Depending on which industry you work in, there’s always that one special season of year that sends you and everyone you work with into hyperdrive. If you’re a waitress, it’s those awful few weeks in December that are full of drunken besuited men enjoying their Christmas parties (and your arse). If you work in a vintage store, then your season is Halloween.
From last minute shoppers, to the magnificently misguided, Halloween provides those that work in vintage shops with no end of entertainment, frustration and hilarity.
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We spoke to Hannah, a girl that’s spent the past four years as a shop assistant in one to find out just what she's learned about people during this spooky time of year. Here's the damage:
FYI, Slutty Lady Mary? Absolutely not a thing.
'Sexy' is still the number one look
‘Girls always want to look sexy in their Halloween costumes. From older women asking for cheerleading costumes to the 14 year olds who’ll buy lingerie, fake blood and some like, devil horns or something. Or you’ll get people who’ll be like, “I want to do slutty Downton Abbey!” and you say, “Lady Mary wouldn’t wear that! Ankles are sexy to Lady Mary! You can’t get your boobs out!” In the end though, you realise you’re fighting a losing battle.’
What people spend on Halloween will massively differ
‘We have some people spending over £100, like city boys buying things that they say they’re only going to wear once. To have that much disposable income must be mental. But some people go the other way, like this girl who bought some masks and was said, “I’m only going to wear this once, can I come back and sell it to you for two quid after?” And I was like, “Erm, no.” Then she was like, “Ah I shouldn’t have told you I was planning to do that should I?” They were only a fiver in the first place.'
There’s no room for sentimentality
'There’s always people who don’t necessarily wear vintage every day who only come in for parties and buy a really, really nice 50s or 60s dress just to wreck it for Halloween. It’s their money and they can do what they want with it but maybe if they knew a bit of the history of it… It does break my heart to sell such a beautiful dress when you know they’re going to rip it to shreds and put fake blood all over it. We can’t say no, it just makes us sad.'
Halloween is probably more fun for me than it is for you
'Because it does get super busy around Halloween, we’re not meant to take holiday during October. It's like MI5 lockdown, but that doesn't matter. We spend our time thinking about different looks and printing them out so we’ve got some really awesome references for customers that come in with no idea what they want to bel. Which is a lot. We found an amazing Kurt Cobain tutorial on the internet the other day that was described as "Want to find your Nirvana? Don’t worry if you smell like teen spirit, you can come as you are." It advised you to wear a t-shirt with "grunge" written on it. All the staff dress up every day of Halloween week, so we get seven different costumes, which is fun.'
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Pop culture totally dictates peoples’ costumes
'The whole Clueless thing with those little pleated skirts has gone mental since Iggy Azealea. The worst was The Great Gatsby though. I think we had a about six weeks where at least once a day we’d have someone coming in who was going to a 20s party. We got to the point where we’d try to palm them off on another member of staff because we couldn’t handle it any more. I think mid-boom we had someone come in and say, ‘I’ve decided to try something a little different.... I'm going to have a Gatsby party,” and one person just lost it. Obviously we’re happy to help but the 20s thing just went too far.'
Some people you just can’t help
'So many people don’t Google their costume before they come in or they’ll come in like two hours before their party just as the store’s about to close and expect we’ll have exactly what they need. Like if a guy comes in as says, "Oh I want a 50’s suit" I don’t think they realise that one of those is actually going to be really hard to come by. We don’t have an endless supply of stock.'
Instagram’s totally changed Halloween
'People are totally making more of an effort for Halloween now. I think because of Facebook and Instagram people know they’re going to have their picture taken that night so they want to look good. So, if you get a group of girls coming in to the shop together knowing they’re going to a house party, they want to look hot, they want to pull and they want to er, look dead. And it’s our job to help them do that. We’re like genies, even if they do just end up wearing an 80’s prom dress and a bit of fake blood.’
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Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.