Each time a younger Melody Barnett attended church, she was awestruck. One thing in regards to the congregation’s elegant headwear all the time caught her eye. The ladies would typically put on these extravagant, floral hats or don a extra refined pillbox model. And Barnett, proprietor of Hollywood rental home Palace Costume, remembers being solely entranced.
“I would sit and just look,” Barnett says. “That’s one of the few things I remember about church, just looking at all the hats.”
This fashion-leaning fascination, she says, is part of her heritage. Coming from a lineage of collectors, the 83-year-old has devoted her life to the garments of the previous. For almost 50 years, Palace Costume, an area open solely by appointment to stylists and costume designers, has supplied a wearable vogue archive courting again to the Eighteen Eighties. It’s grow to be a one-stop store for hanging inspiration and embracing a timeless sense of glamour.
Since Palace Costume’s inception, Barnett’s clothes has appeared in traditional movies akin to “Chinatown,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Godfather,” and newer Oscar winners like “La La Land” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Past the silver display screen, Beyoncé wore heart-shaped, reflective underwear on the quilt of “Texas Maintain ‘Em,” Chappell Roan sported a sequined marching band leotard for the “Hot to Go!” music video, and dangly, yellow earrings completed Billie Eilish’s look within the “What Was I Made For?” video — all items pulled from Palace.
The Fairfax Avenue storefront is surrounded by a form of mystical vitality. Tucked between a contemporary house complicated and a wellness heart, it’s simple to drive by and by no means discover the atypical citadel facade, full with fairy tale-esque murals of animal-faced figures, sheet ghosts and stone partitions.
The Fairfax Avenue storefront of Palace Costume is surrounded by a form of mystical vitality.
Inside, the allure continues. Behind the entrance desk, pathways resembling that of a labyrinth lead customers all through the shop’s 4 flooring. Relying on which manner you flip, you might find yourself within the jewellery room, the place brightly coloured costume bangles, heavy steel silver chokers and gold chains are piled excessive within glass instances, or within the promenade costume part the place the aisles are suffocated by petticoats. With over half 1,000,000 gadgets in Barnett’s stock, the gathering seems to be infinite. Round every twist and switch, there’s a room solely for vacation put on, a walk-in dedicated to fur coats, and a number of other hallways lined with laundry baskets of handbags and costume footwear ready to be picked by means of.
On an early July morning, digital camera lights, further racks of designer clothes and a staff of creatives squeezed into the organized however cluttered area to formulate Barnett’s personal second of glamour. Her kitchen area, full with brightly coloured dishware and ceramic meals replicas, was swiftly remodeled right into a makeshift vainness area the place she sat to get a full face of make-up and her hair braided. Barnett was hesitant, at first, in entrance of the digital camera — asking photographer Tyler Matthew Oyer the place to place her arms and whether or not she ought to smile.
Melody wears Fendi jacket, Stella McCartney footwear, and Alexis Bittar jewellery.
However because the day went on and he or she traded a leather-based Fendi trench coat for a multicolored Loewe one, Barnett’s eyes began to mild up in a different way. The rolling ladders meant to succeed in the very best hanging clothes turned her stage. Lingering hats and sun shades turned impromptu props. She started to lean into her rigorously curated emporium because the vivacious backdrop it’s.
It additionally helped that Barnett was within the arms of these she trusted. Erik Ziemba, who’s been coming to Palace Costume for the final decade, styled the shoot. He calls the area “the ultimate glam dress-up room” and mentions the whispers he hears of main vogue homes stopping by Palace to assemble inspiration.
“It’s the fashion library,” Ziemba says. “People [like Barnett and her business partner, Lee Ramstead], who really understand periods, silhouettes and fabrics, are true fashion historians and it’s extremely important that these people who are so well-versed in knowledge and costuming are involved in the process.”
Palace covers every part individuals have worn over 125 years and the gathering continues to develop.
“I keep it up to date every year,” Barnett says. “It doesn’t have to be vintage. I have a whole section that dates from 2001 to 2025. I’m not stopping anytime soon. Sometimes it’s even easier to collect when people are still wearing it instead of waiting and it gets more expensive.”
Barnett credit her giant household with serving to her construct out the inventory, particularly the youngsters’s part. As she walks between the floor-to-ceiling clothes racks, she factors out her highschool commencement costume (a strappy, purple and white polka dot sundress), previous coveralls she used to put on and a few of her son’s clothes.
Each time Shelley Barnett, Melody’s daughter, involves Palace, she’s taken again to her childhood. From a younger age, she remembers her mom and grandmother each having “incredible senses of style.” They’d typically all dig by means of property gross sales and vintage shops, with Shelley serving to select which classic garments to buy. These days, she gravitates most towards the youngsters’s part, the place her child garments and previous Halloween costumes can be found to hire.
“My mom is such a passionate person. Being able to watch her just build this business through the years and have it be what she loves means so much,” says Shelley, 56, who lives on a ranch in Wildomar the place she boards horses. “We all look up to her so much. She’s very family-oriented — she’d never miss a party. But when she’s at Palace, she runs circles around us all. She doesn’t stop. That’s her element.”
Carousel horses and toy planes fill the youngsters’s flooring airspace. Every staircase is a maximalist’s dream as virtually each inch of the wall is lined with displayed clothes, framed memorabilia and an illustrated version of “The Timeline of World Costume.” Inside her Hawaii room, the place Barnett boasts having among the first-ever rayon Hawaiian shirts, there’s even a closet stockpiled with tiki souvenirs, pictures of Elvis Presley and ornamental masks.
Melody wears Loewe jacket, her personal pants, and Loewe footwear.
