Tricking or treating an iPod?

October 28, 2005

For some music fans, spending a day without their iPod is inconceivable, and that includes Halloween.
After all, from the morning jog to a day at the office and getting around in the car, the digital music player is a constant companion that provides entertainment on demand, non-stop.

So why not lavish the hardworking iPod with some love and affection on the day the ghouls and goblins come out begging for sweets?

Certainly, there are some people who are happy to cough up about one-fifth of the actual cost of a player to dress up the object of their affection on pumpkin day, courtesy of iAttire, a Los Angeles-based online retailer specializing in selling costumes designed solely for iPods.

The company has been providing handmade clothing for the standard iPod as well as the smaller iPod Shuffle and Mini models since Oct. 10. And with Halloween only days away, co-owner Jo Ann Villalobos has been focusing on marketing spooky costumes, with business going at full speed since the company went into business.

Not that the iPods can really go trick-or-treating door-to-door.

The clothes "have no practical purpose whatsoever," Villalobos admitted, given that when the iPods are costumed, they don't fit into users' pockets or handbags.

Still, the MP3 players can get dressed up in a lime-green Frankenstein suit made of foamy material that slips over the top, and comes with a tiny, bright orange pumpkin bucket to complete the look, or they can get a white ghost costume with eyeholes, along with a slanted tombstone.

Villalobos said that the most popular costume among customers is the pirate look, which covers up the top half of the iPod and has an eye patch that goes across the player's screen. In addition, the pirate costume comes with a plastic sword that comes in an array of different colors.

All dressed up, the iPods can rest in their cradles by their owners and be admired by others in the office or simply be enjoyed by the user alone.

The price tag for the visual entertainment is far from cheap, though, with most costumes going for about $40, when an iPod itself can be had for about $200.

Nevertheless, iAttire insists that its prices are fully justified, given that all products are handmade by skilled craftsmen in California -- including Villalobos herself -- and stitched like clothing worn by people.

In fact, she said that the company has a mission statement that declares that not only are the clothes for the MP3 players crafted in an haute couture fashion, but that it only makes costumes that people would wear.

So while she might have been inspired in the first place to make tunics for the players after slipping a finger puppet from furniture emporium IKEA over her Shuffle and found it "almost a perfect fit, except it was too short," Villalobos has no intentions of humiliating her iPods.

There will not, for instance, be a Christmas tree cover for the players because people don't go around wearing trees over their heads, either.

But a gaudy sweater with a big reindeer on the front might just be something that could put an iPod in the yuletide mood, even though Villalobos isn't making any comments yet about her winter season collection.

"I get too many ideas from people ... I've stopped listening," she said, but added that the business "is just so much fun."

Copyright 2005 by United Press International