ALLENTOWN, PA - Here, you can be anyone.
“We sell a lot of superheroes…They ask for characters, we rent you know different types of characters for birthday parties and things like that. And then we can do murder mysteries; maybe you’re having a speakeasy murder mystery and you can go as flappers and gangsters,” says Louella Torrence, “Oh Victorian! Victorian is another one! If you want to do Victorian for Downton Abbey or things like that...we have beautiful Victorian costumes.”
It’s the time of year Allentown, Pennsylvania’s Drop Me a Line Costume Shop thrives. During the spookiest season of them all, people from near and far trickle in to rummage their way through racks and shelves of costumes, wigs, make-up and masks, shoes, suits and sales; all for the thrill of finding their perfect Halloween costume.
“If you’re doing a show or something and you’re missing something, you come here for the hat or the wigs,” Torrence tells PBS39 News Tonight Reporter, K.C. Lopez, “We have a beautiful selection of wigs and you come here to rent some other parts for your play that you haven’t made or something. We do a lot of plays and things like that. And other times of the year we rent tons of Santas and Easter Bunnies.”
Name a character and chances are, they’ve got it! If you want to be a king, you’ll have to be a little more specific; they’ve got the King of Pop, the King of the Jungle and even Kings from history. From flappers, FLOTUS and far out hippies, to Miss Piggy, Pennywise, presidents and even pizza, the folks here handle the craziest costume requests.
“We had somebody rent, over the years, somebody rent armor! And he rented a white horse somewhere else, I don’t rent white horses,” she recalls, “He rented a white horse and got on it and rode down to where she worked and proposed to his girlfriend. It didn’t turn out well. She said no. I know! We thought surely he had it in the [bag].”
When Drop Me A Line Costume Shop first opened in 1980 it was nothing more than a card and stationary store with a small space dedicated to costumes and accessories. Today, they’re stocked to the top with about three thousand costumes available for sale or rent. But forty years later, the owner behind it all is ready to hang up her threads and retire. Louella Torrence is looking for a new owner to take over her business on Lehigh Street.
“I’m going to be 72 at the end of the month. My birthday is November 1st, always the day after Halloween. So, I think I’m ready to retire. I lost my husband three years ago so now I’m--it’s become a lot of work for me,” Torrence explains, “We keep our costumes clean. They’re very in order. They’re nicely mended. Everything--if anything needs to be done, our costumes are top of the line, our rentals [too]. And then you have to consider stocking too. So, we have to put orders in all year long. We put our Halloween orders in January, February yeah, so we have to know what we need and what is required to keep moving along. And then we order Santas and then we order Easter Bunnies to sell and things like that.”
But running a store specializing in the art of disguise, takes a special kind of eye. Here at Drop Me a Line, Torrence says it’s about making each customer that walks through the door relaxed enough to step out of their comfort zone. For those of us, trying on wacky, crazy clothes means finding something that’ll fit and bring out a character hidden inside of us that’s just been waiting to pop out and let loose! It’s why Drop Me a Line has made Plus Size selections their specialty.
“We have a lot of plus sizes in rental and we do sell some pluses but we go up to a 5X in gentleman, not in everything but in a Victorian or a Colonial man or things like that--pirate. And we go up to a 3X for a woman,” she says, “We can always fit somebody in a clown or a robe. Oh no, you don’t have to be that you can be whatever you want! Gangster...you know what I mean? You don’t want to put them in a category where they can’t find what they want. You know what I mean? They don’t want to be a clown.”
Torrence says she sees someone with a keen eye to detail taking over the business she’s grown to love. Being active members of the National Costumers Association since 1993 means keeping up with conventions, taking hours of classes on the costuming business and ensuring fitting each and every client that walks in finds exactly what, or who, they’re looking to become.
“You have to love sewing, costuming, you have to love Halloween for one thing,” says Torrence, “You have to be a costumer. You have to want to do this. You have to---it is---and you fall in love with it.It’ll be tough but I’m ready to try something else. Something--move on to something a little slower.”
And who knows? Maybe you, could be the new neighbor and owner behind drop me a line costume shop.