Yesterday I got a phone call from Doug Haas, the owner of Raleigh Creative Costumes. “The Shop,” she told me “is closing at the end of the month.” She said there was a bottle of Maker’s Mark waiting and could I come over that evening? I was stunned. Doug asked if I would call my Mother and tell her the news.

A little history is in order here.

When the four members of the Serxner family moved South in 1960 something (ahem…) we knew no one save my Father’s sister and brother-in-law. Stan, my Father, had a job lined up at Shaw University teaching Spanish, and that was about it. My Father had been active on the stage for ages, so when we got here he sought out any local theater groups. At that point there may have been two: Raleigh Little Theater and (maybe) Village Dinner Theater. Somehow Mother met Doug and Ben Haas (Doug’s first late husband) at RLT and Doug found out my Mother could sew. A lasting friendship was born.

When Doug and Sue Scarborough (then Federichie—spelling?) decided to start the shop I have no idea. I do know that was close to 40 years ago, as we celebrated our 35th Anniversary a couple of years ago. They asked Mother to help get the books set up, as Mother had a background in bookkeeping. The shop was run out of Sue’s basement on Barmetler Street. That lasted for a year and then they moved to West Johnson Street in an old house across from what is now Capital Towers on Glenwood Avenue (which is some prime real estate). When ever I needed a costume for a school project (Roman solider, etc…) we went to RCC. I started working at the shop when I was in 9th grade, so that would be 1980. I came in before Halloween that year looking for some makeup. Next thing I knew I had a tape measure around my neck and a part-time job. By then the Shop had moved to St. Mary’s Street, in the old Sidell Photography Studio building. We stayed there for ages and ages—slowly out growing the space. I worked for the Shop part-time for years before, during, and after college. When I graduated from Carolina with nothing in the pipe line in terms of employment I went to the Shop full time for a couple of years. Then in the late 1990’s we moved to the new location on Hillsborough Street across from Meredith College. The first few years on Hillsborough Street were awful, and I mean awful. The shop really was not fit for human habitation. The owner/landlord had done almost nothing in terms of wiring or getting the HVAC up and running. We lost business because potential customers could not cope with the heat in the summer or the cold in the winter in the rental area. Doug finally paid to have the work completed on her own. Do not even get me started on the awful wiring job that the electrician did on the place. How it passed code I have no idea.

For ages we had to have been Raleigh’s attic. I swear people who knew us would say “Aunt Ethel died; give her clothes to Doug at Raleigh Creative Costumes.” I learned about Suzon Vz, Raleigh’s fantastic milliner at the shop, and developed my taste for her hats. I now have almost thirty of them in my collection. When I was growing up Mother made most of my pants and all of my Halloween costumes. They found a home at RCC when I out grew them. We are still renting the belly dancer costumes Mother made 30 or so years ago for a joint musical review that Temple Beth Or and Beth Myer Synagogue performed at the old Fletcher Auditorium at the WRAL TV Studio.

So we told stories last night. The chickens really came home to roost. Doug called Sue and was in the middle of emailing another early employee, Lola—then Sue told her that Lola was down visiting and was sitting in her living room! Come on down, replies Doug, and bring a bottle of something! Ruth Bicket was there, Mary Thaxton came by with a lovely basket of daisies. My Mother came by for a moment between meetings. Jeremy, the now no longer new owner of the shop, and I made plans to go through the stock and figure out what items we might want to buy for our own stocks. Needless to say I looked for things that belong to me—and found a couple of dresses I had made for productions ages ago. Joel and Joy, Doug's oldest son and his wife came, complete with a bottle of something nice!

But mostly we sat and talked and reminisced about things. Customers with whom we had dealt, phone calls we had taken, how hard it was to move from one location to another, and how we each had come to work for the shop.

In my mind I have always been a Haas child. For goodness sake, I practically grew up running in and out of Doug and Ben’s house on Bedford Avenue. Ben took my brother Jonathan and me to our first rodeo at the Fair Grounds. I used to practice on the piano in their living room. That piano is now with Doug’s middle son, Michael, and his partner Kevin, at their country place in Gloucestershire. This is one well traveled piano let me tell you.

I told one story about four customers I had had to handle one week day, all on my own, when the Shop was on St. Mary’s Street. A family: father, son, mother; and daughter-in-law to be. They were getting married in a month or so and they were going to have a really unique wedding with an Old South theme. The family had clearly come from lunch because the three blood kin each had a toothpick in their mouth. At the end of the almost two hours it took me to get all four of them in hoop skirts and Confederate solider uniforms and talk about the prices (I added a $5.00 per costume PITA charge to each costume—PITA standing for Pain In The @##) I swear to you that the son and mother did not have toothpicks in their mouths any longer and that daddy had three in his.

We talked about having a funeral home as a next door neighbor on St. Mary’s Street.

For those of us who remembered him, we talked about the “Velvet Dress Man.” For years, on West Johnson Street and St. Mary’s Street, we had a gentleman who would come in just to feel the velvet dresses we had in the rental area (including one that was made from the old stage curtain from St. Mary’s School). That is all he would do, feel the dresses and leave. Nothing too overly creepy about that I guess. Well, he just quit doing it—no longer came by the Shop. Now, almost 10 plus years later Doug told us why. One year when Doug’s church was looking for a new Minister she and the committee went to watch a potential applicant in action at another church. The deacon that seated her that morning was the “Velvet Dress Man.”

There were plenty of Doug stories. I have to agree with Lola, someone needs to write all of them down. Douglas Taylor Haas Bennett is the very definition of a true Southern Lady: sweet and kind and loving—an all around wonderful woman, with a spine of hard tough steel.

I am not sure if I should laugh or mourn—so I am doing both. I am madder than all get out at the situation. I think that the owner of the building has played a very dirty trick on Doug and Jeremy, but that is just my opinion. Business is business. I understand that, but I think we really had a chance to turn things around and bring the Shop back in a grand way.

Doug has ordered the “Lost our lease, business closing” banner. I can only hope that what ever moves in that space will be something just as fun.