Disguise signs multiyear deal for Disney costume rights in EMEA

Leading global costume company Disguise, a division of toy and consumer products manufacturer JAKKS Pacific, today announced a multi-year licensing agreement for a wide range of Disney portfolio brands in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for dress-up, costumes and costume accessories, commencing in spring 2022.

After being a North America costume partner for over 30 years, this is the first time that Disguise has held Disney costume rights in EMEA.

Disguise is poised to have a large and robust offering with its portfolio of Disney brand costumes, with many different characters, sizes and offerings for all age ranges. This expanded line will also leverage JAKKS’ expertise in everyday dress-up and its toy line of feature costumes and accessories, including singing and light-up dresses, dress-up trunks and toyetic roleplay accessories.

Placement in EMEA will allow Disguise to celebrate a range of key international holidays such as Book Week, Carnival, Purim, Halloween, Diwali, Eid-Al-Adha and Christmas. Adding to the mix is Disguise’s new innovation SKUs that include adaptive costumes and wheelchair wraps.

“We are well positioned to expand our Disney offering across EMEA and build the business in Europe like it has never been done before. Our insight and experience will enable us to maximise the category from every perspective,” says Tara Hefter, President and GM of Disguise. “Disney has an endless catalogue of magical and inspirational characters and properties, creating endless possibilities to continue to innovate and deliver amazing product year after year. We are so pleased that Disney EMEA has recognised our expertise and 30-plus year history with Disney costumes in the US.”

In anticipation, Disguise is ramping up a team of costume experts to expand on JAKKS’ already existing EMEA team and footprint. These positions include sales, design, marketing and logistics.

“We are busy building up our team for this effort as well as solidifying our distribution channels and retail partnerships. In addition to our own expansion, we are also working closely with JAKKS on maximising the dolls, roleplay and dress-up businesses as well,” says David Carscadden, Managing Director of Disguise UK.

 

 

Rubies II and NECA launch pop culture arm Denuo Novo to specialise in collectables and cosplay

Rubies II LLC and NECA (National Entertainment Collectibles Assocation) have formed a new wholly-owned subsidiary to specialise in the creation of high-end collectables based on various pop culture franchises.

Called Denuo Novo LLC, the new business will combine the innovation and creative capabilities of NECA with Rubies’ supply chain and omni channel retailing capabilities to deliver a pop culture product line-up spanning replica costumes and props such as helmets and high end cosplay costumes.

Rubies has been making Halloween costumes for over 60 years while NECA has been a force in the licensed product and collectibles space for over 25 years. The creation of Denuo Novo allows the talented designers and product developers from both powerhouse companies to create a new destination for cosplay and replica costumes and high-end collectibles.

The newly formed Denuo Novo has made no secret of its mission to ‘be the single stop for premium quality costume replicas and high-end collectibles for generations to come.’ The business will kick start its journey with a range of product to support the Star Wars franchise, with more IP on the horizon.

The firm also plans to fulfill many of the existing orders of Star Wars replica and high-end collectable products originally prodcued by ANOVOS Productions.

“NECA has been a powerhouse in licensed collectibles for years and we’re incredibly excited to grow our presence in the  high-end collectibles space with replica costumes and helmets,” said Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Rubies.

“Furthermore, we are thrilled to offer the quality and attention to detail that these discerning customers have  come to expect.”

Dress up specialist Disguise Inc expands EMEA presence with UK senior leadership appointments

Disguise Inc, the costume division of the global toy company, JAKKS Pacific, has tapped industry veterans Tony Lewis and Lynda Morris to head up its expansion and recruitment efforts across EMEA, as it looks to build a team of costume experts across sales, design, and marketing within the region.

David Carscadden, currently managing director of JAKKS EMEA and a 12-year executive at JAKKS, will now lead both Disguise and JAKKS teams across the market. He will focus on leading both divisions and strengthening distribution channels and retail partnerships for the firm’s range of costumes.

Carscadden’s UK-based teams will be led by Tony Lewis for sales and marketng, and Lynda Morris for design and development.

A costume industry veteran with 30 years of experience with companies like Christy’s, Amscan and Character World, Lewis will bring extensive expertise to the Disguise division. He will be working closely with JAKKS to build and develop retailer and buyer relationships across the whole of Europe, while growing the list of dress up clients for both Disguise and the JAKKS team.

Lewis heads up all forecasting, planning and joint ventures as well regional and local sales teams, building and developing the customer and wider distribution base. He is currently recruiting an experienced costume sales and business development team for the UK and EMEA.

Meanwhile, Morris will be bringing decades of design and management experience within the children and adult apparel space as well as seven years experience in Halloween with Rubie’s to her new role as Design Lead for UK and EMEA.

