Children’s dress-up is one of the most important sectors within the party industry, with role play activities, fancy dress birthday parties and popping to the shops as a superhero all part and parcel of daily life with a young child. Pretend To Bee’s marketing manager Kate Skitt took an overview of the sector which covers everything from Book Week and beyond.
How has the children’s dress-up sector performed over the last 12 months?
“Pretend to Bee had a fantastic year – while sales have been strong throughout the year we see huge peaks during World Book Day season for example as parents look to create something different for their child’s costume.”
Why is children’s dress-up so popular with the nursery and toy retailers?
“Young children love to dress up and in this fast-moving world that we live in there is always an occasion to dress up whether that be a party, World Book Day or just because, retailers recognise that they can add value to their ranges by complementing them with costumes. For example, our prestige fairy lines work extremely well within toy retailers and the quality of our onesie costumes mean that nursery retailers can offer dress up lines that actually sit perfectly alongside clothing lines.”
What’s new for the children’s dress-up market in 2018?
“Pretend to Bee is launching more accessories into our range. These lower price point items allow consumers to adapt and create their own interpretation of characters. Our animal headbands include fox, frog and woodland creatures. As part of our commitment to environmental responsibility Pretend to Bee are also changing our plastic bags to bio-degradable bags.Our best-selling styles will now be packaged in the new plastic bags and we are rolling this out across the rest of the range this year.”
What is your hero dress-up product or range for 2018? What is so special about it?
“With the release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the world has gone dinosaur mad again and our NHM Dinosaur range continues to be one of our most popular lines so much so that due to demand we have now launched a baby dinosaur costume range for children aged six-months up.”