“My whole focus is being eclectic. I like mixing things. I don’t want just one set look. I want to combine it,” says Barnett. “My mother and grandmother were more classic than I am. I’ve always been an eccentric person.”
Her favourite items are those she’s sourced from everywhere in the world. As she flips by means of the racks, she remarks a few previous romantic companion she traveled with and the way most of those items will “never be made ever again.” Although her assortment delves into the luxurious finish of vogue — with archival Moschino and Yves Saint Laurent at her fingertips — she says, “I don’t base anything off what it’s worth.”
She brings over a beaded, floral skirt she bought as a teen from Mexico within the Nineteen Fifties. Subsequent, she pulls down a few of her favourite Jap European attire, with conventional embroidery, from international locations akin to Hungary and Poland. She additionally factors out her intensive African part, which options heavy, hand-beaded neckpieces and Kente material attire — a few of which had been worn in “Black Panther.”
Her grandmother, who ignited the household’s collector gene, had an array of vintage Tiffany lamps and complex coats, and ran a clothes store of her personal. In the meantime, Barnett’s mom made her youngsters’s garments and labored in a navy store, the place Barnett first discovered a love for thrifting.
The Palace Costume assortment started someday in her late 20s. She was dwelling in Laguna Seaside when she stumbled upon a field of Victorian attire at a neighborhood swap meet. On the time, her neighbor Robert Becker owned an vintage retailer in L.A. and had informed Barnett that individuals within the metropolis “were just beginning to sell vintage clothing.”
Melody wears Sportmax jacket, Brooks Brothers pants, Bode footwear and Alexis Bittar jewellery.
“We got into vintage, right when it began to be a big thing,” says Barnett, who shares that on the time, individuals weren’t seeking to the previous for inspiration simply but. The duo then set off to create one of many first classic shops on Melrose Avenue, known as the Crystal Palace, which stood the place the Pacific Design Heart does at present.
Earlier than settling into the present Fairfax storefront, they offered classic at a couple of different areas on Melrose. Fortuitously, one of many spots was throughout the road from Wolfgang Puck’s career-launching restaurant, Ma Maison. With Barnett’s extravagant window shows, she lured the eating crowd over and commenced to construct a celeb clientele from there.
As costume designers made their rounds, looking for interval items, they regularly informed Barnett that she must be renting as a substitute of promoting.
“I thought that was a good idea. During filming, you aren’t wearing it every day. It’s just for a certain scene. I figured we could help restore and maintain the collection,” says Barnett. Then, within the late ‘70s, she bought the Fairfax location, and Ramstead, a fellow antiquarian, offered to help run the business.
To this day, Ramstead prides himself on doing everything and knowing everyone in the business. Commanding the front desk with a long, swinging ponytail and a belt buckle which reads “Lee,” he juggles the ringing phone, points confused customers in the right direction and helps manage the inventory.
“I have watched it grow. Now we’re bursting on the seams out of right here,” says Ramstead as he checks out a dressing up designer looking for the upcoming season of “Abbott Elementary.” “I mean, I’m 73. I could retire if I didn’t like my job. But I feel very protective of this place. Somebody has to watch over it.”
Melody wears Issey Miyake high, pants, and hat, Bode footwear and Palace Costume sun shades.
Picture’s vogue director at giant, Keyla Marquez, considers Ramstead to be the gatekeeper of the priceless assortment. At any time when anybody calls to make an appointment at Palace, they’re greeted with a complete listing of questions: What’s the mission? Who will put on the garments? Who do you’re employed with, and have you ever labored with Palace earlier than?
“This place is just so special, and the clothes are so important. Not everyone respects clothes the way that these clothes should be respected,” says Marquez. “If someone pulls something and they ruin it or don’t return it, that’s it. It’s lost for all of us. No one has the ability to pull it anymore.”
On one of many compounded constructing’s high flooring, Barnett lives a portion of her week in a tightly packed house area (she splits the rest of her week dwelling at her totally different SoCal properties, which she hopes to show into occasion areas). Throughout from her waterbed, she has a analysis library, full with a swiveling ladder, stuffed with vogue books. Her front room partitions are lined with old-timey lace-up heels that she says had been solely ever worn by Bette Midler, as she was the one actor with toes sufficiently small to put on them.
Although the realm is designated as her non-public quarters, there’s not a transparent separation between her work and her life. There are clothes racks, full of leather-based jackets and neon bras, in the midst of the room. Containers and baggage with gadgets to be sorted designate a transparent strolling path, and the additional bedrooms are deemed the lingerie part, which dates again to the Victorian period.
Melody wears Dolce & Gabbana jacket, Alexis Bittar jewellery and her personal footwear.
Lynn McQuown, an worker who has labored with Palace since 1992, thinks of the gathering as a dwelling murals.
“It’s one person’s life’s work. She’s an artist, not a corporation. She’s built it up entirely from a box of Victorian clothes. She worked 20-hour days for decades and decades,” McQuown says.
And Barnett reveals no indicators of slowing down. At any time when she’s on the store, she’ll settle right into a spot that wants organizing and work by means of the gadgets herself. She browses property gross sales and swap meets looking for hidden gems. She’s nonetheless brainstorming methods on tips on how to enhance Palace and broaden the gathering. She goals of repatterning a few of her oldest, most fragile items and reproducing them, giving them a brand new life.
“My family will continue the business and continue to hire competent people to run it. I have no plans to quit, because I enjoy it. I love it, especially the acquisition part,” Barnett says. “I intend to work till I’m 100.”
Images Tyler Matthew OyerStyling Erik ZiembaMakeup Nicole WalmsleyHair Jake GallagherProduction Mere StudiosStyling assistant Miriam BrownLocation Palace Costume