She will work in tandem with Lewis and JAKKS teams on forecasting, safety testing and presenting concepts and styles to licensors and customers. She will also build out a creative and development team in the UK to ramp up for design this year and production in 2022. Her new team will take on the task of creating hundreds of innovative styles for Disguise’s existing and new licenses.

“We are excited to continue to expand our presence in EMEA. An enhanced dress up and role play line is a natural complement to our strong toy portfolio,” said Dan Cooney, EVP JAKKS Pacific.

Tara Hefter, president and GM, Disguise Inc, said: “This year we have been focused on maximizing our existing licenses and building structure for new brand acquisitions to be announced soon. With the recent awards of some large licenses with a global scope, it made sense to hire in industry talent and start growing our team now.

“With Tony and Lynda leading the business, we have the ground work ready to develop and expand into new regions and countries quickly. We can activate faster on new licenses and brands and bring these incredible new costumes and accessories to retail for all major dress up holidays in EMEA.”

Freddy, Jason, and other horror icons at forefront of Rubies’ Fall in Love with Halloween campaign

Icons from the horror movie scene, including Freddy and Jason, are to be featured among a line up of costumes at the forefront of a major new campaign from the dress up specialist, Rubies, as its lifts the lid on its Fall on Love with Halloween push in time for this year’s spooking season.

A special Halloween marketing drive, the campaign has been devised in recognition of the importance of Halloween for Rubies business, who has earmarked the October date as its ‘biggest event of the year, by far,’ and one that is expects to see celebrated on a larger scale than ever before this year, as the world reconnects following dimmed celebrations over the pandemic.

Rubies’ Fall in Love with Halloween campaign will set out to ‘provide a combination of prominent creative, rich media and engaging activity ideas’ for its core audience, as well as content to be used by its trade customers in the build up to the big fright night.

“With parties, gatherings, trick-or-treating and so many other events planned to operate safely, Halloween is now seen as the first major occasion of 2021 to gather and celebrate with the ones you love (and give them a scare!),” read a statement from the firm.

Rubies is now set to unleash brand-new inspiring content across all of Rubies social channels, its official website and on a range of partnered retail sites.

The content will showcase a mixture of new generic costumes and accessories in addition to officially licensed characters such as horror icons Freddy and Jason. Rubies will be bringing a new take on a variety of global brands loved by audiences around the world.

The campaign kicked off in June with Rubies maintaining its market-leading reputation for content with an eerie and ambitious photo shoot, centered around a blood-curdling vaudeville theme, shot on location with models and circus performers, the size and scale of which is like nothing that’s ever happened at Rubies before.

Located underneath Bristol’s central train station, Temple Meads, the unique venue offered an original setting with quirky oddities to create exciting and creepy content. The team worked over two days with a wide range of industry professionals and variety of skilled circus performers.

The content will feature across social channels in a range of new media formats supported by online and print marketing collateral.

Fran Hales, head of content and marketing, said: “From initial concepts all the way through to the execution of the content, I am delighted with how each aspect of this marketing campaign is turning out. The photo shoot, in particular, allowed us to put our own unique spin on what we do as a business, showcasing Rubies imaginative ideas when it comes to content generation.

“What we’ve created in such a small space of time will not only serve us well for Halloween but also for Carnival season. We are keen for our partners to also benefit from our marketing materials and I encourage them to contact us to utilise it on their own channels and platforms.”

With Fall in Love with Halloween, Rubies hopes to be able to celebrate this occasion with fans of the brand and welcome new customers who are looking for original and creative solutions to promote Halloween.

Freddy, Jason, and other horror icons at forefront of Rubies’ Fall in Love with Halloween campaign

Icons from the horror movie scene, including Freddy and Jason, are to be featured among a line up of costumes at the forefront of a major new campaign from the dress up specialist, Rubies, as its lifts the lid on its Fall on Love with Halloween push in time for this year’s spooking season.

A special Halloween marketing drive, the campaign has been devised in recognition of the importance of Halloween for Rubies business, who has earmarked the October date as its ‘biggest event of the year, by far,’ and one that is expects to see celebrated on a larger scale than ever before this year, as the world reconnects following dimmed celebrations over the pandemic.

Rubies’ Fall in Love with Halloween campaign will set out to ‘provide a combination of prominent creative, rich media and engaging activity ideas’ for its core audience, as well as content to be used by its trade customers in the build up to the big fright night.

“With parties, gatherings, trick-or-treating and so many other events planned to operate safely, Halloween is now seen as the first major occasion of 2021 to gather and celebrate with the ones you love (and give them a scare!),” read a statement from the firm.

Rubies is now set to unleash brand-new inspiring content across all of Rubies social channels, its official website and on a range of partnered retail sites.

The content will showcase a mixture of new generic costumes and accessories in addition to officially licensed characters such as horror icons Freddy and Jason. Rubies will be bringing a new take on a variety of global brands loved by audiences around the world.

