North Jersey is throwing itself into Purim preparations. Stores bring out the snack size snacks, and Facebook is flooded with users crowdsourcing for mishloach manot ideas and costume loans. For those Purim masqueraders looking for dress up options, there are a variety of options in the area. While last year Teaneck and Englewood found themselves hosts to Purim costume pop-up shops, a representative from the company, Costume Supermart, said that at this time that no pop up shops are planned for Purim 2015, but they have a Purim website for people interested in ordering, (http://purim.costumesupermart.com/contact-us.html) Of course, Party City stocks full costumes and accessories year round, with makeup, wigs, and anything one needs for dress up.
For those interested in a lower budget costume, Basya Muehlgay has opened up her Purim pop up shop, Costume Closeouts 2, in the ACME shopping center in Clifton. Her third year hosting the store, Muehlgay explained that they know these are often single-use costumes, and try to keep pricing affordable because of this fact. Her costumes range from $4 to $25, with no costume (not even for adults) over $25.
Muehlgay described many of her costumes as thematic. “Often families like to dress up in costumes that fit a certain theme and tie it into their shaloch manos theme,” she explained. “In keeping the budget low, this allows families to find a variety of costumes for everyone to wear together.” She carries some licensed character costumes, but also many generic costumes, such as condiments, board games, western themed, pirates, and others. Muehlgay said people often come in before Purim to stock up on dress up for the whole year, since her costumes are good quality, but very affordable.
If this is really just a one-time wear with no dress up in its future, locals may want to consider the New Jersey Costume Gemach. Now in its second year, the costume gemach was started by Rivki Rosenthal and Sarah Savetsky in memory of Farvush Hirsch ben Shmuel Lev. They buy costumes that they find on clearance, and accept donations of costume hand-me-downs. “We have gotten really nice costumes donated as people clean out their closets,” said Savetsky. The gemach has about 200 costumes for boys and girls, as well as babies, all of which can be seen at their website www.njcostumegmach.com. The price is very affordable, too. All they ask is for a $10 deposit for costumes when borrowed, though many people choose to let the gemach keep $5 (or more) when returning them, to help offset the cost of future costume inventory. The costume gemach will be hosted at Keter Torah on Sunday February 22 from 10-12.
With all these options, a single trend still seems to emerge: There are going to be a lot of characters from Disney’s Frozen. For people fed up with Frozen—as a movie or the weather forecast—Costume Supermart said they see many Monster High costumes for girls, and Guardians of the Galaxy and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for boys. Other themes that are trendy right now include “decade” costumes, especially the ’80’s and the ’20s.
Families can rest assured that at any budget, they can find a costume without having to look far.
By Jenny Gans
