SHOPPING FOR COSTUME CAN BE BOOTIFUL

Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Oct 28, 2007 by BILL McKEOWN

Raquel Buzo was delighted Friday. The 6-year-old had just pieced together, with Mom's help, her Halloween costume from a rack of goods at the Disabled Veterans of America store on Pikes Peak Avenue.

"I'm going to be the tooth fairy!" she said. "Mommy's going to be a clown."

A couple of miles away, at Zeezo's costume shop on Bijou Street, Russian native Vitaly Gubarev, 18, was having a harder time choosing his costume.

"We don't have Halloween in Russia. This is my first time dressing up," said Gubarev, who has lived in Colorado Springs for four years. "I'm looking for something funny."

Raquel and Gubarev may be separated by age and life experience, but they and others shopping at costume and thrift stores were united in a single purpose: finding the right persona for some Halloween fun.

One of the owners of Zeezo's, Jessica Modeer, said pirate costumes remain "incredibly popular" with her customers, the majority of whom are 25 to 45 years old and who dress up for parties, not trickor-treating.

She said that the pirate look was a "dead category" in the 1980s but that it has enjoyed a revival with Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies.

She said interest in gory costumes seems to have waned this year, replaced by fun costumes.

"We're selling a lot of bananas," she said.

No one, she said, seems to want a Bush mask. But Nixon remains popular, along with JFK, who is nearly always paired with a Marilyn Monroe.

Nationwide, the National Retail Federation said the top-selling adult costumes this year were witch, pirate, vampire, cat and princess. The top-selling kids' costumes, the group said, were: princess, Spider-Man, pirate, witch and fairy.

Raquel Buzo's mom, Elizabet, said elaborate, expensive costumes don't mean a thing to her daughter or her two sons, Moses, 7, and Tino, 16. They just want to have fun and collect a lot of candy.

Shopping at a secondhand store, she was able to outfit Raquel and the two boys -- soldier and football player -- for a reasonable price. Plus, she said, the kids can express some creativity in putting their costume together.

"You can mix and match," Buzo said. "Real costumes are $20 and up."

Down at Zeezo's, saving money didn't seem to be foremost on the mind of Gubarev.

The Russian lad was being schooled in the art of costumes by his buddy, Mike Jackson, 19. Jackson dropped more than $100 on his costume, a depiction of the horror movie character Freddy Krueger.

The two dudes, who work together at the Fort Carson commissary, aren't getting dressed up to hit the streets for candy. Instead, they plan to cut a wide swath through Halloween parties this weekend.

Jackson, who briefly examined a cow costume, said it's important that his Russian buddy learn an American truth: Chicks dig a handsome man in a memorable costume.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0197 or bill.mckeown@gazette.com