Annemarie Aldrich
Annemarie Aldrich, the owner of Rose Costumes (see a gallery of photos from her store below this article) in Denton, Texas, was elected to the NCA Board on December 11. In this interview with NCA Executive Director Ed Avis, she gives us a little background.
Ed Avis: What were you doing prior to joining Rose Costumes?
Annemarie Aldrich: My business and career and passion was all in the beauty and fashion industries. I worked with a production company out of New York and we did trade shows, runway shows, that sort of thing. I found myself in Texas in 2007, which is when the recession was. And so it was kind of difficult for me to figure out my next move. I saw that there was a costume store that was looking for a business manager, and I said, well, that sounds like that could be a fun job. And it was so much more than that! I met Judy (Smith, the owner at that time) and we just quickly fell in love. I ran her business for her until 2018 when she retired, and then I bought the business from her.
Judy just taught me so much. We had such an amazing, amazing time together. And I learned that costuming is really my passion. Her creativity and her unapologetically being herself and these incredible ideas was just so inspiring. And I just realized this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
What did you change or improve at the store after you arrived?
Well, during the first 10 years or so that I was here, Amazon was starting to take over everything, and Spirit Halloween and everyone else had such a hand in the pot of Halloween, and it was becoming such an oversaturated market. So we shifted our focus to theater. We started focusing on school theater rentals and community theater rentals. That was such an incredible, wonderful move for us, and I do believe it’s one of the reasons we are still here. It’s fun and every day is different.
During the meeting last week you mentioned that you now carry puppets. Tell me about that.
Probably around 2015 or so I went to a local theater convention called the Texas Thespians Convention. And I saw this large Audrey II puppet (from Little Shop of Horrors) walking through the convention, and it was so beautiful how it was made. And I ended up following it back to a booth where there was a woman by the name of Melissa Patrello, and her company was called Stage Worthy Arts. And we just hit it off right away.
We were looking to build the Lion King costumes, and so I partnered with her and she ended up building the headpieces to go along with our costumes. We just had such a great relationship and I would send people to her and vice versa.
Recently she decided she wants to go in a different artistic path in her life. And she said, “You're the the first person I wanted to talk to about adopting these puppets.” And I said, “Absolutely, of course!” So we’ve now taken over her company. We have three sets of Audrey II. We have three or four of the large Shrek Dragons. We have James and the Giant Peach. It's been such a great addition to be able to offer those. And they’re a lot of fun. You know, we have them up displayed. We have very high ceilings at our new location, so we have the dragon hanging from the ceiling coming up out of our castle and this giant Audrey II sitting on the ledge. It just makes for great decor when they’re not being rented.
When I think of puppets, I think of someone with strings pulling a little marionette thing, but that’s not what these are, right?
No, these are large-scale puppets. Like the Shrek dragon, it takes four people to operate. It has kind of wearable harnesses, and you have somebody who [controls] her eyelashes and mouth, and others [who control] the body and the legs moving, down to the tail. Theater kids just absolutely love it. We also have smaller puppets too, like the James and the Giant Peach, like the bugs, the spider and the earthworm -- those are handheld puppets.
Annemarie, what’s your feeling about the future of costuming in general?
My feeling is that we’re headed towards a shift away from everybody wanting things fast and cheap. I think that value-driven fashion and costuming is really going to be the next wave of the future. I think that people are looking more for items that are going to last longer than one show. They will see the value in rentable costumes again, you know, costumes that are built with beautiful fabrics and wonderful craftsmanship.
Especially since COVID, a lot of schools will try to costume their show off of Amazon, and then they call us in a panic because what they got was not what was represented. Also with Halloween we find that a lot, too. It’s like the week before Halloween, and they all rush in. “Oh my gosh, it’s not gonna get here in time. Oh my gosh, it was the wrong size. It’s a terrible fabric. I washed it once, it fell apart!”
And I think the resale market too, is really going to be booming. In the front of our store, we have a section of vintage clothing. And as we cycle costumes through our rental collection, we put them out on the sales floor and people love that, you know?
Do you have some feelings for things you’d like to accomplish as an NCA board member?
I’m so excited to be a board member. I’m excited to do things that help grow the industry back. I think we really need to get a better grasp on how technology can help us with everything from design to running our businesses. And we can be really inspiring young people to get more into these creative fields because they’re needed and there are just so many good ideas out there. And I hope that the conventions can kind of get big like they were before. Judy learned so much at the NCA conventions. She'd come back and say like, “Oh, I learned how to make a Victorian capelet out of a Christmas tree skirt.” We need more of that.
