admin Earlier this summer Costume Closet styled a dozen people for a multiday wedding at a château in France. The bride was Toni Alejandria, an event producer and partner at Unanimous Capital, and the groom was Gil Rosen, president of Stanford Blockchain Accelerator. The exuberant wedding had four themed parties: Marie Antoinette (the bride’s real name, believe it or not), Embodying Art, 1920s Paris, and Moulin Rouge. Even the bride and groom, both longtime Burners with closets full of festival fashion, came to Costume Closet for help.
“Costume Closet and Felicia were a huge help to a lot of our NY community, ourselves included,” Rosen wrote by email. “She’s talented and warm and beyond easy to work with. Even before we arrived, she’d asked us what we were looking for and had prepared a number of pieces for us to peruse. She gave us a playful afternoon of dress-up, a welcome respite in the cacophony of wedding planning. After our visit, we immediately shared her information with friends.”
Costume Closet has now done three weddings, with another coming up, and also does costume booths for themed events, so people who come unprepared—say, the mothers of the bride and groom—can get outfitted and take part in the fun.
While D’Ascanio delights in putting together an outfit that will make your Instagram explode with likes, she prioritizes comfort for her clients, with lightweight headpieces and flattering looks that will last the night. “Since we’re also in the rental business, I associate really well with pieces that are quality and last a long time,” she says. But if something breaks, they’ll repair it or upcycle it into a new piece. They also occasionally take items in on consignment.
Sustainability is a core motivation for Costume Closet. “The original idea was to help the sustainability of events,” D’Ascanio says. “I like the idea of pieces that are usually onetime use living multiple lives, being reincarnated into multiple characters.”
