Moana Costumes Grow Disney's List of Halloween Hits

By Shrey Sankalp

How big will Moana costumes be in 2017?  Anyone who follows the movie or costumes market will tell you: Moana is going to be the biggest thing in the animated movie costumes segment come 2017.
You might be inclined to ask why, but I suspect you already know the answer.
For nearly all of its years in existence, Disney has operated on a simple formula: they make a crowd pleasing film, they add colorful characters to it, and both children and adults love these characters so much that they want to be them come Halloween.
And when they do, costume makers are all too happy to oblige.

In that regard, Moana shouldn't be too different.
Much like Frozen and Zootopia before it, Moana is made by Walt Disney Animation Studios (different from its sister Pixar, another studio whose movies and costumes make everyone go gaga - it's a Disney tradition, apparently), and while both Frozen and Zootopia took a different cinematic route to reach their record-breaking success (they surely wouldn't have sold all those costumes based on Nick, Judy, Elsa or Olaf otherwise, right?), Moana is a bit of curious beast as in how it harkens back to the shenanigans associated with Disney movies of yore, but accompanied by a sense of lavish extravagance reserved only for costumed superhero antics (which another sister company, Marvel Studios, is all too happy to provide) nowadays!

(Disney) No one does animation the way Disney does.

The reason Moana is able to mesh the classic tone with the lavishness of modern superhero shenanigans is  because of how confident the film is, right from the get go.
Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, the film is set in an ancient Polynesian island and follows the story of a teenager named Moana, who intends to save her island from the curse incurred by demigod Maui, while proving herself to be a master wayfinder.
The story is nothing other Disney movies haven't served up before, but it's the confidence with which how it's served.
The world we're introduced to feels rich and lived in, and it's so well designed you'd wish every character had a costume so you could become them! The characters are islanders, and their costumes reflect that, but the beauty of the direction is that instead of recycling the same costume designs for each character, what the directors have done is make small modifications to each character's costume, complete with different tattoos so there's a sense of distinction while unanimity, much like an actual society might have.
Further clever touches such as a crown and different robes for the Chieftain's costume or the one worn by his wife or mother help sell this distinction while retaining the sense of consistency.
These small touches may not initially seem something you'd notice in isolation, but you do notice them and it makes you marvel at the vision of the directors. A similar approach was taken in Zootopia where Disney presented it's largest world ever, and while in a movie like Zootopia it's easier to distinguish between all the characters based on the species they belong to even if their costumes aren't distinctive, Disney went ahead with individualistic designs and personality based costumes anyway.
That set the bar incredibly high, and Disney had to clear it to establish themselves as the most distinctive and imaginative minds in the business, and so they did.
The only other films that have put in this kind of thought to world building and differentiation via costumes and props is Star Wars and guess who owns it?
Yep, it's Disney.

Of course, as important as little touches like the costume based world building might be, an animated movie has to look phenomenal to appeal to the audiences, and more so if it as the Disney name on it seeing how they have been pioneers of quality animaion for the last 80 years.
And you can bet that Moana is the best looking Disney film to date, across all sister studios and all time periods. The Jungle Book might have been photorealistic to a point where you could sub in a generic animal costume and call it a Jungle Book costume and it'd still hold, Zootopia might have had a candy-coated look that made you want to replace your Olaf costume with a Nick costume, and Finding Dory may have looked pretty enough to inspire you to dust off your old Nemo costumes, but none of them have a thing on Moana.
Disney's animation prowess has reached a point where they have learnt to perfectly achieve realistic water, light and earth effects and textures, and the only reason the humans and animals look cartoonish, is because they intend them to. This extends particularly to characters like Te Fiti and Te Ka, whose visual design itself is what's important to convey their purpose.
Every drop of water, strand of hair, and grain of sand looks beautiful, and when this commitment extends to the humans populating the world, you know you're looking at a potential Academy Award nominee for the visual effects work.

(Disney) Great characters are a precursor to great costumes.

But like I mentioned, just as costume based differentiation might not be a strong enough selling point unless the visuals look resplendent, the gorgeous visuals wouldn't mean a thing if the characters didn't make you immediately want to buy a costume and be them.
Disney movies are hardly short on characters with personality, and thankfully Moana is no different.
The characters, even outside of are protagonists, in the film are as three dimensional as the visual effects, and complimented by a strong voice cast, I can see a lot of Chieftain and Gramma costumes on Halloween among the hordes of Maui and Moana costumes that are sure to swarm you.
Of course, the movie is sold on the relationship between Moana and Maui, and I'm glad to say they're terrific. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is an absolute show stealer as Maui, bringing the same charisma to his voice performance as every other performance,while newcomer Auli'i Carvalho tremendously impresses with her earnestness and perseverance.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that Maui and Moana will prove to be so popular, their costumes will have a shot at being the Dynamic Duo costumes, far ahead of Batman and Robin costumes or even the current champ, Aladdin and Genie costumes.

(Disney) Dwayne Johnson is an absolute show stealer.

Come to think of it, Moana is as Disney as a Disney movie can be - engaging and fun time for the whole family? Check. Colorful, vibrant and full of characters you'll love? Check. Character designs to make you splurge on the best costumes? Double check.
This very spirit has permeated through every Disney movie across all studios this year, and no wonder they've already broken every conceivable box office record, they had the highest and most popular costumes this Halloween, their films are dominating the awards talk in a lot of circles, and all this with Rogue One still to run riot through the end of 2016.
When almost all of the year's best and biggest films belong to you, you know you've done something right.
There's no reason the same shouldn't continue in 2017, and if anything, there will just be more great movies, and as a result, more great Disney costumes to choose from, apart from the classic costumes, and the modern classics costumes (a category in which Moana has very strongly asserted itself).
And as always, Wonder Costumes will be there to make sure you've got just the costume to win Halloween.