Dressing up brings laughts and loot! (From Penarth Times)

Dressing up brings laughts and loot!

INSTEAD of slipping into that sexy little black number for the Christmas party, why not try some-thing completely different this year?

How about a flowing medieval gown? Or a fancy belly-dancer's outfit? And for the man in your life, perhaps a swashbuckling musketeer's smock?

Penarth woman Rebekah Donovan, 37, of Party Time Costume Hire, says the party season is now year-round, and has made it her business to supply not just the Vale of Glamorgan but most of Cardiff with her quality fancy dress.

It all started 16 years ago. She and her husband Paul had been invited to a fancy dress party. Heavily pregnant, Rebekah could find nothing to wear - but she came up with a solution.

Rebekah told the Times: "As a child, I could often be found at a sewing machine making outfits for my dolls. So I made my own costume, to fit my own dimensions."

Making a 'Mary Christmas' outfit for herself and 'Noddy' and 'Big Ears' suits for her husband and his friend, she was soon off to the party.

"It all went from there," she said. "Friends started to ask me if I could lend them the outfits. They were hardly in the house."

Rebekah started charging £3 just to cover washing and mending the costumes.

She said: "I realised this was more popular than I'd first imagined. I opened a shop in Cornerswell Road. This was a mistake. I committed too much too quickly. Fancy dress was still very much a seasonal thing, and throughout the rest of the year, I just wasn't taking enough money to stay open."

Rebekah made the decision to shut the shop and go home. But she didn't stop trading.

She added: "This was the best move I made. My children were still small, and I was on hand for them. My overheads were kept to a minimum, and incredibly, business started to pick up."

Now Rebekah and her right hand woman Sara Humphries are kept on their toes the whole year round.

Rebekah said: "I supply outfits to so many people, and I've had such fun when they come to the house to try their costumes on. One day, ex-Welsh rugby international Ben Evans wanted to be a tiger, but the costume was out. All I had was a tiger-stripe lycra body suit.

"Despite it leaving nothing to the imagination about his physique, Ben insisted on trying it on, and then hired it! It came back in tatters, because during the night, he had stretched and ripped the costume."

Rebekah at one time kitted out the entire Cardiff City Football Team, the Cardiff Devils, and now also supplies costumes for the St David's Hotel. She said: "I was once commissioned by the hotel for 12 belly-dancers' outfits that wouldn't actually show the belly. They wanted some modesty for a pretty formal do. I created a two-piece costume, but added a matching sash that could either be pushed down on the hips to show the tummy, or worn higher to hide it."

Party Time Costume Hire has a huge range of fancy dress outfits to offer from Star Wars to Alice in Wonderland, Fred Flintstone to a comic cow with rubber udders. Rebekah said: "We do fancy dress costumes for everyone ... from one to 101."

Some of the costumes are so popular there is just time to wash and dry them before they are being hired again. She said: "I have had some weird requests. Someone wanted a gold PVC gladiator's outfit. I didn't ask why. But we often get people coming to us for the kinkier side of dressing up. "They particularly like the red PVC nurse's outfit, or full bodied PVC devil costume. It's just a bit of fun."

The price has now caught up with the times. It costs £20 for the hire of a costume, but that includes everything for the night. Rebekah said: "I don't charge separate prices for different parts of the costume. It all comes as one package. So while £20 is a long way from £3, it's still a great deal." People find all sorts of excuses to dress up - birthdays, Christmas, New Year, anything at all.

Rebekah even has a group of men in their early 20s who have found that hiring pink and white bunny rabbit outfits is actually a great way to pull the girls on their regular nights out in Cardiff.

For more information, telephone Rebekah on 029 2070 9946. You can fax her on 029 20638727 or visit her at home: 'Wentworth', Bradford Place, Penarth, CF64 1AF