Fancy dress costumes have made an appearance on two of the most popular British daytime television programmes, Good Morning Britain and This Morning.
The first appearance, on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, saw a feature focusing on research from Channel Mum that many parents believe that Halloween costumes are often too scary for the children they are aimed at.
Website founder Siobhan Freegard revealed that two thirds of parents surveyed by Channel Mums would back a strict age rating on Halloween costumes, while a further three quarters would like supermarkets to take ownership of the outfits they sell.
She told Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley that: “Children get nightmares about them when they’re outside the windows. They’re little kids, they can’t distinguish the difference between the fact that that’s a person in a costume dressed up.”
The survey also found 55% of parents believe that children’s costumes are too sexualised.
A comment from Smiffys was read out, saying that: ‘there is a trend for more scary zombie-inspired costumes for children driven by consumer demand’ and that it ‘does not make or market any costume that it considers sexualises young children’.
The second appearance was a more light-hearted celebration of the costume industry. Philip Schofield surprised co-host Holly Willoughby on This Morning by wearing Morph Costumes’ inflatable Pick Me Up alien costume.
The clip soon went viral, with more than 2.7million views on Facebook – and counting!
A spokesperson for Morph Costumes commented on the story, saying: “We’re glad you both loved our inflatable Pick Me Up alien costume as much as we do. Thanks for featuring it on the segment!”
