Hidden in the basement of one of Millersville University's dormitories, you'll find a cluttered, subterranean wonderland of feathers and fur, leather and lace, wigs and waistcoats.

It's a mecca for masqueraders, where a guy can walk in as an accountant and saunter out as a cowboy in leather chaps.

Within this Valhalla of vestments, a woman clutching an invitation to a murder-mystery party can be transformed into a 1920s-era gangster's moll.

It's a place where a Halloween partygoer can turn devil or angel, or a third-grader who needs a costume for a school project can get his Ben Franklin on.

Descend below ground in Hobbs Hall, and follow the yellow-brick road painted on the floor, and you'll find yourself in the Millersville University Costume Shop.

Each aisle branching from your central path reveals racks stuffed with hundreds of colorful garments, representing archetypes of humanity and centuries of fashion trends from around the world.

Ornate, Colonial-style gowns cluster in a flurry of patterns and textures in one aisle; a phalanx of military uniforms from every service branch and war era marches down another.

Candy-colored boas dangle sinuously from a steam pipe near the ceiling.

From high shelves, oversize, grinning heads of horses, bears and chickens stare down upon young staffers, helping customers find their sartorial identities.

At a sewing machine in the center of the happy mayhem, a white tape measure hanging from her neck, is Priscilla Kaufhold, the shop's director for 28 of its 30 years in existence.

"One of the things I keep hearing from people is that we're the best-kept secret," Kaufhold says. "OK, well, we don't want to be secret anymore. We want people to know we're here."

The nonprofit costume workshop and rental business, which is open about 24 hours a week, operates under the auspices of the university's department of communication and theater.

Its staff builds costumes for MU's own theater productions and rents out its vast costume stock to promgoers and theme-wedding parties, to high school theater troupes and fundraising service clubs.

"We have about 25,000 pieces, and that's just counting hangers," Kaufhold says. "That's not including the 50 dressers lining the walls. Accessories, sweaters, aprons, all the hats." The shop also rents out jewelry, purses, parasols and shoes of every description.

"We're splitting at the seams," she says of the crowded shop. She's been told the university eventually plans to move the shop across campus to larger quarters in Jefferson Hall.

The MU shop was born in 1982, when Columbia costume-shop proprietor Jean Loeb donated her 6,000-piece garment collection to the university. Loeb had bought out the inventory of the former Wass & Son costume company in Philadelphia.

One of Kaufhold's favorite antique pieces in the MU collection comes from the Loeb donation: an unassuming black-and-yellow dress bearing a Paramount Pictures label, with the name of actress Betty Hutton (of "Annie Get Your Gun" fame) marked on it. Its provenance is a delightful mystery, Kaufhold notes.

Among the thousands of costumes, Kaufhold even recognizes the cowgirl outfits she and her fellow Hempfield High School students wore in the mid-1970s, performing in their own production of "Annie Get Your Gun."

Kaufhold says her staff sometimes gets unusual requests.

Three guys have rented the shop's suit of "heavy, oily" chain mail, Kaufhold says, in order to propose to their girlfriends as "a knight in shining armor. One guy even rented a horse.

"And we made two chili pepper costumes — a red one and a green one — for a chili cook-off at Luther Acres," she adds with a musical laugh.

Kaufhold, who is also a choreographer and artistic director of the Kinetics Dance Theatre in Ellicott City, Md., says dance and costuming have always gone hand in hand for her.

"It's all about the body, and how it moves in space, and the silhouette," Kaufhold says.

In the early 1980s, as she finished her degree in dance performance at American University, Kaufhold took a work-study job in AU's costume shop. She took several costuming classes and learned about building and altering garments.

When she returned to Lancaster after college, she started at the MU shop as an assistant and took over as director in 1984.

Millersville University students can rent a full outfit for $10 if it's for a class project, or $35 if it's for a party. Rental prices go up to $50 for an adult member of the general public to rent a full costume for up to a week. Lower rates for children and groups are available.

Kaufhold employs several MU students during any given semester, along with two former students.

"I like fashion, and it's so much more interesting here than working in the dining hall," Melissa Scannella, a senior English major, says as she styles a wig in the shop.

Willam H. Hager IV, who for 25 years has been writing and directing an annual parody musical as the kickoff event for Sertoma Club of Lancaster's annual chicken barbecue, costumes his cast at the MU shop every year.    

"Sometimes it's quite obvious to us what we're looking for," Hager says, "and Priscilla, or a member of her team, will easily outfit us there."

Hager first came to the shop in the mid-1980s, he recalls, when he needed costumes for the twilight mystery bus tours of historic locations around Lancaster County that he organized as charity fundraisers.

An amateur photographer, Hager also rents costumes from MU for his photo shoots.

Searching the shop for 1980s-style prom gowns on a recent afternoon were Renee Spain and Amy Leinbach, the volunteer directors of the annual school play at High Point Baptist Academy near Morgantown, Berks County.

"We're going to put a little bit of a twist on 'Sleeping Beauty,'" Leinbach says. "We're doing more of an '80s theme to the costumes. So, a little bit fairy tale, a little bit funky."

For more than 10 years, the two women have come to Kaufhold and company to help them find costumes for productions from "The Ransom of Red Chief" to "Arsenic and Old Lace."

"First of all, they're so helpful," Spain says. "And they have everything. … They let us embellish if we need to embellish things. Or they'll do it for us.

"You go in and say, 'This is what I need,' and they're helping you pull stuff," Spain says. "And if they don't have it, they can make it."

For the past four years, Cass Jendzurski, a Lancaster musician and actress, has gone to the MU shop to rent the Victorian-style gowns she needs for her portrayals of historical figures at fundraisers and community events.

She rents an elegant gold corduroy gown to portray Catharine Long, "once the wealthiest woman in Lancaster," she says, whose family founded Long's Park and the Long Home for seniors.

Jendzurski also borrows a simple beige gown to portray Ellen Parker, who donated her farmhouse near Newville for use as a Presbyterian home for elderly women.

The costume shop's inventory increases as folks empty their parents' homes and their own attics.

"We get lots of donations, which is awesome," Kaufhold says. "We've gotten old wedding dresses and '20s beaded gowns."

Jendzurski recalls an emotional day last year, when she donated the hoop-skirted gown she wore at her own 1969 wedding.

"I didn't want my children to have to make that decision, 'Oh, what do we do with Mom's wedding dress?'" she says.

During her 30-minute drive to the shop to make her donation, Jendzurski was trying to let go of the dress. By the time she arrived, she was crying.

And Kaufhold was there to comfort her, she recalls.

At the end of a hectic day, as Kaufhold runs fabric through her sewing machine, she reflects on how much she loves the lighthearted atmosphere of the shop she runs.

"What I like is that people are in a good mood" when they're coming in to rent a costume. "They're going to a party, or they're going to be in a play. It's exciting. It's a fun job.

"It's kind of like the puzzle," Kaufhold says. "I feel like people come [here], and they have to be someone else. They're given a character in a play, or they're doing a project, or they want to disguise themselves, or they want to be someone they're not, normally.

"It's kind of fun to help someone with their puzzle.

"This is a hands-on, fun, creative place," Kaufhold says. "It's a fun atmosphere, almost like a playground.

"It's creating. And creating is just rewarding."

The Millersville University Costume Shop is open Tuesday through Friday and by appointment. For hours and information, call the shop at 872-3767, or visit millersville.edu/costumeshop.