February 2011
Costume double act dressed for success
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/news/Costume-double-act-dressed-success/article-3226053-detail/article.html
SUITS you Sir Gar!
A Llanelli-based costume hire firm is putting Carmarthenshire on the map after offering a modern apprenticeship in dressing the stars.
Costumes To Go, based in Delta Lakes Enterprise Centre, has dramatically taken off since launching a few years ago.
Set up by one-time school friends Maureen Rhys and Deborah Rees, who lost touch for years only to meet again through Friends Reunited, the firm offers the complete costume service from dressing whole theatre companies to providing a unique one-to-one bespoke design and making service.
Maureen said: "I've been working in the costume business for more than 20 years.
"I started off as a dresser for the BBC in Cardiff and went on to London where I worked on such shows as the Two Ronnies.
"I have always loved clothes. We used to go to antique markets together and buy all the old shoes.
"I didn't have any formal training but seemed to have had the eye and learnt on the job - the BBC is a fantastic training place in itself.
"Eventually I left the BBC and became freelance, and joined HTV in Cardiff before becoming a designer in my own right and worked for independent companies."
Maureen remembers her time working with the Two Ronnies fondly. She said: "Ronnie Barker loved giving people nicknames and he dubbed me the Welsh Dresser.
"It was a busy time as their shows had lots of sketches. It was fantastic, money was no object at the BBC at the time."
Long before Little Britain they often dressed as women for sketches.
Maureen said: "Ronnie Corbett was better at it than Ronnie Barker. Ronnie B was a bit, 'Do I have to?' but it was in the script and he wrote a lot of the scripts as well so he had no get-out clause. Ronnie C was more au fait about it."
Co-owner Deborah Rees said: "We were friends in school but lost touch for a few years and then Friends Reunited was invented and I thought, 'I'm going to find Maureen'.
"She was only living up the road in Llandeilo and I was in Swansea.
"Then this opportunity came up for us. I did a lot of retail work, had children and did an English degree before teaching English and Drama. I've always been interested in clothes and the costume side of things."
Explaining the business, she said: "It's a costume hire business for anybody putting on a production - schools, colleges, amateur or professional theatre groups, television and film.
"If we haven't got it we will make it for them or source it, our tag line is, 'Ask us, if we haven't got it, we'll act on it!'"
And although a Llanelli firm, thanks to the internet they cover the whole of the UK.
Deborah said: "The best thing about the job is meeting the people because you get lots of different people from all walks of life, they do it because of their passion, their job or their school, and we get a really good variety of people coming in.
"We have customers from all over -— York, Chester, Bridgend, Swansea, Suffolk.
"Currently our Beauty and the Beast wardrobe is proving popular because the rights have just been released to the schools."
The pair have also launched a service for schools and colleges.
"We have also begun offering courses on 20th-century fashion to local schools and colleges," said Deborah.
New recruit Kayleigh Harris, 19, said: "There's no typical day working here. I've made a lot of 3D stuff like a cyclops and Wizard of Oz crown. I've done loads of repairs and alterations. It's all very enjoyable."
On a visit to the company, county council leader Meryl Gravell said: "It's fantastic, I wish them all the best. I think it's something really innovative for our county and hope they go from success to success.
"It's great that they have taken on an apprentice, in Carmarthenshire we pride ourselves on the amount of apprenticeships available, and to have a young girl doing this type of work I really am applauding them."
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