Lions and Tigers and BEARS! OH, MY!!

After the LION'S CLUB costume character got some local publicity for our company we started to get commissions from other local businesses. We created these two bear costumes for a local Magic Shop & Costume Rental store in Wichita, Kansas. At bottom is a sketch I did of the character. We used the same patterns  for head and body as for the Lion costume.

In the photos is one of the completed costumes worn by an employee in the shop, and your's truly with the two heads before they were completed (the teeth and mouth screens have yet to be installed and each head had a collar of matching fur underneath, as shown in the sketch).

After this job we purchased a serging machine which allowed us to sew the fur costumes with bound edges, greatly cutting down on the labor involved there which allowed us to spend more time on the heads which required complete hand finishing. Betty and I spent many a long night hand stitching the screening and linings inside the heads. Each costume could take up to two weeks to finish.
We got between $300 and $600 for a costume in those days. That would be $3000 to $8000 a piece in today's market. We began to get a reputation for quality work that held up to repeated use, and so we got the jobs!