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For nearly half a century, one costume shop has been a fixture in Los Angeles. The shop's walls are covered in masks and wigs, animal heads, hand-jeweled crowns and signed photos of all the Hollywood stars who have walked through its doors. Now Ursula's Costumes is closing for good. NPR's Jonaki Mehta stopped by to visit its 90-year-old owner, Ursula.
JONAKI MEHTA, BYLINE: At 10 a.m. sharp on a Thursday morning, a red neon sign flickers on. Ursula's Costumes is open.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR CHIMING)
URSULA BOSCHET: Hi.
MEHTA: Nice to meet you.
BOSCHET: I'm Ursula.
MEHTA: The owner, Ursula Boschet, is about 5 feet tall. She wears her silver hair in a bob with bangs and sports rectangular spectacles.
BOSCHET: This is the sales department, so...
MEHTA: She walks behind the glass counter to show off an impressive collection of stick-on facial hair.
BOSCHET: They're all handmade human hair mustaches.
MEHTA: Is this, like, a long beard?
BOSCHET: That's a long one (laughter).
MEHTA: Yeah, it's like a little arm.
BOSCHET: And this is like mutton chops.
MEHTA: The front half of the store is packed with ready-made costumes, but she leads me to the back room where decades' worth of her own handiwork is on display. This used to be the rental department. Now everything here is for sale.
BOSCHET: The times are bad. Can't pay the rent anymore and the employees. Everything.
MEHTA: She says it's also been tough to keep up with online shopping. And at 90 years old, she says it's time to hang up her hat and take a vacation. Here in the back, racks of costumes stretch up to the ceiling.
BOSCHET: We have everything.
MEHTA: Poodle skirts and "Flintstones" tunics, bee-feeder uniforms and renaissance gowns.
BOSCHET: Dolly gowns, there's deities, Cleopatras. There is not one the same, and they're gorgeous.
MEHTA: She grabs one she made off the hanger to show me.
BOSCHET: It's so heavy (laughter).
MEHTA: It's an elaborate costume, a leather bra with a shoulder pad shaped like a flame. The leather bottoms have long chains that connect to a pair of knee-high boots.
BOSCHET: This is the top. It's all leather, all studded.
MEHTA: The detail is impressive, the sign of a master who's been at work almost all her life.
BOSCHET: I started tailoring since 14.
MEHTA: Since you were 14 years old?
BOSCHET: Yeah, in Europe. I learned everything in Germany.
MEHTA: In postwar Germany, where she met her late husband, Hermann Boschet (ph). In 1962, they immigrated to the United States, where Boschet worked on costumes for theater companies, Hollywood studios and Disney parades. Then, in 1976, she opened up her own costume shop across town before moving to this location in Santa Monica about 30 years ago.
BOSCHET: Long time ago.
MEHTA: She grows nostalgic as she flips through a lookbook of her custom designs.
BOSCHET: That's us.
MEHTA: That's both of you?
BOSCHET: Yeah.
MEHTA: Many of the photos feature Boschet and her husband, posing as everything from Roman Emperors to space queens.
BOSCHET: That's us, too, 1920s.
MEHTA: Like, a flapper?
BOSCHET: Yeah, a long flapper. And we always was going somewhere for fun.
MEHTA: (Laughter).
BOSCHET: And costumes are fun. You can be whatever you want to be.
MEHTA: Over the years, Ursula's costumes became a household name in LA. And it was a hit with celebrities like Kate Beckinsale, Victoria Tennant and Jamie Lee Curtis.
JAMIE LEE CURTIS: We were devotees of Ursula's. In my house, we were starting to think about Halloween in February.
MEHTA: She did star in the movie "Halloween," after all. Curtis says she has long considered Boschet a conductor of her artistic vision, a key collaborator. She remembers the time she was heading to a gaming convention with her daughter, and they had a challenging costume in mind.
CURTIS: Including creating a way for flaming orbs coming out of this person's head by making a headband with little pieces of wire with Styrofoam balls covered in some sort of flaming fabric.
MEHTA: That creativity, that sense of innovation, it's what made Ursula's one of a kind, Curtis says.
CURTIS: I just want to say thank you to her for having a place to create magic and fantasy. It's a service. And now, of course, there's the internet. But it's not the same as having someone use their creativity to help you express yours.
MEHTA: Boschet is not sure when the shop will close for good. As of now, there are still plenty of costumes available.
BOSCHET: Well, don't come too late because this stuff goes.
MEHTA: She hopes the shop can make it to one last Halloween. Although, as the store's tagline declares, every day is Halloween at Ursula's Costumes.
BOSCHET: (Laughter).
MEHTA: Jonaki Mehta, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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