Bohemia Village Voice

Masquerade manager Hannah.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to find a fancy-dress shop in an area called Bohemia. Masquerade is owned by Sarah Givertz and run by her daughter Hannah. Sarah, who also owns a tea shop in Rye, bought the shop as a going concern last year, and the business is thriving. Hannah told the Voice, ‘We just go for things without thinking about it too much. I like a bit of a challenge.’
MISTRESS
The decision to buy may have been impulsive, but Hannah and her mother are well equipped to cope with the demands of running a costume shop. Sarah is wardrobe mistress for the Rye Players, a local amateur theatre company, while Hannah has a degree in technical theatre from the Mountview School in Crouch End, and six years’ experience as a freelance wardrobe supervisor for various theatre companies. ‘Very early on I worked in the dye room at the National Theatre, and I’ve also made masks for the Carl Rosa Opera Company, for productions like Gilbert and Sullivan’s Yeoman of the Guard. I’ve also done a lot of touring, and plenty of Shakespeare, but also lots of panto too.’
HEN PARTIES
Masquerade has a range of party outfits, wigs and other accoutrements for sale to adults and children alike, but the main part of the business is costume hire. The range of customers is wide and surprising. There’s a lot of business from hen parties, stag dos and birthday parties, but the shop also takes orders from local schools. ‘They might be doing a Victorian day or a Tudor day, and they’ll want thirty of this and forty of that,’ says Hannah. ‘If people give us enough notice, we can do pretty much anything.’
TINKERBELL
Hannah’s training and experience means she makes a lot of the costumes herself. ‘At the moment I’m making new Tinkerbell and Alice in Wonderland costumes. When they’re done, I’ll be redoing Cinderella and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. A lot of the new stuff will also be in bigger sizes for the more curvaceous lady.’ The new costumes will also have shorter skirts to appeal to teen-agers who want to look trendy and modern even if they’re wearing fancy dress. ‘They may be dressed up as Snow White or Red Riding Hood, but they still want to look cute,’ says Hannah.
SWORD
Masquerade’s customers are mostly local people from Hastings, St Leonards and Bexhill, though her mother also gets orders through the tea shop in Rye. Perhaps surprisingly, the shop gets as much business from men as from women. According to Hannah, ‘Men are  more up for looking silly, whereas women want to look nice. If men dress up, they want to do it properly, so they want the sword, the gun, the works.’
UNITED STATES
Regular customers will notice a change of personnel in the coming months. Shop assistant Emily Carter left at Easter to go travelling around the world, and Hannah herself will be off soon to the United States to work in the summer theatre schools. She may even extend her stay into next year if things work out. But Masquerade is a long-term project, she says, so anyone needing fancy dress can count on them to be there. In the meantime, two new part-time assistants, Bethan Davies and Carol Pearson, will be running the shop. Bohemia resident Bethan works Mondays, Tuesdays and every other Saturday, while Carol does the other Saturday as well as Thursdays and Fridays. The shop will also now be open 11am–6pm on Mondays and Fridays, 11am–5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 9am–5pm on Saturdays.

Assistant Bethan Davies.

Snow White costume.