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With Halloween on the horizon, Chicago Costume is stuffed. Packaged costumes, including superheroes and Japanese animation characters in both kid and adult sizes, dangle near colorful wigs and bottles of fake blood. Downstairs, vintage clothes from the 1970s beg for one more boogie night.

The frightening possibilities mask the work that’s gone on behind the scenes to stock the family-owned shop and its sister store for the spooky season. Owner Courtland Hickey said he ordered 40% fewer costumes this year because of President Trump’s tariffs on products from China.

To fill the gap, Hickey and his mother, Chicago Costume founder Mary Hickey Panayotou, looked to their decade’s worth o

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