A Neat Idea

[dampha]

This post especially targeted to costume designers. Oh, yes, you know who you are...

A friend in Chicago forwarded me an article today about an interesting income stream that Redmoon Theater has discovered. From the article published in Crain's Chicago Business:

The company, best known for what the Chicago Tribune calls "puppetand contraption-

Comments

[radio_redhead]

As someone who has managed an enormous costume rentals business in Chicago, I can say that yes, it might be lucrative to pay costumers to make beautiful things with lasting value. Which will promptly be ruined on the first corporate party they go out on. This is why I only donate my PVC and fetish wear to shows I am directly involved in and can supervise. I'm already tearing the hell out of my $250 orange cone-bra corset during Cementville just by putting it on and taking it off, and I'm the one wearing it.

I have tried to bring up the rentals possibility to Mercury. It keeps getting shuffled to the low-priority pile because we don't have time or storage space. The MTG shop does rentals, but having worked there too, I can tell you most of their stuff is 1980s crap, with a few fabulous things. It's servicable, for shows based in realism, but contains very few wondrous creations.

That said, if someone wants to pay me mucho dinero to build a costume line for them, rock on. I'll do it.

Interesting side note: I was wardrobe supervisor for a designer that worked primarily with Redmoon; her fiance was a bigwig there, apparently. She was very nice, had beautiful designs that looked great from stage, and I had to do MAJOR repairs every single night because up close the construction was a mess of hot glue and makeshift patching together. Since they do so much craftwork there, I don't know if that's how they did their costumes regularly.

This was right before they got grant money from the city, though, so obviously things have changed if they are doing rentals now. You have to make rentals to hold up for multiple events.