Snap up some star style at costume sale
Wardrobe from The Strain — some of them bloodstained — highlight weekend event
Take a walk in Corey Stoll’s shoes — or his sweater, shirt or coat. Gear worn by The Strain’s heroic Dr. Ephraim Goodweather could find a new home in your closet.
Pick up a (fake) blood-smeared lab coat, new designer dress or vintage costume jewelry as CAFTCAD (Canadian Alliance of Film & Television Costume Arts & Design) members clear out with the fall sale Saturday at Pinewood Toronto Studios on Commissioners St.
The sale runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5, bring your own bags and parking is free.
Just like us, movie and TV costume designers need to make room in their wardrobes for new clothing, explains Luis Sequeira, costume designer on FX series The Strain.
With Season 3 recently announced and some characters permanently “retired” on the Toronto-shot, vampire-epidemic FX series, now is a good time to sell items from previous seasons of the horror series based on a trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.
Men’s and women’s clothing, shoes, bags and accessories are up for grabs, with 41 vendors offering everything from “hyper high fashion to run-ofthe-mill workwear,” said Sequeira, who has also worked on TV series Being Erica and the movie remake of Carrie.
Prices vary, but expect to pay about half the original price for high-end, newish (and sometimes never worn with tags still on) designer clothing, down to $10 or $15 for regular off-the-rack items.
Started in 2008, the sale draws a sizable crowd. It is cash only and there is an ATM on-site.
“The hashtag (for the sale) is #FindYourTreasure. You just have no idea what’s going to be there,” said costume designer Joanna Syrokomla, a founder of CAFTCAD, who has worked on TV’s Bitten and The L.A. Complex. “It’s a magical event (and) people just don’t know what they’re going to find.”
Syrokomla says “if you need a fur coat, it’s the place to go.” And you can be sure nobody else will have the same Halloween costume you’ve gleaned from these racks.
There’s the added bonus of shopping in a room filled with designers who are quick to pin a hem or offer fashion advice, she points out. And the vendors are open to bargaining.
“You can only use so many medical-experiment, vampire costumes,” Sequeira said, with a laugh, of his need to downsize his costume racks, adding the coats painted by film textile artists “are quite beautiful in their own way.”