A trip to Costume Hire is always a bit surreal

I’m looking for 1940’s costumes. ‘War Weekend?*’

‘War Weekend! I’m thinking a tea dress, or suit, a little hat, shoes are essential to create the period. I don’t actually know what we’re going to be doing*.’

We’re soon rummaging through 40’s, which have been well picked over before I’ve got there, and also through 50’s, for the things that haven’t been picked out because they’ve been put back on the rail slightly out of period. Everything is rammed together, so it takes perseverance to find stuff** (which a lot of people don’t have as they just want the full outfit off the shelf – my solution to that? Go to a fancy dress shop!) I soon have an armful of things to try.

In the changing room, I’m next to a woman who is trying on Regency dresses. She comes out, saying that she can’t get the dress to fit properly across her bust. I have to stifle a smile, as, like many, she just hasn’t grasped the ‘hoick your boobs up’ principle of these dresses, and that the only way to produce a Regency bosom is to fit the band firmly underneath, and if necessary shove your hand down the front of the dress and manoeuvre everything into place. I try and explain this as best I can.

The first dress I try on is too big (hurrah), the second is ‘too 50’s’. Nice dresses, both, but not right. The third fits, and is of the right period, but a little drab. Then I try a tea dress from 'Piaf', which fits, and a dress and jacket, which is an 'original' and is beautifully cut. I go looking for shoes, and a hat.

‘I don’t think they need to match perfectly, after all, there is a war on.’ I find some crocodile shoes, and a small hat. I know I have a handbag that will work. I may need to add a fur, but can do that later. I decide to hedge my bets, and take both outfits.

When I go back to the changing room, I find I’ve been usurped by a couple of young girls, despite all my stuff being in there. Rather than evict them, I gather everything up, and dive into the lobby by the ancient lift. At my feet is the cactus costume that I last saw in the attic of an Edinburgh tenement in Lorca is Dead. As I take the dress off, the zip goes. Argh!

*The War Weekend is an annual event in Pickering where basically the whole town, and the North Yorks Moors Railway, dresses up and pretends that it’s wartime. We’ve hired costumes out for it for years, but I’ve never been before.

** The word is that they will be moving early next year, to a place with much less space. Although the current building is ancient, it seems a great shame, the only upside being that there will have to be a sale.