Rubies expands Wizarding World range with new character costumes and accessories

Rubies have helped to bring the magic of the Wizarding World to life through their range of officially licensed costumes for years, being trusted by fans and customers alike to help re-create the Wizarding World in anyone’s home. Now, the phenomenally successful range of bewitching costumes is expanding, with brand-new character costumes including fan-favourites Hagrid, Luna Lovegood and Professor Dumbledore, and Hogwarts House dress-up and accessories.

Rubies have continued to produce some of the most iconic costumes and Hogwarts uniforms from the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts film series, in partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products. From Gryffindor and Slytherin Robes to character costumes like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, the costumes have proved to be some of Rubies’ most successful lines for children and adults alike, especially around seasonal events like World Book Day and Halloween.

Rubies is now welcoming a whole host of brand-new ‘inspired by’ costumes, with tutus featuring enchanting metallic Hogwarts House designs, a Hogwarts cape with shimmering detail, and favourite characters like Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Luna Lovegood, Hagrid and Professor Snape. Children will be able to expand their collection of favourite characters from the series, with a wide range of these costumes available both now and in time for Halloween.

Mike O’Connell, Rubies Managing Director, says “As one of our most successful licenses, Harry Potter and the wider Wizarding World has stood the test of time, being popular with generation after generation of children. Our relationship with Warner Bros. Consumer Products has also gone from strength to strength and we are thrilled to be trusted by the global enterprise with their stellar portfolio of characters. Now, we welcome a new collection to one of our top-selling licenses with costumes that have long been sought-after by fans, including the beloved characters Luna Lovegood and Hagrid. We are incredibly excited to see fans’ reactions to these costumes.”

Order your costumes soon from rubiesuk.com.

JAKKS Pacific announces new Sonic the Hedgehog 2 toys and costumes

JAKKS Pacific and Disguise have announced a new line of toys and costumes launching in spring 2022 in celebration of Paramount Pictures’ feature film, Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

The new line of merchandise from JAKKS is set to include action figures, playsets, vehicles, plush toys and other collectibles just in time for the film’s international release.

Disguise, the costume division of JAKKS Pacific, will also be designing and manufacturing costumes and accessories inspired by characters from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which will be available to fans this autumn.

“JAKKS Pacific is proud to celebrate the release of the new feature film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with an all-new line of memorabilia commemorating the Blue Blur’s next great adventure,” says Craig Drobis, Senior Vice President of Marketing at JAKKS Pacific, Inc. “With new waves of collectible action figures, cool new playsets, multiple sizes of plush toys, and an all-new radio-controlled Sonic Speed RC, there is something for every Sonic fan and collector.”

“We’ve seen such a great response from fans to the Sonic the Hedgehog products created by JAKKS Pacific, and we’re thrilled to continue working with them to celebrate Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” adds Alex Gomez, Director of Licensing & Partnerships for Sonic the Hedgehog. “We hope that fans of the Blue Blur will see the collection as a testament of our appreciation and create memorable Sonic experiences with the products for years to come.”

Through the collaboration, Sonic and JAKKS will launch the following new merchandise items:

  • Figurines – An all-new line of 4-inch figures including Dr. Robotnik, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles will be available at retail. Ages 3+
  • Plush Toys – The 9-inch plush assortment is based on fan favourite characters from the movie, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and will be available on shelves and online this spring. Additionally, a new 13-inch Sonic Plush will also be available exclusively at Target this spring.
  • Sonic Speed RC Set – The new Sonic Speed RC lets fans recreate the action from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. This set will be available at retail and includes an iconic ring-shaped controller for forward motion, turns and spinning action. The RC lights up when you select Turbo mode for that extra boost. The 6-inch scale articulated Sonic figure is removable. Ages 4+
  • Costumes and Accessories – Disguise has developed a range of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 costumes and accessories in Toddler, Child and Adult sizes, a dress version of Sonic and a Child accessory kit. All styles are coming to retail in stores and online this autumn.
    • Toddler – The Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Toddler includes a super soft jumpsuit with white sleeve cuff detailing, a soft headpiece with Sonic’s signature quills and an attached clear vinyl visor that can be worn up or down.
    • Basic Costume – Sonic Basic is a comfy hooded jumpsuit costume featuring a hood with the stiff felt ears and classic Sonic quills.
    • Classic Costumes – Sonic and his friend Tails both come in a Classic style version. Both costumes have a comfy hooded jumpsuit of velvet minky material with dimensional ears, embroidered eyes and quills for Sonic and a hair tuft for Tails.
    • Sonic Dress Costume – Disguise has also created a dress version of Sonic. This super soft dress with lightning detailing on the skirt comes with a pair of glovettes and a cute headband with Sonic’s signature quills and ears.
    • Sonic Deluxe Costume – This super soft jumpsuit with a detachable tail featuring a detailed Sonic headpiece with attached ears and inflatable quills to give this costume a true movie feel. Also includes a pair of Sonic gloves.
    • Sonic Accessory Kit for Children – The accessory kit comes with a headpiece with ears, inflatable quills, gloves and a pair of red foam shoe covers with lightning bolts.
    • Sonic Adult Unisex Jumpsuit – An extremely soft velvet minky hooded jumpsuit with Sonic’s signature quills and dimensional ears.
    • Hooded Jumpsuits – Disguise will also launch two Fancy Dress styles in the UK and US for Tails and Sonic. These comfy hooded jumpsuits feature stiff felt ears and classic Sonic quills. Stitched tails at the back give the Tails costume an authentic look.

