Costumes are the most popular items in my store. People buy them for the dress-up holidays like Purim, Halloween, Carnival and Mardi Gras; they’re also great birthday presents. Some people have costume collections for their children, buying beautiful costumes and accessories when they find them. Costumes are educational “‘toys” that allow a child to use their imagination and to be someone else. Costumes and puppets are basic tools of the anthroposophic teaching ideology. I have many customers that send their children to anthroposophic kindergartens and schools; they invest a lot in costumes and in my felted puppets. They believe that the excellent quality of the items and the use of a child’s imagination in play makes these costumes and puppets valuable educational tools. But besides all this, they’re fun to play with!

sleepy fairy

Little cowboy Emili as Black Quervo, the super villain

My daughter Lili wore a tutu constantly from the age of 2 years till around 5 years old; my kids still dress up a lot and they’re 6,9 and 12. Their newest dress up game is Dance Idol.

^{(Below) Lili in the Degas ballerina dress}

Emili the ballerina

Here in Israel, the big dress-up holiday is Purim. Purim s a fun holiday for kids; the emphasis isn’t on scary costumes like in Halloween, but the kids dress up as everything else. The classic costumes are always popular: princesses, fairies, ballerinas,knights, Robin Hood, super heroes,mermaids and animals. We try to stay with the classic costumes in the store; we don’t make popular t.v. cartoon characters. We have been asked over and over again to make some cartoon characters that I consider classics. With this exception we’ve made Snow White, Batman and Superman. It is really rewarding to see the looks on the kids’ faces when they “turn into someone else or something else” while in costume. Sometimes the kids and even the parents are SO happy with their costumes that they call to thank me and send me photos of their kids. I put these pictures and e-mails in an album that I keep of my store. I would like to give one bit of advise: let your child choose his/her costume; don’t make him/her wear what YOU want him/her to be. I’m not talking about the child that wants a princess dress, but she already has a princess dress or it’s too small for the child etc. I’m talking about the girl who wanted to dress up as a dinosaur and her mother really wants her to be a princess or the child who doesn’t want a costume at all and the mother insists he should get a knight costume because it’s so cute. I see mothers buying what they want for their children and ignoring their crying children’s plies for a different costume on a regular basis. Many times I tell the mother, Ï think your child really wants the A, not the B costume and she ignores me too. I don’t see this problem with fathers who come into the store with their children. Fathers almost always tell their kids to choose what they want, with very few comments about their choices, except maybe, “let’s ask your mother.” Sometimes mothers come in looking for something that I think is inappropriate. One mother looked around and asked me, do you have anything sexy? For your child, I asked. I told her we don’t do sexy for kids. One other mother ordered a princess costume for her 5 year old girl. She was “designing” the costume as we were making it, she wanted breasts and hips added to the dress so the little girl would have curves like the pictures of Snow White. We dissuaded her from making this alteration. Another mother had us make the gladiator costume exactly as it appeared in the movie 300. The costume was a cape, helmet, spear and a leather diaper; the kid was basically half naked. She paid A LOT of money for that costume and her 6 year old son was so embarrassed to wear it. She insisted that he wear it and I felt so awful for him; I wished we hadn’t made it. It seems that these customers were using the costumes plus the children as show pieces for all those around them to gaze upon.  

Marilyn Monrow dress

Elli the mermaid

 

mermaid crown

beautiful witch

Peter Pan and his pet frog

belly dancer

movie star glamour