You’ve Got Mail Order—How the TDF Costume Collection Ships Rentals Across the Country

Meet Ariel Kregal and Gabe Bagdazian, the In-House Designers who help costume productions at schools and regional theatres throughout the US

—

As emerging costume designers, Ariel Kregal and Gabe Bagdazian had been running into each other for years. So she wasn’t that surprised when she walked into the TDF Costume Collection in spring 2024 to rent some items and spotted Bagdazian, who had recently been hired as an In-House Designer.

“I first met Gabe at the URTAs—they’re like speed dating for grad school theatre programs,” Kregal recalls. “I remember that we had a mutual appreciation for each other’s portfolios.” Although they exchanged business cards, they didn’t keep in touch, but kismet (or, more precisely, costumes) kept reuniting them.

As they renewed their acquaintance at the Costume Collection, Bagdazian mentioned that TDF was looking for another In-House Designer to join the team. Kregal jumped at the opportunity. “Clearly this was meant to happen,” she says. “The universe wanted us to work together!”

In operation for more than 50 years, the TDF Costume Collection offers rentals to theatre, film and television, with discount rates for schools and nonprofits. In addition to helping in-person customers who visit the Costume Collection’s jam-packed warehouse at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, NY, Kregal and Bagdazian oversee the mail-order clients, pulling, packing and shipping to schools and regional theatres around the country. With more than 100,000 costumes donated from productions on Broadway and beyond to choose from, it’s key that Kregal and Bagdazian know the stock inside and out so they can give shows what they want. While packages aren’t available, the extensive and diverse inventory means they can put together costumes for practically any production. Recent mail-order pulls include the plays Sense and Sensibility, The Crucible, Lend Me a Tenor and Amadeus; the musicals The Secret Garden, Little Women and Bright Star; and the opera Cendrillion.

The Costume Collection offers two types of mail-order services. For the Your Design Service, the client provides a costume plot along with design notes. “A director or designer will contact us with some idea of what they want,” says Bagdazian. “Maybe they’ll add color elements or send reference images. If it’s not totally fleshed out, we’ll add our design opinion. We’ll give options, and it’s a back-and-forth,” that includes sending photos. “Because we work here and we see the Collection all the time, we’re able to tell them what we have that fits their needs. We’re sort of acting as an assistant designer.”

For the Show Plot Service, Kregal and Bagdazian just get the title of the show and the measurements. The rest is left up to their creativity. “Basically, we just pull everything for them,” explains Bagdazian. “We pull based on what we think would work.”

All alterations are done by the client—Kregal notes that many schools have “moms at the ready to hem.” If any costumes just don’t work, the customer gets up to two exchanges. Given that pulling a large show can take quite a while—a recent Fiddler on the Roof order consisted of 26 boxes!—mail orders must be submitted at least nine weeks before the first performance date. “I just did a pull that was 70 looks,” says Bagdazian, while Kregal recently put together 120 costumes for The Music Man. “That took me about a month from start to finish,” she says.

Kregal and Bagdazian both fell in love with costume design as college undergrads and went on to get MFAs at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and Boston University in Massachusetts, respectively. So they particularly enjoy pulling pieces for students, perhaps sparking a love of costume design in the next generation.

“Gabe and I both have mail orders that regularly come in from two high schools in Indiana,” Kregal says. “They want costumes that look good on the kids. But they also want the kids to get the experience of wearing costumes that may have been used on Broadway—you can look at the tags to see where the costumes come from!”

Sometimes the two Indiana schools—Covenant Christian High School in Indianapolis and the Bethesda Christian School in nearby Brownsburg—coordinate their productions. Last fall, the latter did The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and this spring, the other did C.S. Lewis’ Narnia prequel The Magician’s Nephew, a smart cross-promotional ploy.

“They keep coming back to us every semester,” says Bagdazian, noting they’ve done six shows in total between the two schools. “It’s a fun challenge to figure out how to make these high school students look great, because they deserve it.”

Learn more about starting a rental with the TDF Costume Collection.

—

TDF MEMBERS: Go here to browse our latest discounts for dance, theatre and concerts.