Costume consultants provide easy answers for Halloween attire

If you find yourself at a loss for what to wear tonight, there's still the chance you'll manage to snag that perfect costume.

You just might need to enlist the help of a costume consultant to do it.

With Halloween becoming an increasingly booming business, people are ready to spend a lot on just the right Halloween costume but need the guidance of someone who knows all the costumes to do it. Enter the costume consultant, someone who knows the stock and knows the right question to ask to get the client a costume they'll be over the moon about.

One of Canada's biggest costume retailers, Value Village, has costume consultants available at its locations nationwide. It's the biggest time of year for the store, selling second-hand and new costume items.

"Halloween is our Christmas," says Libia Castano, head costume consultant at a Toronto Value Village location, in the Globe and Mail. "People want the best costumes and they often don't have time to pick one out, so they want it done for them."

Costume consultants at Value Village ask basic questions like where the customer will be going and what kind of a look they're going for, be it sexy or cute, macho or funny.

High end costume consultants are available to the boutique crowd, too. Vancouver costume rental and sales shop Boo La La offered a new complimentary consultation service this year, and was booked solid for appointments two weeks before Halloween.

These more in-depth sessions ask customers what they've dressed up as in the past, and how far they'd like to take a costume. The consultant will then offer the customer a range of costumes to choose from to best suit their mood and event they'll be attending.

If you're all out of time for meeting with a costume consultant this Halloween, you can learn some of the pro's tips and tricks from Value Village's national costume consultant Meg Allan Cole in this video: