Wearing Halloween costumes is among the high points of childhood. It’s the chance to be a hero, a scary monster, a funny jokester, or a fancy princess and show off the chosen persona throughout the neighborhood. After Star Wars was introduced to audiences young and old, Halloween costumes for the series’ characters became essential for all the coolest kids on the hunt for trick or treat candy.
Though several companies have made costumes over the years, Ben Cooper is the name that is synonymous with the Star Wars Halloween costumes. Ben Cooper Inc. was one of the biggest costume manufacturers of the 20th century, primarily from the 1950s to mid-1980s. By taking a chance on licensed costumes from Star Wars, Disney, and comic book publishers, among others, they presented a new opportunity for kids to find costumes that were popular characters, yet still affordable.
Ben Cooper founded a theatrical costume business in 1927, though he was somewhat frustrated with the complications of making theatrical costumes. The piecework factor of putting them together, coupled with the more expensive garment quality for theatrical costumes caused multiple difficulties.
Ben and his brother Nat Cooper wanted to investigate other business options for mass production. As live theater saw decline due to the Great Depression and Halloween became more popular, they founded Ben Cooper, Inc., in 1937. They started creating inexpensive costumes with thin plastic masks and one or two pieces of thin cloth or vinyl-like material, and kids loved them. The Brooklyn-based company gained control of the license to sell Disney costumes using Mickey Mouse as the vehicle to entice kids and families.
Utilizing a keen sense for staying ahead of pop culture trends and their business model of gaining licenses to provide kids with more specific costumes based on characters they watched on TV and film, gave them an edge over the competition. Not only did the costumes feature popular characters, they were affordable and attractive – appealing to both consumers and retailers.
That interest created the welcome problem of figuring out how to manufacture the costumes in large volumes of ready to wear pieces. Ben Cooper used vacuum forming rather than stiff cloth or other handmade operations to create the masks. They were then silk-screened with facial details rather than embroidered, saving a lot of manufacturing time. The costume pieces were created through mechanized sewing with a minimum of pieces, which also saved time. Through these processes they were able to supply more costumes to the retail base.
Mickey Mouse was joined by other early Disney costumes like Donald Duck and Snow White, as well as movie monsters like Frankenstein, superheroes like the Flash, and cartoons like Huckleberry Hound. Another of their revolutionary campaigns came in the 1950s when they created costumes with Glitter Glo, which reflected in car headlights and quelled parental concerns about kids’ safety. By the ’60s and ’70s Ben Cooper had hit a solid stride as the Halloween costumer known for licensed TV and film characters.
Unfortunately, they saw financial losses in the mid-1980s following a wave of concern that candy was being tampered with, causing many parents to forgo trick or treating. Ben Cooper tried to improve the situation by encouraging different ways to celebrate Halloween, but with bankruptcy looming, some licensees pulled licenses to secure deals with other costume producers. Following several setbacks, the company closed in the early 1990s after a second bankruptcy.
During their heyday, Ben Cooper acquired the license for Star Wars costumes in 1977 – and quickly sold out that year. The character masks could be seen through the window box packaging, on top of costume pieces which often depicted the character rather than what they wore in the movies. But for just a few dollars, kids could sport the looks of main characters like Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Yoda all the way to those with smaller roles like Boba Fett, Wicket, Admiral Ackbar, Klaatu, and Gamorrean Guard.
In retrospect, those costumes are pretty comical looking, but nostalgia has turned them into popular, and affordable collectibles. Collectors prefer the full costume in box, but will buy out of box at a lower rate. Occasionally just the mask or the cloth pieces will be sold, for significantly less, however the mask by itself will sell for more than the costume pieces.
Because the costumes and boxes are not especially sturdy material, they are hard to find in better conditions. Ones that are in above average to near mint condition can raise the price with the rarer costumes taking more drastic jumps.
Though characters like Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader are primary characters in the series, their costumes were more readily available and average lower prices in the secondary market than some character costumes that weren’t made at the same volume. Because details on the sequels were kept vague, some mistakes were made on costumes for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, resulting in color variations like the blue Yoda mask or silver Boba Fett mask. Another interesting feature of some Empire costumes is that they display the early Revenge of the Jedi title before the movie was retitled, making for intriguing collectibles.
A New Hope costumes included Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2, and a Stormtrooper. With The Empire Strikes Back, several characters saw updated costumes like Luke, Leia, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader and styles along with some new characters such as Boba Fett and Yoda, even those that weren’t part of the franchise until the third film, including Klaatu, Admiral Ackbar, and Wicket. Return of the Jedi saw new versions and updates for Leia, Luke, Vader, Boba Fett, Klaatu, and Wicket, with the addition of the Gamorrean Guard.
Learn more about Star Wars collectibles in The Overstreet Price Guide to Star Wars Collectibles, now available for preorder at gemstonepub.com.
