Flashback Friday: Gettysburg Trip

Last December, we took a Studio field trip up to Gettysburg to do some shopping and looking around.  We get frequent requests for military uniforms, so we thought the local sellers in Gettysburg could be a great resource, and we were right!  We got some great advice on military regalia from several of the military shops.  We expected plenty of Civil War artifacts, but what we didn't know was that most of those shops specialize in uniforms, regalia, and artifacts from all U.S. wars.

In front of our old friend Quartermaster, our source for most of the military buttons we used for the White House  1812 project. 

The millions of wonderful consignment shops were chock full of gorgeous vintage finds, and we went home with some amazing additions to the Closet. And then we played dress up!

And what is this? 

Trying to figure out the cape

Meghan is so happy.

Found a tres chic hat for Marilyn, who until this moment thought she couldn't pull off hats!

What a good looking bunch.

Our ever growing pile of takeaways

So many hats! All now available for rent!!

Inventorying is FUN

If you've been following our Twitter (which if you haven't... well I don't know what you're waiting for) you've noticed we've been doing a LOT of inventorying lately. It's all part of our ambitious goal to get the lion's share of our Closet online and into the 21st century by fall of this year.  We reached our 1000th item last week (hooray!) and we're not even close to done (whaaat!).

It is so exciting, though, to intimately get to know our Closet, item by item.  So often we girls turn to Marilyn incredulously, saying things like "We have a SHARK costume??" and Marilyn calmly responds, "Why of course, and it has a hood."  So we take its picture, and move on.  It is amazing the kinds of brilliant gems that are hiding in our stacks; I have been working here almost three years, and every day holds some surprise.

It is a wonderful thing in this world, to love what you do, and we hope you love our work as much as we do.  I recently had a friend come by to check out our stacks with a themed party in mind, and her excitement was infectious; it revitalized us after a long day of dressing and re-dressing Susie Q, and filling out rows and rows and rows of our inventory spreadsheet (we're up to the Y column... only time will tell whether we'll expand into the double letters.)

That said, we encourage you to keep stopping by, keep checking the website.  New things are happening around here every day, even when sometimes those new things are old things we didn't know we had.

Flashback Friday: Themed Parties

Here at the Studio we get all kinds of interesting calls, and some of our favorites are for theme parties.  A few months ago we costumed an 85th birthday party, in which all the birthday matron's grandchildren dressed as her at different stations in her life and acted out a skit for her.  We have done princess parties and superhero parties for kids as well, and as our Closet is slowly but surely making its way online, we hope to costume many more in the future.  Today's Flashback Friday is a focus on the last two theme parties we costumed, which, coincidentally, were for friends of mine and Marilyn's, respectively.

I am a HUGE fan of theme parties, as anyone who has seen my Facebook feed can attest.  Luckily I am also friends with many amazing and wonderful people who share my love for themes, as well as my passion for our Studio!  When my friend Carrie decided to theme her New Years' Eve party in the style of a 1920s speakeasy (complete with 20s jazz from a gramophone.... image on her computer, and giant black and white speakeasy background for pictures), I started texting out pictures of sequined headbands and slinky beaded dresses.   By the end, we had had something to do with costumes on half the party.


1920s New Years Eve

All us girls who were costumed entirely by the Studio... dresses and headdresses alike :)
Photo by: Zoe Jouannelle

Everyone who got their finishing touches at the studio... hats, ties and ascots!
Photo by: Zoe Jouannelle

Just for fun... all the girls!
Photo by: Mary Green

Then in February we got a call from Felicia, a friend of Marilyn's.  She is with the Annapolis Film Festival, and they threw a big Oscars viewing party this year, complete with live-action Oscar!  He was a big hit, and we now have an Oscar costume available in the Closet.  We often create "custom" costumes for rental, so our client can get an amazing custom costume for the cost of a rental, and we can then send out this super cool costume again and again!

Oscars Viewing 2013

Photo by: Felicia Barlow Clar

Photo by: Felicia Barlow Clar