After an 11-year reign, princess costumes have dropped to the number 2 spot among costumes sported by American kids on Halloween. Taking the princess” crown is the superhero.
Over 3 million children will dress as an action or superhero, while 2.9 million will dress as a princess this Halloween. These stats were determined by the National Retail Federation”s Halloween Consumer Top Costumes Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics.
Now, this 3 million is apparently in addition to the number of kids dressing specifically as Batman or a Spider-Man character, as you can see in the list at the bottom of this post. And this doesn”t mean that more girls are donning capes than tiaras this year, though likely more girls are opting for superhero costumes than before.
It”s certainly a testament to comic book characters gaining ever more mainstream popularity. While I certainly cherish the Halloween I dressed up as Snow White as a 4-year-old (and insisted on wearing that costume for all sorts of occasions for about a year afterward, rollerblading excursions around the neighborhood included), it”s heartening to see a study that suggests young girls and their parents are seeing more options out there for what they can be – hopefully on Halloween and on any other day of their lives.
Here are the full top ten lists of most popular 2016 Halloween costumes for kids and adults, from the National Retail Federation.
Children”s costumes:
1. Action/Superhero
2. Princess
3. Animal (cat, dog, lion, monkey, etc.)
4. Batman Character
5. Star Wars Character
6. Tie: Witch AND DC superhero (excluding Batman)
7. Frozen character (Anna, Elsa, Olaf)
8. Marvel superhero (excl. Spider-Man)
9. Zombie
10. Spider-Man
Adults 18-34 years old:
1. Batman Character (Batman, Harley Quinn, The Joker, etc.)
2. Witch
3. Animal (cat, dog, bunny, etc.)
4. Tie: Marvel superhero (Deadpool, Spider-Man, etc.) and DC superhero (Wonder Woman, Superman, excluding Batman)
5. Vampire
6. Video game character
7. Slasher movie villain (Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, etc.)
8. Pirate
9. Star Wars character
10. Zombie