Costume Rentals

Do you throw on an outfit to keep warm? Or because the costume is stylish? Or does it suggest your social class? As a uniform for your work? Or to masquerade as someone else for a party or a theater production? From earliest times, people have used costumes for all these purposes. One of the earliest skeletons found (50,000 B.C.) had skeletal parts of a leopard’s paw and teeth buried with it. The way the bones were found indicates that they were part of a leopard robe buried with the human. The man was wearing the costume of a shaman—a fur cape. He was probably indicating both his profession and his social rank.

A Venus figure carved in bone in 2000 B.C. wears only a fringe of twisted fiber strings suspended from a hip band. Obviously not to keep her warm or covered—it is thought that the string skirt announced a woman’s reproductive readiness.

The early Egyptians lived in a climate which was lush and moderate year ‘round. But the higher the rank, the more costume and adornment they wore. During part of the Renaissance, only royalty was allowed by law to wear black. Today we have all sorts of costumes to indicate our group affiliations—from Goth wear to individually tailored business suits.

When you rent costumes, you have the same purposes. You probably want to masquerade for a party or present a theatrical character. But you may also want to be presentable to a social group. You may still want to look attractive, even in costume. And weather is a big determinant for costume rentals, also. You need to rent a costume that is weather appropriate. Does the uniform purpose apply? Strangely, it does! We have several catering businesses that rent from us so that their servers will look appropriate for the party they are catering! Let us know your needs, and we’ll try hard to find the right costume rental for you!

With over 20,000 rental costumes (or costume rentals), we are constantly trying to match the right costume to your needs. Many people come to our shop or email us with a specific costume rental need: Cheshire Cat, Professor Hill, Pink Lady, Napoleon Dynamite. We always want to match your interests and measurements with the costumes rentals we have, and we happily do simple alterations to make them work.