“The Condom Man is very big this year,” giggled Mary Ward, pointing to a plastic bag picturing a man dressed in a huge rubber condom suit. “Everybody loves him,” she laughed. “The best is the people that buy him always ask us questions like if we sell condoms in bulk and where they can find condoms in bulk … it’s crazy.”
A sales representative at Boston Costume, Ward fits everyone from the freaky to the famous.
“God, there’s a lot of funny stuff that happens here,” says Ward.
“OK, fetish clothes. You should see some of the things people ask for. People are intense. They want their fetish costumes perfect. They come in for doctors’ outfits, nurses, patients … you name it. I mean look at that,” she says pointing to another one of the hundreds of plastic bags hung in rows on the wall, this one picturing a girl in nothing but a black thong, bra and chaps. “The vinyl chaps — people love it!”
But the job doesn’t only come with the perks of meeting Boston’s fetish-freaks. Out-of-towners sometimes stop in to do a little holiday shopping as well.
“Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick came in here yesterday with their kids to buy some costumes,” Ward announced before being interrupted by a man more captivated by the overpowering brown feather mask in her hand than the recent star sighting. She handed over the feathers in question and the man eagerly tried them on, transforming his face into an exotic looking animal of half hair, half feather. “It’s not for me,” he said, “it’s for my wife.”
Surrounded by erotic entertainment centers with “Must Be 21 To Enter” signs flashing, restaurants that advertise their “star-rating” with the number of chicken carcasses hanging in their windows, bakeries whose shelves are spilling with bags and bags of triangle cookies waiting to be cracked and predict someone’s destiny and sidewalks where trinkets of bamboo, toy dogs and dancing senoritas are sold, Boston Costume stands alone, a tiny corner store of Americanization in a world of Chinese tradition.
The four-window display outside the store screams indulgence, with extravagant makeup displays on mannequins and a girl in a wig of sweet tart pink and purple wearing a black tank top adorned with a blood-red heart constructed of tiny fabric roses and a poufy, floor-length, black lace skirt.
But the diversity of the window display hardly does justice to the smorgasbord of amusement waiting inside Boston Costume.
Colossal animal heads laugh down at you from every angle as they perch on a shelf built just low enough so the tops of their tattered skulls don’t hit the ceiling. Any one of these heads plus a matching body can be rented for $80.
The heart of the store is an open stock room, complete with naked mannequins, sewing machines and messy desks, enclosed by a confused countertop serving as home to binders overstuffed with costume pictures, cash registers busy consuming money, bright pink computer printed signs reading “ALL SALES FINAL,” and some random elbows.
This is where costumes are made and a customer is transformed into a rooster, dog, bear, alligator, cow, shark, the token Boston lobster, or, because we all love him, Barney (the only heads there are two of and the only heads that look like they have never been host to the head of a sweaty human).
Boston Costume carries the brand “Real Fix” for customers going for the scary look. One little bag contains the tools necessary to stitch your lips, burn your hand with a cross, bite like a vampire, or, if you want to go all-out, grow your own set of “hell horns.”
Looking for more royal charm than reaper appeal? There is an entire rack of “Sparkle Tiaras” exclaiming in glittering silver sequins everything from “Queen” to “Happy Birthday” to “Diva” to “Bitch.”
Two 40-somethings erupt in laughter as their friend emerges from the wooden dressing room doors. They roar as Scooby-Doo makes his premiere debut.
“Scooby-Doo!” one woman laughed as shoppers, a fairy and a man donning plastic boobs turn to see.
Johnny Gonzalez, whose name tag reads “Johnny G.,” only works at Boston Costume in October to help with the increase in customers. He said he likes to pick out ordinary costumes and individualize them.
“Last year I was the Grim Reaper and I wore this mask that I could see out of but nobody could see in,” Gonzalez said. “I was comin’ from Revere and you should’a seen the people buggin’ out when I walked by. You can always find something here to make a costume different.”
Boston Costume is the only place you can find Pavarotti, Howard Stern and Saddam Hussein in the same room. And there will always be the infamous “Clinton with Cigar” mask. If you are going for the scary old man look, check out the Barbara Bush mask ($30). And, yes, Osama Bin Laden is also there.
But the enlarged rubber faces are not the thing to sport if you plan on running around the store.
“Everyone always has a lot of fun with the fake boobs,” laughed Ward, thinking of her favorite story. “Little girls that are like five years old are trying them on, running around. Moms are yelling, ‘Take them off! Take them off!’ and they yell back, ‘What, mom, what?!'”
Boston Costume has been getting busier when it is not in peak season (Halloween and Christmas-Santa Suits) as more colleges and corporate groups turn toward costume parties as a means of entertainment, said Steve LaLiberte, the rental manager and custom wig stylist.
“This year the hottest costumes are … hmm … well, patriotic is still big, Austin Powers style is big. Pimps and prostitutes will always be big!” He giggles. “Oh, I know,” he exclaims, his eyes lighting up like a jack-o-lantern. “Anna Nicole Smith is huge this year! We sold out of female fat suits! The fat suit, some tight club clothes and a blonde wig … I wasn’t expecting that one at all.”