Western Costume

February 25, 2019 6:44 AM

107 Years, 2.5 Million Outfits, Countless Characters: Inside Hollywood's "Magical" Mecca of Costumes.
posted by ellieBOA (10 comments total)

Thank you so much for this link! My favourite bit was when they describe a massive library of fashion magazines, books, historical studies, etc and then go on to say:

Most popular checkouts? Back issues of Sears and JCPenney catalogs, because, Bowers says, unlike fashion magazines, their clothes "were available throughout the country, to people of various means."

Like, that totally makes sense, but also isn't what you'd imagine if you had to guess.

I have a costuming-related pet peeve and now I'm wondering if this kind of rental shop is the reason for it. It kind of drives me nuts that on TV shows, characters either wear pretty much a uniform of the same thing all the time, or they wear different things in basically every single episode. This is especially noticeable for female characters because a dude in a suit is pretty much just a uniform even if the suit itself might change and it irritates me. Like, even the richest lawyers occasionally wear their designer suits more than once, you know? And on regular people shows, it's even more annoying, because of course regular people only have a week or two worth of outfits that they repeat. (They might have more stuff, but they probably play favourites if they do.)

But maybe this is because of availability or rental rates from a place like this -- like, if you're renting a dress, you aren't necessarily going to be able to get the same dress over and over, but you also can't rent it for the whole run of a show which might be years long.

A friend made me watch the first couple of episodes of Downton Abbey the other day, and I was positively thrilled to see them re-wearing those dresses in more than one episode.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:09 AM on February 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

This reminds me of how Debbie Reynolds spent tons of money and time and years trying to get a Hollywood costume museum up and running. Nobody in Hollywood was even interested. Sigh.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:27 AM on February 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

I have been to Western Costume and it is something else. In the early 90s they used to donate costumes for HIV fundraisers. We could get just about anything. Thanks for this.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:52 AM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Costume shops are magic. I went to one at the age of 17 to pick out my prom outfit. None of the cool kids wanted to wear your basic tuxedo, although most of the jocks went for something dumb like "blue jean shorts with a tux jacket". I picked out some 17th century lavender pantaloons, with matching frilly white shirt, a silver paisley vest, and deep purple velvet jacket. I looked fabulous. As a closeted gay kid in Texas that was a pretty fun way to say goodbye-and-fuck-you to my high school.

Also related: Karen Burns collection of showgirl costumes. There's a great podcast interview with her. Basically a woman who invested her life's savings in buying up a bunch of old Reno showgirl costumes as the Reno casino / show business slowly collapsed. Her collection is amazing but it's not clear anyone has any use for it.
posted by Nelson at 8:55 AM on February 25, 2019 [14 favorites]

(Nelson, I'm very disappointed that the link to your fabulous prom outfit is broken- it appears you need to set permissions for us to see it!)
posted by aabbbiee at 9:15 AM on February 25, 2019

Costume shops are the best places. Back when I was young and did tons of theater, I used to love nothing more than wandering through racks and racks of fancy dresses in costume storage. It filled me with a kind of join only matched when I opened a closet one day and saw just piles and piles of multi-colored tulle crinolines. I remember thinking, "Heaven. This is what heaven looks like."
posted by thivaia at 9:26 AM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

(Flickr permissions fixed; now you all can see me in my prom outfit.)
posted by Nelson at 9:36 AM on February 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

You didn't lie. You look fabulous indeed! Well chosen young man!
posted by gusottertrout at 9:38 AM on February 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

I got turned loose in a major university theater school's costume warehouse once to borrow for a production. Just the rails of furs would have filled my apartment. I could literally hear that twinkly music from TV montages as I zoomed up and down the aisles

After reading this article, if you don't hear from me, just assume I've gone to live under the Hollywood sewers as the Phantom of Western Costume, is all's I'm sayin'. I'll be wearing six capes and a different stack of tiaras every night. Hahahahaha! Haha!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:23 AM on February 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

I wish more of these were in a museum so that non-industry folks got a chance to appreciate them too.
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:49 PM on February 26, 2019