Accessories and goods containing theater history are available at bargain prices in Helsinki’s Tattarisuo, because the costumes of the National Theater want to reduce their moving load.
In the Tattariharju industrial area, Helsingin Malmi has industrial halls next door. There is a lot of bustle and noise inside one of the halls.
People carry and price all sorts of miscellaneous stuff for clearance sale day. Today, Saturday, everything should be ready. The people work hard to ensure that the goods for sale are displayed and priced correctly.
The benches are full of shoes, pieces of fabric can be found already bagged and plastic baskets are full of belt buckles and other stuff. The air smells a bit like flea markets in general.
The National Theater’s warehouse and costumes are still located there for the time being. The renovation of the National Theater building next to the railway station is nearing completion.
On Saturday, May 6, starting at ten o’clock, a moving sale will be organized, where you can make discoveries for yourself from the theater’s archive.
The outfit is preparing to move back to the center of Helsinki. In this way, we want to lighten the burden of moving and otherwise empty the warehouses.
The theater’s sewing shop is moving to the center. The pallet shop, the wood workshop and the metal workshop will remain in Malmi Tattariharju.
Historical costumes and fantasy costumes are of most interest
Fabrics, clothes and shoes are on sale. Historical costumes, but also ordinary clothes, for example jeans and t-shirts. Zippers, jewelry and hats.
– We also sell furniture, but it is not in great condition. It is taken into account in the prices, Syrjänen states.
Syrjäse’s work with theater costumes includes a lot of patination of clothes. It means a lot of tearing, grating and dirtying clothes with, for example, mustard.
– The clothes we make sometimes look like after a visit to a barbecue kiosk. In addition, the clothes are washed after each performance, so everything must be washable.
In theater clothing, the backup actor is taken into account so that seam allowances are left during the making stage, so that it is easier to enlarge the costumes. Or reduce it, if the actor’s position is more slender.
– It has to be done quite quickly if there is a performance in the evening. Changes often come on a fast schedule, so even a couple of seamstresses can be on the same garment.
*You can discuss the topic until Sunday, May 7 at 11 p.m.*