Friday, April 27, 2012

Wardrobe Department - Hey Ladies!

Here is the third in a series of posts featuring wonderful vintage photos from the Disneyland Wardrobe Department! Brought to you courtesy of Huck.

As I mentioned in the last Wardrobe Dept. post, I am particularly fond of the obscure costumes that Huck has in his collection. Like this first one, from the "Art of Animation" exhibit! Our cast member doesn't look that different from a typical college girl (maybe BYU) of the time, except that her skirt has a pattern of Disneyland attraction artwork.


Here's a closer look: it is hard to discern much, but I see Dumbo's Flying Elephants, Monstro (I think), one of Peter Pan's flying pirate ships, and what might be the Carrousel, or perhaps the ticket booth for Dumbo.



You might have seen hostesses at City Hall dressed like this back in 1969. Lemon meringue! Most clothing needs more ruffles, that's what I think.


And here's Sandy, in her Alice in Wonderland ensemble. If your a gal, and you had long blond hair, there was a job for you in Fantasyland! 


Never fear, Huck has more Wardrobe Department pictures for you.

13 comments:

MIKE COZART said...

Interesting that youve been posting this eries....I've been researching the park costumes for several years now with the intention of doing a book. In one of my interviews with Tom Peirce --who started with Disneyland in 1968 (actually he helped do some of the firts 1955 DL costumes too!)to revamp Disneyland costumes and prepare for WDW costumes in Florida
told me that in the time following Walt's death Disneyland cast "looks" became a bit too relaxed..........so much that female cast members didn't like wearing long period style dresses and the girls were actually shortening and heming their own dresses!! I guess River Belle Terrace and Hills Brothers Coffee House were two of the biggest culprits! Also in the mid 60's the Disneyland wardrobe manager --who was demoted so low that she quit in 1968, had gotten so lazy that much of the costumes at the park were being bought off the shelf and the costume theming was getting really watered down. Tom fixed all that.

K. Martinez said...

So if Sandy is wearing her name tag does that mean she's a ride operator and not the character Alice? Her wardrobe is definitely less detailed than the "costumed character" Alice greeting guests in your photo posted April 18.

Great wardrobe photos. Thanks again to Huck for sharing.

Nancy said...

I want the long dress when I ever get to work there....

The shoes they gave Alice always bugged me...she definitely needs Mary Janes to make the look right for me

Anonymous said...

Sandy is wearing an Alice in Wonderland ride operator costume.

Melissa said...

I am really loving this series - many thanks to Huck for sharing! What I really like is that these seem to be actual cast members rather than professional models, so we get a better idea of what the costumes might have looked like in everyday use.

Major Pepperidge said...

Mike Cozart, I'd love to see a book about vintage Disneyland costumes! Wow, that's pretty amazing that somebody would have the gall to take a costume home and alter it. And you'd think that a supervisor would have called BS on it immediately.

K. Martinez, as Anonymous says below, this Alice was likely a ride operator. We've seen women in full Snow White costume operating the SW attraction as well.

Nancy, it just looks like it would be hot! I had a friend who worked on Main Street, and her dress was long, and in my memory it was velvet. Imagine wearing that on a 95 degree day.

Anon, thanks.

Melissa, I agree with you, the slightly awkward, "real" people add a lot to these photos!

K. Martinez said...

Anon, Cozart and Major - Thanks for the information. The wardrobe history of Disneyland is something I haven't looked at in depth. It's always great to learn something new about a life long interest.

Anonymous said...

Mike, how could they hem or alter their costumes when they were never allowed to be taken home and they received a new one to wear the next time they worked? Wonderful post - I'm just a little confused.

MIKE COZART said...

Tom said the girls were doing it themeselves AT the park- they would pin up and saftey pin the costume shortening the skirt --I dunno if they were curring the dress. And Disneyland costumes were taken home!. All mangers (example--if you were a attractions manager you would have a set of costumes that you were a manager of.....)that could be taken home. For certain situations management might be asked to be in their repective costume. Some of my original Tomorrowland 1967 costumes were management issue. that stopped in the early 70's. My blog TOMORROWLOUNGE often features vintage Disneyland costume sketch art and wardrobe documentation.

Vintage Disneyland Tickets said...

Hey that art of animation skirt looks a lot like this section of fabric I posted last march:

http://vintagedisneylandtickets.blogspot.com/2011/03/fabric-friday.html


It looks much better on her!

Major Pepperidge said...

Anon, I admit that I thought the same thing!

Mike, if only you could have kept some of those old costumes! I'll bet they were destroyed/trashed when Disney was done with them.

VDT, it definitely IS the same fabric! Good eye!! Very cool to be able to get a better look at the design.

Janey said...

Why doesn't Disney reproduce that skirt as a souvenir!? People would eat that right up! I know I certainly would! I mean, heck, people flipped over my circle skirt that I created with various attractions on it.

Anonymous said...

As a veteran of Hill Bros 1969-1970, there wans't mauch latitude to hem a dress. They were worn as issued. And no they weren't taken home those days...they were to remain within the park.