The campaign kicked off in June with Rubies maintaining its market-leading reputation for content with an eerie and ambitious photo shoot, centered around a blood-curdling vaudeville theme, shot on location with models and circus performers, the size and scale of which is like nothing that’s ever happened at Rubies before.

Located underneath Bristol’s central train station, Temple Meads, the unique venue offered an original setting with quirky oddities to create exciting and creepy content. The team worked over two days with a wide range of industry professionals and variety of skilled circus performers.

The content will feature across social channels in a range of new media formats supported by online and print marketing collateral.

Fran Hales, head of content and marketing, said: “From initial concepts all the way through to the execution of the content, I am delighted with how each aspect of this marketing campaign is turning out. The photo shoot, in particular, allowed us to put our own unique spin on what we do as a business, showcasing Rubies imaginative ideas when it comes to content generation.

“What we’ve created in such a small space of time will not only serve us well for Halloween but also for Carnival season. We are keen for our partners to also benefit from our marketing materials and I encourage them to contact us to utilise it on their own channels and platforms.”

With Fall in Love with Halloween, Rubies hopes to be able to celebrate this occasion with fans of the brand and welcome new customers who are looking for original and creative solutions to promote Halloween.

Jazwares taps costume industry veteran Stephen Stanley to lead its new Costume Play division

Jazwares has detailed the formation of its Costume Play division, a new department that will focus on the development of licensed costumes for all ages to be led by the costume industry veteran, Stephen Stanley.

Under Stanley’s watch, the division will look to bring stylised features and innovation to the costumes sector, enabling fans to dress up as their favourite characters from across the pop culture and entertainment space. The division will produce costumes for fans of all ages.

Items within the portfolio will span dress-up trunks with outfits, masks, and role-play accessories for kids’ everyday costume play, as well as high-end cosplay outfits, masks, and accessories for comic conventions. The division will also develop pet costumes, seasonal Halloween items and treat carriers.

Jazwares’ first lineup of dress-up trunks and everyday costume play products will be available beginning Spring 2022, with all-new styles launching across retail channels for Halloween 2022, including hundreds of costumes, masks and other costume accessories featuring beloved characters from the Star Wars galaxy, the Marvel Multiverse, Spider-Man’s Spiderverse, and Squishmallows.

Costume industry veteran, Stanley will oversee the Costume Play team as General Manager. Stanley, a co-founder of the Halloween and Costume Association, has more than 20 years of costume business experience. He served previously as co-president of Disguise and was most recently managing director of the licensed costume business at Rubie’s Costume Company.

Reporting to Jazwares’ executive VP and partner Michael Rinzler, Stanley leads a team of costume industry executives. He is joined by divisional design lead Anthea Koveos Rodgers, who was previously head of costume design at both Disguise and Palamon.

The team will also consist of Halloween & Party senior sales director Michael Esposito, who was most recently national sales manager at Rubie’s; senior brand director Thomas Schilling, previously category manager at FunWorld and the Marvel and Star Wars brand manager at Rubie’s; and VP and general manager of Jazwares Costumes in China, Terry Ma, who joins the company from his previous role as general manager of Disguise China.

Rounding out the team are Angelina Castro as marketing director, Maxwell Lux as Senior Brand Manager, and Daniel Jung as Associate Brand Manager.

“As we continue to grow Jazwares’ offerings into new categories of play from pet toys to costumes, we are thrilled to launch a dedicated division for all things costume play,” said Rinzler. “Stephen has earned an incredible reputation as a leader in the Costume business and we are thrilled to welcome him and this tremendous team of industry experts into the Jazwares family.”

The Jazwares Costume Play team is supported by Jazwares executives across multiple areas, including global licensing, sales and planning, design, product management and development, and Jazwares China.

Gigantosaurus stomps into the European dress up sector in Smiffys partnership

Smiffys is bringing the cast of the popular children’s CGI animated series Gigantosaurus to the dress up and costumes space thanks to a new partnersip with Cyber Group Studios and the licensing agency Brand-Ward.

Characters Rocky, Bill, Tiny, and Mazu will each find themselves receiving the dress up treatment in a new range that will launch in time for World Book Day next year. The range will be distributed across Europe.

“This is an exciting opportunity for Smiffys to build on our award-winning children’s licensed costume portfolio with these adventurous characters,” said Dominique Peckett, director at Smiffys.

Bruno Danzel D’Aumont, international licensing and marketing vice president at Cyber Group Studios, said: “Smiffys is a talented company and well recognized in its market. I am proud that Gigantosaurus will be part of the range and I am looking forward to seeing children wearing the costumes of their favorite dinosaurs characters around Europe.”

The partnership was forged by the licensing agency, Brand-Ward Services who has been tapped to help grow the property’s presence across the European consumer products space.

