Halco-- the forgotten Halloween Costume Maker

[marsattacks666]

Mmmmmm, Moon Maid!





So cool!

 

I now want a Moon Maid.

[Hepcat]

Mmmmmm, Wolf Gal!





 

[curseofthewerewolf]

The horrific and terrifying...CHARLEY WEAVER!



 

[marsattacks666]

The horrific and terrifying...CHARLEY WEAVER!



 

Yikes!🎃

[Hepcat]

I now want a Moon Maid.

Get in line.

 

[Hepcat]

The fabric costumes with full fabric or composite masks that Halco and other Halloween costume companies manufactured up until the late 1950's(?) can be seen to be of better quality than the later rayon or vinyl costumes with vacuuformed masks that came to completely dominate the kids' costume market by the early 1960's. Here are a couple of shots of the wild cool Halco Droopy costume from the early 1950's:



And here's the very cool Halco Shari Lewis Wing Ding costume from 1961:





The more modern rayon/vinyl costumes with vacuuformed masks lent themselves to quicker and easier mass production methods though and could thus be sold at a friendlier price point thus expanding the potential market for the costumes. Moreover the masks could be sold separately through convenience stores which further expanded their market potential.

 

[Devlin]

That's ME in that Droopy costume!

[Monster Mike]

I want to see what a "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" costume looks like!

I’m sure it looked pretty “chitty!”

[Hepcat]

That's ME in that Droopy costume!

I'm glad it still fits. How long have you had it?

 

[Hepcat]

Who is it anyway that says Halco is forgotten?

 

We here seem to remember the company very well.

 

[Devlin]

Hepcat: They're still in business as the top manufacturer of Santa suits (https://santacollc.com/halco-catalog/), but it's been at least 40-45 years since they've sold any Halloween costumes (and the last few years of that were all under their "Kusan" subsidiary, as near as I can tell), so they don't have the name recognition of the firms that stayed in the game longer. I think we can all agree that we're not exactly typical American consumers!

[Dr.Terror]

[Hepcat]

Anyone we might know?