The series “The Squid Game” is anything but funny: To get out of the debt trap, people are ready for a grueling game for a prize. The costumes are eye-catching – and will probably be seen a lot at Carnival.
Cheeky – When carnivalists celebrate the eleventh eleventh and thus the start of the funky season, the influence of streaming series on the choice of costume will probably also make itself felt this time.
The demand for costumes from the South Korean series “The Squid Game” is great, said the managing director of the costume dealer Deiters, Björn Lindert, of the dpa. In the series, participants in a deadly game wear dark green tracksuits with numbers on them, and there are guards in red overalls with black masks. The head villain, in turn, is dressed in black.
Carnival again
It is not the first time that Netflix & Co. have had a visual impact on the fun time of the year. In 2018, for example, a noticeable number of costumed people mingled with the partying, wearing a red suit and a Dalí mask – like the bank robbers in the Spanish series “House of Money”.
After the celebrations of the session – i.e. carnival time – 2020/21 have been canceled due to Corona, events in the 11.11. session starting at 11 a.m. For Deiters, this ends a long lull in business: the branches have been closed since March 2020 – with a brief opening phase in late summer and early autumn 2020. It was not until October 1st that the market leader in the niche industry opened 29 branches again, for example in Frechen, Cologne and Düsseldorf. Two shops had to remain closed because they were badly damaged in the July flood: in Eschweiler and Leverkusen.
The branch business and the online shop were now going well, the manager said. It should be noted that the customers have a great desire for Halloween and Carnival and wanted to escape the gray Corona everyday life.
Optimism after a long lull and no corona costume
In the Corona period, Deiters’ business sales plummeted by 90 percent compared to the time before the pandemic. Only the online shop was always available, but there was also little demand there due to the lack of party opportunities. And how does it continue? “Customers’ longing for cohesion, celebrations, parties, music and swaying are huge – and in this context also for costumes”, says the managing director and is optimistic for the coming months.
However, it is currently unclear whether sales can be returned to the pre-Corona level. “After the deep valley, we are going into the next few months with a good dose of humility.” In any case, it borders on a miracle that Deiters was able to survive such a long slump in sales – that also shows how robust the company is and how good the business model is in principle .
Incidentally, there is no topic in Deiters’ extensive costume store: the pandemic. For example, it made sense to offer the corona virus as a costume, says Lindert. “There would certainly have been sales potential, but that would have been tasteless and simply off the mark.” So you don’t offer that. Most people would not have been thrilled to see such a macabre virus disguise anyway. “Corona has affected our lives enough that you don’t want to see it as a costume at carnival celebrations.”
Carnival time makes the main sales
Deiters claims to have 280 permanent employees, most of whom were on short-time work for a year and a half. Before Corona, around 400 seasonal workers were added, now there are 200. In addition to carnival, disguise events such as Halloween or motto parties are also important for the company, which also has shops far away from the carnival strongholds in the Rhineland – for example in Stuttgart, Berlin or Frankfurt. The non-foolish business usually does not even make up a third of Deiters annual sales.
The company from Frechen is the market leader in the small costume industry. One competitor with branches is Karnevalswierts from Heerlen near Aachen. In addition, there are purely online providers who offer cladding from the series. If you want to go out and shop at Deiters on the spur of the moment, you might be disappointed for the time being: The various “Squid Game” costumes are only partially in stock, the rest should come soon, pre-orders are possible. The reason for the incomplete availability is delivery delays from Asia – like numerous other companies, bottlenecks in global freight traffic are causing problems for the costume retailer in the Rhineland. dpa
