Costumer charted own course to success

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Violette LaFontaine gave her daughter quite a name, Yvette Charmaine LaFontaine, and half-hoped she would end up a movie star.

Yvette LaFontaine, owner of the Costume Closet in Honolulu, models a king's cape and oversized crown. In the summer, LaFontaine will add pet costumes to her inventory. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

LaFontaine walked through her 8-year-old, 900-square-foot operation on Lincoln Avenue, just off Kapahulu Avenue, and pointed out the custom-made crowns, fake blood, realistic feeling masks, and high-end costumes that generate $70,000 per year in rentals and sales.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever, ever do this," LaFontaine said.

She grew up loving to sew and wanted to be a fashion designer, a talent unappreciated by the Sacred Hearts nuns who wanted LaFontaine to become a nurse. LaFontaine tried to listen, and even got jobs as an emergency room receptionist and EKG technician.

But her heart wasn't in nursing. She only wanted to churn out clothes she loved.

So LaFontaine studied fashion at Honolulu Community College and then business at the University of Hawai'i. But when she graduated at the age of 31, LaFontaine still had no idea how to get a job that would take care of her and her daughter.

Then in 1991, while studying fashion in Paris, LaFontaine visited designer Jean Paul Gaultier's studio and got to meet him. For the next 20 minutes, LaFontaine told Gaultier about her interests and lack of direction and his advice changed her attitude.

"He said, 'You have to make your own way through life because nobody will do it for you,' " LaFontaine remembered. "You have to make things happen."

LaFontaine returned to Honolulu and offered her services making costumes for free to Manoa Valley Theatre, which led to small-paying jobs for Chaminade University, Windward Community College, Diamond Head Theatre and a state-wide theater program for the public library system.

She quickly developed a reputation for finding inventive solutions to costume problems, said Ben Moffat, an associate professor of theater at Windward who also worked with LaFontaine on the library productions.

"She had a good way of either building something or borrowing or adapting," Moffat said. "But it's a tough life as a costumer here. They don't get paid very much and yet there are a lot of hours put in making costumes."

Even though LaFontaine loved the work, the $20,000 or so in income meant she still had to live with her mother near Diamond Head.

"I was just taking anything and everything," LaFontaine said. "It didn't matter how much they paid. But it was great fun."

Then in 1992 she heard that Chaminade was closing its drama program and planned to throw away 500 costumes. LaFontaine worked out a deal. She would cart away the costumes and in return scrub the storage room.

Her idea was to start a costume rental business, but reality soon hit. The costumes were well made but suffered from mildew and were infested with cockroaches.

LaFontaine moved to her mother's Sunset Beach cottage where she washed each of the costumes by hand and ended up with about 100 usable ones.

It was October and LaFontaine placed a small newspaper ad offering Halloween costumes. The response from people willing to drive out to the North Shore gave her the courage to take out a $10,000 bank loan and plunk all of the $30,000 her mother promised as an inheritance on a small, three-bedroom home on Lincoln Avenue.

The area was zoned for business and LaFontaine converted the house into a store and stocked it with 500 costumes — from Elvis to witches to pirates.

The only other year-round costume store had just gone out of business and LaFontaine didn't know what would happen when it wasn't Halloween season.

All she knew for certain was that she had to distinguish herself by investing in quality clothes, jewelry and professional quality makeup.

"Did I have a business plan?" LaFontaine said. "Hell no. I was afraid I wasn't going to make it."

Her first paying customer on the first day of business rented $500 worth of costumes for a church play. LaFontaine has since discovered an ongoing market for nightclub promotions, theme parties and business people who want to liven up company events.

"She has awesome costumes," said Emi Hart, marketing and promotions manager for The Ocean Club, which rents costumes for employees and performers for its monthly theme parties.

Ocean Club has bought everything from bird masks to wigs and makeup and has rented fake fur coats, a wizard costume and the entire line of Austin Powers characters, including "Fat Bastard."

"I predominantly use her because anything I rent from her is going to be good quality and as realistic as possible, which is what you want," Hart said. "What I like about a lot of her stuff is that it's custom made. You can go to a regular store during Hallowen and buy a cheap $20 costume that you can only wear once. Her stuff is really different."

Moffat sends theater students to LaFontaine's store and has called on her for emergency costumes or props — such as hillbilly looking teeth, a scythe to accompany Father Time, fake blood, masks and a cape.

"I'll come up with some sort of a problem on a short deadline and she'll always come up with something," Moffat said. "You think, 'This is the weirdest thing I'll ever have to need.' And sure enough she'll have two of them at two different prices, or she can order them and get them here pretty quickly."

In the summer, LaFontaine will expand to pet costumes along the same general lines of her human costumes — Santa Claus, wizards, jesters, witches, pirates. She has also gotten inquiries from people who want her to open a second store, but LaFontaine is happy to keep her operation small.

For now, she keeps The Costume Closet running with just herself and her daughter Tiffany Bradley, 20. But Tiffany won't be following her mother in the business.

She wants to be a nurse.