After 40 years of supplying costumes to customers in Las Vegas, Martin Sadowitz, owner of American Costumes, announced that he is shutting down his business.

Sadowitz, who is now 71 years-old, opened his business in the 1970s after he was asked numerous times to rent out the outfit he wore to disguise himself as a “singing telegram.”
Today the store boasts three thousand costumes, 700 hats and 500 wigs to rent out of his 4,000 square-foot premises located in a strip mall. The owner of the strip mall, the Gold & Beyond consignment shop, is taking over American Costume’s space.

Conventions, film crews, themed corporate events have relied on Sadowitz for their costumes. Participants of Burning Man, an outdoor, counter-culture arts festival in the desert, come to him for goggles to protect their eyes from the dust and wind prevalent at its north Nevada location.

Sadowitz explained that when famous people pass away there is a surge in costume rentals. For instance, when Michael Jackson died in 2009, and Prince in 2016, business boomed. He is expecting his John McCain masks to become popular also in the after math of the death of the late senator from Arizona.

Some of his more well-known costumers include Las Vegas regulars like Siegfried & Roy, and the Penn & Teller television show, which rented gorilla outfits and Elvis costumes.

Sadowitz says Elvis and Madonna are among his most popular costumes.

“Every man should be Elvis at least once in a lifetime,” he said.