 

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.

 

 

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.

Rubies launches range of adaptive costumes to make dress up and role-play more inclusive

Rubies has released a new range of adaptive costumes designed for children with limited mobility and boasting a selection of features that makes them optimised for ease of wear, accessibility and fitting.

The new collection has been designed to enable all children – regardless of their level of ability – can engage in role-play and dress up, with specially designed features that allow them to do so.

Features include back opening in the trousers and skirts, which allows wheelchair users to dress in bed or in a laying down position, and the combination of Velcro fastenings with elasticated areas add comfort and allow for easier dressing. A discrete front flap opening allows access to tubes on the abdominal area.

Furthermore, the seated area of the costumes is free from costume fabric, helping to reduce pressure points which can cause sores and ulcers from wrinkles, creases or pronounced seams.

To ensure the collection provided comfort and inclusivity with the key demographic, the costumes have been tried and tested on a select focus group of participants in this year’s Superhero Series Powered by Marvel, with positive feedback across the board on the designs and features. One of the costumes even featured on a Good Morning Britain section with Emerson Grant showcasing his Spider-man outfit to the nation.

Mike O’Connell, managing director, said: “We are extremely pleased to announce the introduction of Adaptive Costumes into our extensive licensed portfolio. As an inclusive and innovative company, we strive to create a world where everyone can express themselves equally. Although our exclusive Adaptive Range costumes are different in their features and design, we wanted to ensure our price point matched any other costume of the same quality within our range.

“Dress-up play is a very important part of childhood, allowing children to explore different characters and role models and shape who they become, and we hope these costumes will allow every child to be able to do this.”

The new range will launch with a choice of characters from Marvel, DC and The Mandalorian that are instantly recognisable and highly inspiring to children. The superhero range in particular focuses on Captain America and Spider-Man’s jumpsuits featuring 3D padded muscles; both consist of tops, trousers and snood.

The range also includes Wonder Woman’s dress which has a shimmering sequin bodice detail, a full layered skirt and comes with a range of accessories to complete the character including cape, boot covers, gauntlets and a foam tiara.

Adaptive Costumes will be available to order in time for Halloween. Contact the Rubies sales team to find out more.

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.”

Rubies invites gothic kids’ book character Amelia Fang into the licensed dress up collection

Rubies is expanding its children’s book character range of dress up costumes with the addition of the popular quirky gothic-inspired publishing IP, Amelia Fang.

Created by author and illustrator Laura Ellen, the Amelia Fang book series is published by Farshore/HarperCollins UK and has sold over 380,000 copies in the UK, as well as translated into 24 languages worldwide. It follows the tale of a little vampire with a big heart as she embarks on adventures on the city of Nocturnia.

The title is favoured by seven to nine year olds, with seven books in the series, filled with gothic tales and creative illustrations. Rubies notes that the character Amelia Fang works well within World Book Day and Halloween ranges.

The costumes themselves will feature Amelia Fang, the lead character, and her signature spooky outfits in a variety of sizes. Rubies will design, market, manufacture and distribute the range in the UK next year.  

The IP is the latest to joins a robust and growing portfolio of character licenses that spans everything from Marvel and DC to the likes of Dennis the Menace and Horrid Henry.

Tracey Devine-Tyley, head of licensing and portfolio EMEA, said: “We understand how important reading is to children as it helps develop their minds and imaginations and we strive to support this through any of the licenses we hold which celebrate reading. Amelia Fang is a fantastic license for us to acquire as it is a beloved book series, with a strong and growing group of fans consisting of both children and parents.”

Laura Ellen Anderson, creator of Amelia Fang, added: “I’m so excited to see Rubies bring the Amelia Fang costume to life. It’s wonderful to know that my fans and readers will be able to easily access this costume which can be worn for events such as World Book Day and Halloween, or just for fun.”

The costumes will be available to order early next year on www.rubiesuk.com.