Rubies’ managing director Mike O’Connell got World Book Day 2021 off to a strong start with a pre-breakfast appearance on BBC News yesterday morning (Thursday 4 March).
Mike spoke to the BBC’s Sally Bundock about ‘the business of selling costumes’, the importance of World Book Day and some of the challenges faced by the fancy dress industry over the past year.
Sally began by setting the scene for World Book Day, highlighting that it’s the second biggest dress-up day in the UK – after Halloween, of course. After introducing Mike – and describing Rubies as ‘one of the largest costume designers, makers and distributors in the world’ – Sally wasted no time at all in asking Mike how sales have been for this year’s virtual event.
Mike admitted that it had been ‘a mixed bag‘, saying that: “Unfortunately with the high street closed and a virtual World Book Day this year, it has been a challenge for us, but I’m pleased to say that our online retailers have done well.”
He continued: “Marvel costumes have been particularly popular and have been for the last 12 months. As you can imagine that’s because heroes are very topical. Harry Potter again is also very popular this year.”
Moving onto how the pandemic has affected the industry over the past year, Mike revealed that there has been a drop-off in sales.
“It’s been a real challenge for us, but we’ve done everything we can to adapt, to promote the event and to really make the best of it,” he explained. “The high street remains closed and we’re still in a lockdown but I’m certainly hoping that with stores beginning to open again from 12 April, we’ll be able to see the recovery of that.”
Sally was also keen for find out whether Rubies’ international and export business has been impacted by Brexit.
“The latest announcement [about the duty] was the one part that really caught us short,” admitted Mike. “That was unexpected. And of course you’ve now got a great rush from many companies that will import and export goods because there are duties on goods that aren’t manufactured here… [yesterday’s] news about free ports was very, very welcome!”
