Islanders who have waited until the last minute to find the perfect Halloween costume can relax: A local business, Vashon Costuming, has a plethora of perfect outfits available for sale or rental.
Sanda Cooper, an expert seamstress whose first memory is of sitting at a sewing machine with her mother, fulfilled a lifelong ambition when she began to operate her costume shop full-time in December of 2017.
Though she has sewn all her life, she has always had other jobs to help pay expenses. For years, she was also busy raising her own three children as well as two nieces. But now, she currently works out of her home, located just off of Vashon Highway near Ober Park. Her children are grown, and only two friendly, calm cats keep her company all day long as she pursues her passion for the thing she loves most.
“I’ve been dreaming of doing this since I was 12,” said Cooper, a vivacious 54-year-old woman who looks younger than her years. “I decided, if not now, when? I wasn’t willing to wait any longer.”
Cooper moved to Vashon with her husband Barry, a jazz musician, nine years ago, after being born and living all of her life in Orange County, California. After so many years in the sunshine, she said, Vashon suits her.
“I love the dark, cold, wet season,” she said, noting that it was perfect for being indoors, creating costumes, while also filling orders for other specialty clothing including dresses, prom clothes, wedding and other formal wear, and gowns.
Cooper’s dream — now visible on several large clothing racks filling her living and dining room — has come together stitch by stitch, as she has found or made hundreds of costumes ranging from Dorothy’s blue gingham dress from “The Wizard of Oz,” to a Queen of Hearts gown, to a show-stopping, sequined, floor-length white cape worthy of a Liberace.
With eight sewing machines also set up in the living room, she stands ready to listen to islanders’ ideas and create more. One recent project, for instance, was to replicate the mad scientist garb worn by the character of Doc, in the 1980s film “Back to the Future.” She also recently created a special dress for a woman who had purchased fabric in Kenya.
“I love saying, ‘I’ll make that for you,’” she said.
Cooper’s willingness to take on 11th-hour Halloween comissions is remarkable given her workload of the past few months.
Throughout October, she said, she’s been busy fielding Halloween-related requests, as well as outfitting islanders who will be attending one of the island’s biggest events of the season — Vashon Island Pet Protector’s annual fundraising gala, The Fur Ball, which will take place on Oct. 27 with a glittery rock-and-roll theme.
And on Oct. 5, clothes made by Cooper debuted in a solo exhibition at Hastings-Cone Gallery. The show, called “Nouveau Retro,” includes approximately 40 aprons, dresses and children’s clothes, all re-created from original vintage Simplicity, Vogue and other patterns in Cooper’s collection.
A runway show kicked off the exhibit, featuring 15 local models, ranging in age from a 12-year-old girl to a woman in her 70s.
What was special about the exhibition and runway show, though, was Cooper’s ability to adapt the clothes to fit the figures of modern women.
“People are bigger now,” she explained, noting that the average clothing size for a woman is now 14 to 16, while women of the 1920s through 1970s wore much smaller sizes.
Still, she said, “women want to wear really great vintage styles,” and she enjoyed making them fit models in her runway show, who wore sizes 4 to 24.
Cooper said the show — still on view through Oct. 28 — pushed her.
“I have perfectionist issues,” she said with a laugh. “What this taught me is that I need to start thinking bigger.”
Vashon Costuming can be reached on Facebook, or call (206) 550-9517.
