When the film industry began in the 1890s, actors mostly provided their own costumes. In fact, if they came to their audition dressed the part, they were more likely to land the role. There were some theatrical/Broadway costume houses that they may have utilized, but it wasn’t until the industry grew in the 1910s that the major studios created their own in-house costume departments. At the same time, costume rental houses began to pop up for the studios that didn’t have dedicated costume departments. Some houses produce costumes as well as rent them.
The Western Costume Company in LA was set up in 1912 and is still serving Hollywood films to this day! According to the Academy Museum, 95-99% of all Hollywood films made in the 20s and 30s went through Western Costume.
In the 1920s, costumes had become a normal part of a film’s budget and process and by the 1930s, the studio costume department had grown to be a factory environment employing hundreds of people.
When production was completed, costumes would go into storage at the studio and could be used again and again on extras in other productions and altered until they wore out. As the collections grew, the care put into storage was less and less.
As the Golden Age of Hollywood was losing its gleam and studios fell on hard times in the 1960s, the factory system came to an end. That valuable space which the costumes were taking up was cleared out. MGM had 350,000 costumes in storage and infamously sold off everything at auction in 1970.
Debbie Reynolds purchased $600,000 worth of costumes at this auction. She begged Hollywood to help her preserve these costumes and build an attraction for fans but she was ignored. She eventually had to start auctioning it off herself due to financial reasons a few years before she died.
What didn’t sell at the MGM auction ended up at a public rummage sale. Some studios buried their costume archives in landfill.
There were costume collectors at the time who thankfully saved what they could. However, it was costume rental houses that purchased most of the stock. One unnamed costume house based in New Orleans bought many racks of the fine costumes from 1938’s Marie Antoinette, designed by Adrian. They ended up being rented out for Mardi Gras over and over until they were no more. As you can see, very few costumes from the Golden Era of Hollywood survived to the present day.
Marie Antoinette, 1938
Edith Head remarked in 1967 that the costume shopper/buyer had become more important than the designer as more and more costumes were now bought off the rack at department stores. This suited the realistic movies now being made in the ’New Hollywood’ era.
As actors fees ballooned in the 1990s, studios cut costume budgets even smaller to offset the cost of the cast.
Nowadays, studios hire their costume departments on a per-project basis and the costumes can be a mixture of built in-house and sourced from rental houses, vintage stores, thrift stores and brand new.
Built and bought costumes are company property once production wraps and can be sold off at auction or elsewhere. Alternatively, if the studio has its own rental house business (like Warner Brothers and Disney), they can be funnelled into that to try and continue making money from them. Rentals houses still buy costume lots from studios, and as such, these pieces continue their lives in the film business! If it’s a special piece or they think it might be a big deal later on, they will send it on tour or archive it for later ✨
Some of the big costume rental houses in North America include Universal Costume (L.A. and Atlanta), Western Costume Company (Hollywood), United American Costume Company (Hollywood), Warner Brothers (Burbank), Costume Rental Corp (Hollywood), Palace Costume and Prop Company (L.A.), Disney (Glendale), Peris Costumes (Mexico and many more branches in Europe), Le Grand Costumier (Montreal) Espace Costume (Montreal), Berman & Co. (Toronto) and, of course, Ian Drummond Collection (Toronto)!
Check out our Instagram video below in which Ian answers all the big questions on costume houses!
Questions covered:
What are costume houses?
Who do they serve?
What's the competition like?/ Is there competition?
Are there different kinds of rental houses?
What need do rental houses fulfill in the film industry?/ What is their value?
What does the Ian Drummond Collection specialize in?
Where does stock come from?
How is new stock conserved?
How is inventory logged?/ What system do you use for keeping track of it all?
What challenges do rental houses face? What are some of the challenges and drawbacks of operating a rental house?
What changes in the film industry will affect rental houses?