Designing a Broadway show? Shooting your own horror film? Making the annual trek to Comic Con? Your first stop should be a trip to W 29th Street’s Manhattan Wardrobe Supply — a specialty hair, makeup, costume and craft shop whose motto is, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it!”
Carrying everything from hard-to-find professional hair and makeup products to sewing and jewelry supplies to sought-after sneaker paint, Manhattan Wardrobe Supply is the go-to for film, TV and theatrical designers as well as everyday New Yorkers with a vision. Operating out of a humble Chelsea office building for the past 25 years, the 6,000 square-foot public warehouse is a veritable candy store of craft, all lovingly curated by veteran costume and wardrobe supervisors Cheryl Kilbourne-Kimpton and Tommy Boyer.
“I got a job working on a film by accident,” laughed Cheryl, who initially studied fashion in college and was working as a stylist in Atlanta, Georgia, when Hollywood came calling. “They needed a seamstress, and when the set costumer left the show, they bumped me up — even though I’d never been on a movie set before,” she added. “Through trial and error, I got through that job — and I got the bug. This was at a time when Atlanta was not as hot as it is now for film and TV, and I thought: ‘Well, if I’m really going to do this, I’ve got to move to New York or LA’. I moved up here and that’s how I got started!”
Tommy began his career as a professional performer, eventually moving backstage to work as a star dresser on Broadway, as a costume and wardrobe supervisor across film and TV, and as a dresser to movie megastar Richard Gere. He was hired in 1996 by Cheryl to work on the Gwyneth Paltrow and David Schwimmer helmed film The Pallbearer. “We hit it off,” said Cheryl, and the two went on to work together on multiple films before deciding to open Manhattan Wardrobe Supply. It was on the set of one of these films — the iconic Nora Ephron New York rom-com You’ve Got Mail — that Tommy and Cheryl dreamed up the idea for a one-stop shop for busy designers used to running around the city looking for specialty items at a moment’s notice. On August 1, 1998, they opened the doors at Manhattan Wardrobe Supply and haven’t looked back.
“People come to us because we are in the business and they know we’ll have what they need,” said Tommy, “and if we don't have it, then we will either send you someplace else that does have it, or we'll find a way that we can bring it in for you.” Setting up shop in Chelsea has allotted the team at Manhattan Wardrobe Supply a plum location for running a tube of fake blood over to the Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd or a hair product to Only Murders in the Building. “One of our favorite things has always been being able to accommodate the needs of industry,” said Tommy. “ You never know what someone's going to order — whether it will be three bottles of paint or 50 bottles of paint for the Metropolitan Opera!”
While they love helping fellow designers out, some of their favorite clients often come from the very low budget category. “I think it's fun to see people come in here all the time with projects — some of 'em are really bizarre,” laughed Cheryl. “One time someone asked me how they could put an earring on a pig.I was like, ‘and how, how is it going to stay on the pig?’ The challenge is to figure out how to help everyone,” she added. “I love it when they send us pictures of the finished project — it’s really great to see what they've come up with, because people are really, really creative out there and they have some wild things that they're doing!”
