Lili Bizarre, a Liverpool city centre fancy dress shop, has warned shoppers against leaving costume purchases until the last minute as it prepares for its busiest period of the year. The store on Tarleton Street is one of the last fancy dress shops in the city and expects hundreds of customers in the lead up to Halloween.
A family business with decades of history
At the heart of the shop is mum Lilian 'Lili' Wakefield, after whom the store is named. She still works there on Fridays and Saturdays, while her children, Gary and Lorna, now run the business. Lili, from Bebington, started out trading at car boot sales, selling treasures from house clearances as well as selling and renting vintage clothing, often hunting for stock at antique fairs.
In 1988, she moved into the legendary indoor market Quiggins. The name stuck and as business shifted further into fancy dress and costume hire, her family pitched in to keep up with demand. The business grew out of several premises until relocating to its current home in 2014, where the 4,921 sq ft retail space now stretches over two storeys and sees queues out the door during busy periods.
Halloween queues and security
With the closure of Smiffy's on Bold Street in 2024 and independent fancy dress stores becoming increasingly rare, Lili's Bizarre has taken on a big role in Liverpool's city centre. On the final weekend before October, Lorna told the ECHO that, from this point on, the store will slowly become one of the most in-demand shops in the city.
She said: "We advise people to get in as soon as possible. People normally start looking for outfits the last two weeks [of October] but it's usually too late by then - the queues have started." Last year, queues of hundreds stretched from the front door and along Church Street, all the way to Primark during Halloween week.
Lorna said: "At around 4pm, we assess the queue and tell people they probably won't be served after this point. We tell them to go home." She added: "Some people will ask why we don't stay open later to meet demand but when we close, we still have to organise the store, organise stock and get ready for the next day. We're here sometimes until 10pm and back the next day at 5am. There's physically no way we could open any later."
Advice for shoppers
The store suggests people should really begin thinking about their costume from as early as January. For anyone not so keen on the early shopping, the start of September is the absolute latest if you want to get your hands on your desired item.
Lorna added: "Because we're so busy, it means we can't always spend time with customers. If you come in at any other time in the year, all of the staff will be happy to spend up to 30 minutes with you. During the Halloween period, we're just too busy, though we still do our best."
Last year's demand was so high the team hired security guards to manage the queues. Despite reinforcements in place, it didn't stop arguments and fights breaking out between customers. Lorna said: "We had one person kicking off that we had to remove. You'll also get people trying to jump the line or say they only need one thing. Yeah, so does everyone else."
Popular outfits include army attire, police uniforms and nurse outfits, along with corsets for women and Ghostface masks for men. Children's items vary by popularity and the latest trends. Lorna said: "One year we won't sell a witch costume and then because of a movie or trend it's the costume we sell the most. You can never really tell because everything goes."
On November 1, the team are rightly "knackered". Lorna added: "The lead up and through Halloween is chocker. It's horrible but we get through it. We're hands on with authority but we're still very nice as people know we are." She concluded: "We like to laugh about how busy it gets afterwards, but only when we get through it. We tell people every year to get down early but they never listen."
