Dressing up at Shirley Potter’s

Shirley Potter's was the go-to place
for costumes in Edmonton in the 1980s
Source: https://www.yelp.ca/biz_photos/
shirley-potter-costumes-edmonton?select=a9HY3r51Ho9G6nuDgyCqbg
(May be subject to copyright)

Never have I been much for dressing up, not at Halloween and not for anything else. However, there was a month at the beginning of 1989 where dressing up was really cool.

It involved a festival we planned at our student residence and a costume shop called Shirley Potter’s.

Hall events
Lister Hall was a complex made up of three towers – Mackenzie, Henday, and Kelsey, where I lived. Mackenzie had 11 floors while Henday and Kelsey had 10 floors. Each floor had a floor coordinator, who looked after things. The floor coordinators in each tower made up hall council, which was chaired by a hall vice president.

One of the big responsibilities of each hall council was to plan their hall event. These were week-long festivals that had dances, games, and much more. Mackenzie Hall kicked things off with “Mac County Fair” the first full week of school in September. Henday had “Skulk” which was at the end of September, and Kelsey Hall had “King Louis” which was in January.

That year, the Henday Hall VP moved Skulk ahead a week and changed its name to “Skulktoberfest”. He also did something that became a hallmark of hall events after that. It was called the kick-off in the cafeteria, which, well, kicked off the week.

For whatever reason, I missed the Skulk kick-off. When I got back to res, everyone was talking about it. They had blown the lid off the cafeteria with it.

As planning for King Louis began in like December, our hall VP brought up that Skulk kick-off.

She said that once it was over, and the cafeteria was going wild, the Henday Hall VP came up to her and said, “Beat that!”

So that was our challenge.

Theme day
Our first real hall council focusing on King Louis planning was a Saturday at an Edmonton icon called Barb and Ernie’s. It would become one of my favourite places in Edmonton. That was the first time I ever went there.

Our Hall VP was serious about finding something to top Skulk.

Over dinner and Barb and Ernie’s famous apple strudel, we brainstormed ideas for events during King Louis. However, we still needed a theme to tie it all together.

We let it percolate for a bit then, had a meeting in the cafeteria after supper one night and our Hall VP came up with this idea – “Puttin’ On The Ritz”. It was based on the song by Taco that came out a few years before that.

I threw out a slight twist on the idea. Instead of a straight up tux and tails kind of formal affair, how about a wedding? Each day all week would feature a different point in the wedding, culminating on the final night with the wedding. Everyone seemed to buy into it – but the more we talked the more it just fell apart.

So, “Puttin’ on the Ritz” it was.

That meant, we needed to find top hats, tails and suit jackets somewhere.

Enter one of the coolest places I had been up to that point in my life.

Shirley Potter’s
I am not sure where she heard about Shirley Potter’s, but our Hall VP took the dozen or so of us there a couple Saturdays before King Louis.

It was a costume shop that seemed to go on forever, and had pretty much everything I could think of. I remember some of my hallmates messing around with different costumes.

Our Hall VP was all business, zoning right in to the “formal wear”. We all tried on hats and coats, and rented everything we needed.

After that, Shirley Potter’s became the go-to for any res event that required more elaborate costumes then whatever we could throw together.

Kick-off night
We ended up rehearsing our grand entry a few times in the privacy of one of the empty meeting rooms in the conference centre the cafeteria was part of.

Finally, the long-awaited day, near the end of January arrived. It was a Friday at 5 p.m., and Kelsey Hall council took over the cafeteria.

It is all kind of a blur. I remember putting on my jacket and hat and us pairing off and entering the cafeteria. “Puttin’ On the Ritz” by Taco was playing as we made our entrance. It felt more like a fashion show than a dance routine, which was fine because there really was no playbook on these sorts of things.

I also remember the place erupting in applause as we finished.

I looked over to our Hall VP, and she was grinning from ear to ear.

Parting thoughts
I went back to Shirley Potter’s one more time, for another King Louis kick-off, and that was the last time I went. Often though, when people were looking for costumes, I sent them to Shirley Potter’s. Every time the topic of costumes and costume shops comes up, usually when we are at Halloween Alley, I think of Shirley Potter’s.

I was not sure if it was still around when I researched this post. What I discovered was that although Shirley Potter’s went out of business, an organization called Theatre Garage bought their costumes.

So it still lives on in Edmonton.