During the month of October, the owner of Charleston’s costume headquarters manages over 60,000 costumes at her store, working from noon to midnight in order to keep up with the store’s increased business.

Jayne Ball-Saret, owner of Grand Ball Costumes, said she works these long hours not only to meet the community’s annual demand for quirky, fun Halloween costumes, but also to make costumes for local high schools and theaters looking for specific costumes for their latest productions.

“I work with Halloween costume customers from noon until six,” she said. “After that, I lock the door to the public to work on the play costumes. People think that Halloween is our busiest time of the year, but this is just time we see most people.”

She said in all other months beside October, she meets with customers by appointment only.

“We work with the general public for Halloween, but we’re here all year,” she said.

Despite the hectic influx of customers that October brings, Ball-Saret said she relishes the chaos.

Ball-Saret, an Eastern theatre graduate, said she especially enjoys making costumes for productions.

“I love the design work because I get to make historical costumes,” she said.

Ball-Saret said she also makes custom costumes for customers all over the country, as they hear about the business through their website.

For Halloween, Ball-Saret said customers’ costume choices tend to lean towards what’s hot in popular culture.

“It usually seems to load heavily towards the movies that came out that year,” she said.

Ball-Saret said currently, the most popular Halloween costumes are Spiderman, Alice in Wonderland and Batman.

However, she said some costumes never go out of style.

“Vampires are just perennially popular at Halloween,” Ball-Saret said.

Ball-Saret said surprisingly, a majority of her customers tend not to be young children, but an older crowd of college students and adults.

“It used to be just a little kids’ holiday, that’s just not case anymore,” she said. “I think with people having stress over jobs and stuff, they need a day as an adult to let go and have fun. Halloween seems to be a good day for that.”

Grand Ball Costumes is located at 609 Sixth St. Their current hours are from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Fridays and noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

Beginning Nov. 1, they are available by appointment only.

Sara Hall can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].