Trudi Hayward, co-founder of Brand-Ward, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Smiffys across Europe in the dress up category, as they are an extremely dynamic company that has established distribution across Europe and we are all very excited to be working with them on Gigantosaurus costumes which will launch in time for World Book Day 2022.”

Disguise Inc partners with Funko to launch new Disguise Pop! masks range

The dress up and costume specialist, Disguise Inc has detailed a global agreement with Funko to design, market, manufacture and distribute Pop! masks across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania, South America, and Asia.

Initial designs for 2021 will feature iconic characters from major licensing partners like Warner Bros and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The over-sized masks will take on the iconic aesthetic of Funko’s hit Pop! brand, each designed to be wearable and displayable, with limited runs of each style to drive collectability. Next year will see Disguise expand the line with additional licensors and more than 30 styles.

“Disguise is thrilled to be partnering with Funko on a truly break-frame product like our wearable Pop! Masks. The iconic Funko’s Pop! style translates to a really fun wearable product for cosplay and dress up occasions,” said Tara Hefter, president and GM of Disguise Inc.

“We know Funko fans and Halloween lovers will jump at the opportunity to wear, collect and display our new Pop! Masks.”

Jason Bischoff, director of global licensing at Funko, added: “We’ve spent years building up our business around fan-first collectability, community, and affordability. Pop! Masks are born from that same tradition, and just like our other products, Pop! Masks can be celebrated year round.

“It’s another massive opportunity for fans to wear or display their fandom and connect with their fellow pop culture enthusiasts.”

Disguise is a recognised world leader in design and development of inventive and cutting edge costumes and accessories with distribution across the world. Funko provides an array of exciting new and classic characters to create an amazing line of products.

Disguise’s Pop! Masks are now available for pre-order on Amazon in North America and Europe and will be available later this year on Funko.com. They will also be available in Australia, New Zealand and LATAM this fall.

Stateside | Hit pre-school series Bluey makes play for costumes market with Disguise, Inc partnership

Bluey, the hit children’s animated TV series from Ludo Studio and BBC Studios, is making a new play for the American costume and fancy dress market, thanks to a new partnership with JAKKS Pacific’s Halloween costume division, Disguise, Inc.

Under the partner, Disguise is set to design, market, manufacture, and distribute costumes and costume accessories for the popular animated property, starting this year. The new line will debut as a first-to-market launch at Walmart across the US.

Bluey is an Australian animation series that follows a six year-old Blue Heeler dog, who loves to play and turns everyday family life into extraordinary adventures. Aimed at pre-school children and their parents, the series champions the importance of unstructured play for enhancing children’s creativity and helping to develop their mental, physical and emotional resilience.

The series celebrates the joyful simplicity found in family life, role play, and imagination. A sensation with US audiences since its fall 2019 premiere, Bluey reached 16 million total views across Disney Channel and Disney Junior in Q4 2019.

“Bluey explores the important themes of family life, parenting and imaginative play. It has a huge fan base of preschoolers and parents that will be thrilled with our new line of Bluey costumes,” said Tara Hefter, EVP and GM of Disguise, Inc.

“Our new partnership with BBC Studios has created some exciting new additions to our 2021 line. We expect to see a positive reaction from fans and at retail this fall.”

Suzy Raia, VP consumer products and business development, BBC Studios, added: “Bluey is our fastest growing show in the US and we’re looking forward to this meaningful partnership with Disguise that will bring the Bluey characters to life with their high quality costumes and accessories.

“Bluey fans will now have the chance to dress up this Halloween and be a part of this sweet Blue Heeler family.”

Jazwares moves into North American costumes sector with major Marvel partnership

Jazwares has entered into a multi-year partnership with Marvel to produce a new line of costumes and costume accessories, marking the company’s expansion into the costumes sector.

The range is scheduled to hit retailers across North America in 2022 and will include an assortment of officially licensed costumes, costume accessories, and pet costumes from across the Marvel Universe films, TV series, and comic books.

Jazwares will be adding additional licenses to its new costumes segment in the coming months.

With Jazwares’ Marvel costume line, fans of all ages can transform into their favorite Super Heroes including characters from classic Marvel properties, Marvel’s TV and film roster, Deadpool, Spider-Man, X-Men and more.

“Marvel has been a defining force in the entertainment and comic landscape for decades, and we are ready to take play to a whole new level by helping fans transform into their favorite signature Super Hero looks that are perfect for Halloween, Cosplay, or everyday fun,” said Judd Zebersky, CEO, Jazwares.

“We are thrilled to be expanding our business, and ready to bring Jazwares’ iconic innovation, value and quality to the costume category.”

The Marvel costumes collection joins Jazwares’ impressive portfolio of iconic pop culture brands including Pokémon, Fortnite, Halo, All Elite Wrestling, Roblox, and collectibles brands Domez and Zōteki.