Kelowna’s only costume rental shop can create your Halloween dream

Calowna Costume is the city’s only costume rental shop and it has things you won’t find in your typical Halloween costume aisle. 

The owner, Kerri Brandel, said Halloween is clearly the busiest time of the year and folks come in to rent costumes that would be too tricky to buy.

“It’s one of our favourite parts of our job,” she said. “We have vintage clothing. We have stuff from the 1920s, 1930s, 40s. We collected what we have over the last 40 years.”

Costume rental shops can be hard to find in the region since Pandora’s Box in Kamloops and Costume House in Vernon closed down in the past few years. 

The downtown Kelowna shop has been family-owned for decades. Brandel said there isn’t any competition in part because it would be challenging to track down the vintage pieces they have, not to mention expensive.

“It would be pretty hard just to open up a rental store to have what we have,” she said. 

Folks can come in to buy a costume or get rentals tailored to fit. She said everyone coming into the store wants to get something a bit different and unique from the shop’s extensive wardrobe. 

“People come for us specifically for our rentals,” she said. “We try our best to tailor things. We’ll even hem pants if we have to. . . We create what you want.”

Customers can bring in a photo of what they’re looking for and then the staff tries to help them piece it together. 

She said one of her favourite, coolest costumes in the store is an elaborate Jack Sparrow outfit. 

“He’s complete from the hat to the rings to the compass to absolutely everything. He’s decked out,” she said. 

This year, the shop has been busy as per usual, but Brandel said they have been renting out more family and kids’ costumes. 

While Halloween is the best time to be a costume rental store, Brandel said they find ways to stay busy the whole year. 

“Halloween and Christmas are our two busiest,” she said. “We do lots of different murder mysteries. If somebody is having a 50th or 60th birthday, they theme it to the 70s or 50s or 80s. So we keep busy all year round.”

The shop doesn’t just do holiday or party costumes, they work with local theatre groups to help supply wardrobes for productions. 

“We help out different companies, like different school productions. We try to put ourselves out there in the community as much as we can.”

For more information about Calowna Costume check out the website here.