In the early decades of the 20th Century, there were many reasons for a film aficionado to visit South Broadway Street in Downtown Los Angeles.
Named after the drama-centric New York thoroughfare, LA’s Broadway was home to a dozen stunning theaters in styles such as Beaux Arts, Churrigueresque, and Art Deco—all in a six-block stretch and constructed between 1910 and 1931. Collective capacity was approximately 15,000 seats. These movie-and-more palaces had names such as The Palace, Million Dollar Theater, the Orpheum, the Roxie, the Tower, and United Artists Theater (rehabilitated this millennium as The Theater at the Ace Hotel). Adding to the boulevard’s urban bustle: Pacific Electric Red Cars and Los Angeles Railway trolleys, automobile traffic jams (of which LA would come to see many more), retail shops, utility offices, neon signs, and pedestrians galore.
Just next door to where United Artists would soon rise at 935 South Broadway (now called 939 South Broadway), a 12-story Renaissance Revival building that opened in the mid 1920s provided a different filmic reason to be on Broadway: to visit the unrivaled—then and arguably ever since—Western Costume Company.
Western Costume didn’t spend too many years in this location, but what extraordinary years they were. If a movie was made or a play was staged in LA, its costumes and accessories were overwhelmingly likely to be tailored, dyed, or even hand-crafted by the approximately 150 employees at Western Costume.
And we’re not just talking about a dress or a suit. Western Costume’s 200,000-square-foot home brimmed and bursted with hats, wigs, shoes, armor, weapons, jewelry, artifacts, fabrics—plus rooftop parking, a photoshoot location, and a research library that generations of costume designers and others have used to create authentic looks. An ad from the era calls Western, “the Largest Costume and Rental Supply House in the World,” and lists an A to Z menu of options: “Apache-Aztec-Acrobats-Bathing Suits-Bowery Bellboys…” continuing through “Pirates, Puritans, Peasants (all nations)” and beyond.
Then and still, if you are doing a period piece, you are coming to Western Costume, period. Gone With the Wind (1939). Check. Cleopatra (1934). Check. Just name a Hollywood movie––estimates range from 95% to 99% of all productions in that era ran through this one-stop-shop industry hub.
Western Costume was founded around 1914 by Louis L. (“L.L.”) Burns and Mabel Edna Burns. L.L. was an Arizona-born trader who had connections with Native American tribes, and the Burns’s business in Los Angeles began by helping film productions with costumes for Western-themed shoots. They soon named the company to reflect that genre, and operated out of successive larger locations during their first decade in business. From 1919 to 1923, Western Costume was located in the eponymously named L.L. Burns building at 908 South Broadway. It also served as a filming location for Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (1923), a romantic comedy known for the image of Lloyd seemingly hanging from the hands of a skyscraper’s clock.
By 1932, with the Great Depression on, a bankrupt Burns sold Western Costume. Meanwhile, the Garment District in Downtown LA was growing, but the entertainment industry was solidifying in other parts of town. New owners moved Western Costume to a location on Melrose Avenue, next door to Paramount Studios. Western Costume remained there until moving in 1990 to its current North Hollywood home that boasts more than two million items and 15,000 books.