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With Lease Lost, Raleigh Costume Shop Will Fade

The Raleigh Creative Costume shop is dropping the curtain on a career of renting out the outfits of the past.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A landmark business in Raleigh — the Raleigh Creative Costume shop — is dropping the curtain on a career of renting out the outfits of the past.

The owner throughout the store’s run has been one owner Doug Haas — and no, her name is not a disguise.

Haas has run Raleigh Creative Costumes for 32 years, but her run will end with the month of July in her current location on Hillsborough Street.

“I opened in '75,” Haas said, and she has 8,000 square feet of outfits and accessories.

“We do a lot of theater,” she said. You can be anything you want to be in her shop, though there sometimes are extra requirements.

“There's some basic things in history that they should know,” Haas said of her customers — like the kid who wanted a Confederate costume.

“I asked him if he wanted to be Jeb Stuart because I was gonna put a feather in his hat if he did. And he said, ‘Who's Jeb Stuart?’ And I said, ‘I will not rent you this costume until you come back with a paper at least one page tell me who Jeb Stuart is,’” Haas recalls, laughing.

“I bet he's never forgotten who Jeb Stuart was.”

No one will be getting that kind of lesson anymore, however.

The landlord has raised the rent, Haas has lost the lease, the costume shop is closing and everything is for sale.

“It's just like giving away kittens or puppies that I wanna be sure they go to good homes,” Haas said.

“Oh, I've loved it!”

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