Louis Scheffer from Assen died last Saturday. Scheffer ran the Costume Center in Assen together with his partner Albert Kool for more than thirty years.
“In 1988 we took over a collection from the province, we were the only ones who made a bid for the entire collection. But then a little later we found ourselves in our terraced house in Peelo with 5,000 costumes,” Albert Kool remembers.
Not much later, the Costume Center left for the Oosterhoutstraat in the city, from where they increasingly managed to conquer Assen. A career that, according to Kool, was not at all in the offing for both men. “Louis comes from the catering industry and I was trained as an agricultural engineer.”
Yet Scheffer and Kool turned out to be a complementary duo, according to Kool. “There was one at the front and one at the back of the store. The rental, the cash register, the storytelling with the costumes. I was responsible for that. But Louis was a real maker. And a self-taught one. He sometimes sat behind the sewing machine until late at night, making costumes.”
The barrel of stories that the two have collected over the years appears to be overflowing, and this becomes clear when Kool talks about all the adventures they have experienced. “Louis was not only busy in our store, but he also worked for you for some time, at RTV Drenthe. First in a radio show, later in make-up.”
But they experienced the most special stories from their costume career. The Royal Family. The clothing worn by the Oranges, for example, has given them a special trip to Soestdijk Palace. “In 2008 we were allowed to set up a complete costume presentation here. Prior to the opening, we were given a tour through Baarn with fifty carriages and we eventually ended up at Soestdijk Palace. That presentation attracted an audience of more than ten thousand people,” says Kool.
