CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — It doesn’t get much busier at Fantasy Costumes on Milwaukee Avenue than during the days leading up to Halloween.
"Lines out the door, lines to pay, it's actually like being in a club," said Bela Farkus, who manages the decades-old costume store.
Farkus said the store dates back to the 1960s.
"It started as a wig shop,” he said. “The owner George Garcia started [it] out of the trunk of his car and basically built it into this city-block-long store, a million items in stock."
He said some of those items include animatronics, accessories, realistic looking Halloween makeup, and an impressive wig and costume collection.
"The wig selection goes back decades,” he said. “There's vintage pieces [and] new pieces. You're not going to see that anywhere else. That's for sure. Vintage costumes as well, our rental department has decades of different kinds of costumes, thousands.”
Among this year’s popular costumes, Farkus said they're selling lots of Barbie and Ken, Wednesday Adams, and Spiderman outfits. Jennifer, though, from Chicago, said she was able to find the perfect pirate costume for her Halloween festivities.
"She's sexy,” she said. “She has a corset, she cinches me in, and she's my size. As soon as I found it, I was like, ‘This is the one.’ After trying a thousand costumes, this is the one here."
Farkus said that's a common experience for customers and is what makes being a part of Fantasy Costumes so special.
"It's crazy, just to see all the people come through the doors, regulars, to see all the trends,” he said. “It's just overwhelming, it's always an experience every year."
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