All Dressed Up

Are you a lover or a fighter Whatever the case may be there s a costume out there to suit your personality But sometimes coming up with a Renaissance dress or a wolf mask isn t always practical or affordable Debbie Kuehn tells us how one area community met that challenge head on Somewhere beneath the streets of Garrison in an old abandoned basement lies a magical kingdom A kingdom where cowboys and aliens roam side by side and damsels wait longingly for a handsome prince to come along Cyndy Robinson Sakakawea Area Council of the Arts I think they re really surprised when they get down here and see how many rows we have so Here imaginations come wrapped in everything from taffeta to terry cloth and fur to flannel Cyndy Here we have saloon girls Arabian girls storybook characters medical military 50s 60s 70s this is our ethnic costumes from different countries And then we have western and a lot of suit jackets and that kind of thing here This costume collection is the result of a community collaboration It started with a handful of moms who were hoping to scare up some inexpensive Halloween get-ups So they pooled their resources and the result is something spellbinding Cyndy Maybe close to a thousand I suppose And most Halloweens we rent out about 80 to 100 costumes And for only a dollar or two each Halloween residents here can magically become someone else Jennifer Perman Garrison I was invited to a murder mystery party and I didn t have any outfits in my closet for the character I was supposed to be which was a call girl So I thought of this place It kind of gets pigeon-holed into just Halloween costumes but they have everything here Of course there are other occasions when a costume comes in handy Cyndy And like homecoming ws here last week and every day is a different day that they dress up And then of course the parade that always requires some costumes so the kids at school in different classes they call for costumes but then the businesses who are making a float too they always need costumes too Debbie Kuehn KX News Even a simple hat can transform you from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm to Uncle Buck Cyndy I suppose it s when you put on a costume you get to be someone else Because nothing is really what it seems under the surface In Garrison Debbie Kuehn KX News