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Part closet, part playground, all fanciful

M&P Costumes, a treasure trove of bejeweled frocks and outrageous locks, is closing its doors.

By CAMILLE C. SPENCER
Published January 2, 2007

PORT RICHEY - One guy wanted to propose to his girlfriend dressed as a Renaissance prince.

Another man wanted to be Prince Charming for his daughter's birthday party.

And someone needed to become the Grinch for a Christmas parade.

They all knew where to go.

At M&P Costumes, where gangsters and elves and flappers roam free, the possibilities are endless.

For the past six years, the shop, 6220 Ridge Road, has housed 12,000 costumes and become a staple for community theater groups, church plays and costume parties.

But soon, the shop will be gone.

High insurance rates, skyrocketing property taxes which have increased about $500 in the past year and owner Mike Matteo's dream of writing screenplays are prompting him and his sister, Louise Sobel, to sell the shop.

"The business is strong, but I wish somebody would take it over," Matteo said. "There's a lot of people who say how sad they'll be when we leave."

And it won't just be legions of Santas and masquerade partygoers mourning the loss. Local theater groups depend on the shop.

Over the years, actors at Richey Suncoast Theatre in New Port Richey have rented costumes for Guys and Dolls, Fiddler on the Roof and A Pasco Christmas, said Charlie Skelton, the theater board's president.

"They are very nice people and extremely professional," Skelton said. "They go out of their way to try to please everybody. It's unsettling to hear that they might move out."

- - -

For Matteo and Sobel, costumes are more than a mix of fabrics and Velcro. Their shop gives adults a chance to play dressup, to be someone they've always wanted to be.

"It's more than just, 'Here, put on a costume,' " Sobel said. "It's like they're living Barbie dolls."

The duo's love of costumes is decades old. They grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., where their mother was a seamstress. Sobel often played dressup in her mother's clothes.

Matteo learned the business while working at a costume shop to pay his way through college. He wrote screenplays on the side.

"I've always been a creative person," Matteo said. "Somebody would come in and want to be something nobody else could do, and you can put it together. ... To us, it's like a personal challenge."

Matteo moved in 1984 to Tampa, where he taught high school economics and American history. But his love of costumes never waned. He offered costume rentals out of his house for three years before he quit teaching and opened the first M&P (Mom and Pop) costume shop on Fletcher Avenue.

When rumors surfaced in 2000 that a Lowe's home improvement store might replace the shopping center, Matteo sold the store.

By chance, he saw the vacant building on Ridge Road. He called his sister, who was teaching English in Brooklyn. She agreed to help him run it.

Sobel has sewn many of the shop's costumes. Others were ordered from catalogs. Clown costumes and zoot suits and leprechaun outfits pack the orange building, spilling into the attic.

One recent afternoon, a man stopped in for a set of sideburns. The store was fresh out. Sobel pointed to an eyebrow and mustache set hanging on a wall.

"Cut the eyebrow in half," she said. "It'll make perfect Elvis sideburns."

For Sobel, creativity is motivation.

"The most gratification I get is when a kid has to be the rhinoceros for the school play and pulls it off," Sobel said. "You have a completely stressedout parent who doesn't know what to do. But I'm taking pieces and putting them together. The parent and the child start to smile.

"That's my love. It's the ability to create something."

- - -

If all goes as planned, M&P will close the 4,000-square-foot building within a year.

"We're going to start blowing things out" this month, Matteo said.

"Some things will sell for 10 percent off, 50 percent off."

Sobel, 56, said after the shop closes, she might tutor kids in reading. Matteo, 45, hopes to write screenplays full time. He's already penned scripts for actor Gary Busey, and he's been asked to write scripts for Adam Sandler and Matthew McConaughey.

He has mixed emotions about ending a 19-year career in the costume business.

But, he said, the time has come for him to put on a new hat.

"As much as I enjoy doing this," Matteo said, "everything comes to an end."

Camille C. Spencer can be reached at (727) 869-6229 or cspencer@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 1, 2007, 22:14:09]