Debbie Westphal Swander, owner of the Theatrical Shop in West Des Moines, doesn’t usually check her business’ Facebook messages.
“There's so much spam out there and so much weirdness out there,” she said.
But the night before the final day of the Hinterland Music Festival, the message notification that popped up on her phone wasn’t a scam. It was an urgent call for help — from a member of none other than breakout artist Chappell Roan’s styling team.
The band had a major dilemma. Roan’s stylist, Genesis Webb — known for creating the artist’s series of iconic stage looks — had ordered a set of nun costumes for the Midwest-born singer’s band, but several key pieces hadn’t arrived on time. It was the night before Roan’s Sunday set, a performance that would draw an enormous mid-afternoon crowd for the fest, and she had an assistant reach out to the shop.
“Is there any way at all we could come into the store tomorrow and look?” the assistant asked. “I know you’re closed, but we would be eternally grateful.”
Fortunately, the shop had just the thing — a set of nun costumes available for rent. Familiar with the hectic world of showbusiness, Westphal Swander opened the Theatrical Shop's doors for a special Sunday morning shopping spree.
“The fact that somebody wants to do a show and they're in a bind and they don't know where to turn... I mean, how could I not respond?” she said.
The Theatrical Shop, which sits on a corner in West Des Moines’ historic Valley Junction, has sold costumes, wigs and other stage supplies for more than 40 years. It invites shoppers year-round to enter the doors beneath its marquee, which once broadcasted shows for the former Lyric Theatre (built in 1905), and browse its vast array of outfits, masks, props and more.
Westphal Swander sent two employees to let Webb in to rent out the costumes for the band the following morning.
“[Debbie] was like, ‘[Chappell's] stylist wants to come in.’ And I was like, ‘That's not real,’” employee Hamida Mokhtar recalled in disbelief. “‘There's no way that's a real thing that's happening.’”
Before that Sunday, Westphal Swander had never heard of Chappell Roan. But Mokhtar had, and even got set up with two tickets to the show for lending the band a hand.
Later that day, during her routine “To My Ex” intro to the song, “My Kink is Karma,” Roan said she and her band’s Christian-oriented outfits were chosen because they were playing on a Sunday.
"I dedicate this next song to my ex, who literally said I was an 'ungodly woman,'" she said directly into the camera on the side of the stage. "How do you like me, now?"
The artist has credited her stylist, Webb, for creating her themes, which she's said draw inspiration from horror movies, theater and drag artists. Sunday's look, a corset over fishnets and a pair of Madonna-esque pointy breastplates, completed with dark eyeshadow and pale face makeup, was certainly reminiscent of a sexy spin on the terrifying nun in The Conjuring.
Roan's outfit was tailored locally by Hana Tailor in Des Moines.
“It was a leap of faith and it really helped somebody,” Westphal Swander said the day after the costumes were returned. “You just have to do good deeds sometimes, when you can.”
