Disguise Expands Leadership in U.K.

Disguise, a global costume company and a division of toy and consumer products manufacturer JAKKS Pacific, have announced the organization of its senior leadership team in EMEA.

Industry veterans Tony Lewis and Lynda Morris will lead Disguise’s expansion and recruitment efforts to build an EMEA team of costume experts across sales, design and marketing.

“We are excited to continue to expand our presence in EMEA,” says Dan Cooney, executive vice president, JAKKS Pacific. “An enhanced dress up and role play line is a natural complement to our strong toy portfolio.”

David Carscadden, currently managing director of JAKKS EMEA and 12-year executive at JAKKS, will now lead both Disguise and JAKKS teams in EMEA. He will focus on leading both divisions and strengthening distribution channels and retail partnerships for Disguise’s vast range of costumes and fancy dress as well as leveraging JAKKS expertise in role play and dress up. His U.K. based teams will be led by Lewis for sales and marketing and Morris for design and development.

Lewis has officially taken on the role of sales and marketing director in EMEA. A costume industry veteran with 30 years of experience with companies like Christy’s, Amscan and Character World, Lewis will bring extensive expertise to the Disguise division. He will be working closely with JAKKS to build and develop retailer and buyer relationships across the whole of Europe, while growing the list of dress up clients for both Disguise and the JAKKS team. He heads up all forecasting, planning and joint ventures as well regional and local sales teams, building and developing the customer and wider distribution base. He is currently recruiting an experienced costume sales and business development team for the U.K. EMEA.

Morris will be bringing decades of design and management experience within the children and adult apparel space as well as seven years of experience at Halloween with Rubie’s to her new role as design lead for U.K. and EMEA. She will work in tandem with Lewis and JAKKS teams on forecasting, safety testing and presenting concepts and styles to licensors and customers. She will also build out a creative and development team in the U.K. to ramp up for design this year and production in 2022. Her new team will take on the task of creating hundreds of innovative styles for Disguise’s existing and new licenses.

“This year we have been focused on maximizing our existing licenses and building structure for new brand acquisitions to be announced soon,” says Tara Hefter, president and general manager, Disguise. “With the recent awards of some large licenses with a global scope, it made sense to hire in industry talent and start growing our team now. With Tony and Lynda leading the business, we have the ground work ready to develop and expand into new regions and countries quickly. We can activate faster on new licenses and brands and bring these incredible new costumes and accessories to retail for all major dress up holidays in EMEA.”