Costume Design Keeps Woman On The Fringe
Push past yards of satin and mountains of sequins, miles of feathery boas and a few scantily clad mannequins and you’ll find Quasimodo, Darth Vader and an ugly guy with the world’s longest tongue.
These three personas non grata never had it so good. They’re surrounded by saloon girls in lacy splendor and a sexy go-go dancer. “Doo-doo Head,” who resembles the fly-covered piles on people’s lawns, also is nearby.
“I love Halloween because I love to make people laugh,” says Jo, the woman behind the bizarre collection of characters. “The happiness costumes bring people is incredible.”
Jo doesn’t use her last name to protect her family from a former husband. But her secrecy doesn’t hurt her business. People covet their friend’s Carmen Miranda look or the John Wayne outfit their boss wore to a party. Masqueraders with great costumes point to Jo’s home in Hayden Lake.
Jo rips apart old prom dresses and “remodels” them into Renaissance gowns. She dissects wedding wear and resurrects it as Victorian fashion. She paints on jeans and jackets and piles fruit, birds, feathers and whatnot on straw hats.
Sewing is a passion and sanity for this woman born in Spokane 50 years ago. She stitched for a living in Hollywood, selling her outfits for parties, not movies. But she collected old movie costumes, tore some apart for new looks and kept others, like the deerskin breeches and jacket made for John Wayne to wear in “Rooster Cogburn.” The costume didn’t fit.
In Las Vegas, her lacy work was a hit with star impersonators and casino shows.
“I think in another life I was a madam in Virginia City,” she says. “I love the saloon girl costumes.”
She saved the black and red madam outfit she wore for one job and the baby blue go-go dress and boots she wore as a teenage Whiskey A-Go-Go dancer in the 1960s.
Jo collected or made anything - hats, boots, necklaces, belts, masks - she could use with costumes, and sold it all in her own stores. Until she hit North Idaho 18 months ago.
“It’s too conservative here,” she says, obviously disappointed because she likes the area’s quality of life. “I decided to work out of my home.”
That must make her house the most interesting on the block. The racks in her living room and basement bulge with fringed flapper dresses, union suits, uniforms and vampire capes. Gruesome masks with slit necks or extra eyeballs stare from every shelf.
Browsers paw through chiffon and silk, gasping with appreciation. They tug Frankenstein’s face over their own or slip into the crazed nurse mask and laugh maniacally, free for a moment from inhibition.
Jo loves it all.
“There’s nothing better than dressing up in costumes,” she says, adding that seamstresses Betty Hume and Linda Brooks help her. “Except for making them.”
Boning up
If your children have bone problems, injuries to muscles or tendons, burn scars, a cleft lip or palate or neuromuscular disease, bring them to the Panhandle Health District, 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday for a free screening.
The Coeur d’Alene Shrine Club of Calam Temple and Drs. Orland Scott and Mary Jo Shaw will decide which kids are eligible for free treatment at Shriners Hospital.
Take immunization records, birth certificates and custody papers if you’re divorced. Panhandle Health is at 2195 Ironwood Ct. in Coeur d’Alene. For details, call 772-9355.
Full of it
Coeur d’Alene’s Ron Rankin has donated 182 pints of blood in 50 years, figuring he’s a “genetic” conservative doing his duty.
“Another seven pints and I’ll have another precinct,” he says. If you’re O-positive, watch out.
Were you injured in a war? Spill the details to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; FAX to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: DRESSUP Jo sells and rents her costumes. For details, call 444-0267.