," for children 55 inches and taller.

Marianne Smith of Wellesley kept a keen eye on her 13-year-old son, J.J., as he selected a costume and weapon from iParty's boys' section. He wants to be a nunchaku-carrying Ninja warrior this year.

That's fine with Smith, though she's ready to put her foot down to tone down the gore factor.

One year, J.J. recalled, his mother insisted he adjust an outfit based on the film "Scream" (black robe, elongated white fright mask) to a "smiling face"-type Scream mask. He didn't really mind, he said.

"I want him to be happy," Smith said. "But I don't want him out scaring the neighborhood."

Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com.