Halloween costumes don’t have to be expensive
By Siobhan McAndrew, Reno Gazette-Journal
Only Zephyr Schneider knows he isn’t covered in plants from a dark and scary swamp filled with alligators, snakes and insects.
Instead, the 9-year-old is wearing leaves from a plastic plant that used to sit in his living room, starfish he got on a family vacation to Monterey and his sister’s old snow boots.
“You could go out and spend $65 on a costume or you could try to be creative and use what you have,” said Jessica Schneider, Zephyr’s mom and owner of Junkee Clothing Exchange in Reno.
Schneider opened the recycled clothing more than three years ago and has been pleasantly surprised to find a big part of her business comes from people looking for costumes.
“I think people bought the bag costumes for years but were just dying for something more fun,” said Schneider, who dresses many of the partygoers for the themed crawls that have become a mainstay of Reno’s downtown bar scene.
She can rattle off the costumes she has done for the Santa Crawl, Pirate Crawl, Zombie Crawl and a recent Naughty Disney Party thrown by college kids at UNR.