EMMY, November, 2004
EAGER TO SEE THE LIKES OF MISCHA BARTON WEARING THEIR LINES IN PRIME TIME, FASHION DESIGNERS ARE REACHING OUT TO TV’S COSTUME DESIGNERS AND SUPERVISORS
By Anna David
Who is Carrie Bradshaw without her Milano Blahniks?
Viewers loyal to HBO’s Sex and the City wouldn’t know how to answer such a query, but this much is certain: the show’s fashion focus helped create a world where viewers now look to certain series for stylistic inspiration.
Of course for TV’s costume designers and supervisors, conveying a character’s personality and helping advance a storyline remain paramount. Decorating the set with actors ready for a fashion runway? “Exhausting,” say prime-time costume pros.
Still, in the hope of reaching audiences that fashion shows and magazines cannot, ambitious designers (and their publicists) are sending line sheets, look books and even sample clothing to their TV peers. Can they influence the choices of television’s costume designers and supervisors? And do hoping-to-break fashion designers stand a chance of seeing their clothing on next season’s breakout stars? Alexander Welker, costume designer for the first season of Fox’s The O.C., says that the fashion-industry connections she’s spent years accruing (on such projects as American Pie 2) have helped her to flourish. “A lot of [fashion] companies don’t want to work with pilots,” she relates, “but the O.C. producers had asked ‘Can’t you get anything for free?’ I was lucky because I had existing relationships and friendships with people who said, ‘Come shop at the warehouse’ or, ‘We’ll just give you boxes of samples.’ So we had great stuff coming out of the gate.”
Some of Welker’s most prescient decisions were influenced by shipments from publicists and designers. “I had been aware of Chip & Pepper for about a year before their p.r. people contacted us and sent us some jeans. We all thought they were great-fitting and decided to use them. It was maybe three months later that I realized they weren’t even in stores besides Fred Segal yet.”
Serene Cicora, a publicist who represents the lines Custo Barcelona and Frankie B., takes a look book, line sheets and key pieces in each line to the costume designers of the shows she deems most appropriate for her clients. “Sometimes they’ll immediately start ordering,” she says. “Other times they’ll call in pieces a few weeks later. Or they might say, ‘I feel like this character is very sporty – she wears tank tops and hoodies – who do you have that would be best for that?’”
Cicora’s efforts clearly paid off with Welker. “I was aware of Custo Barcelona,” the designer says, “and thought, ‘Cute stuff, but that got done to death — everybody knocked them off two years ago.’ I never would have thought to call them up and see what they had. But they sent me samples, and the newer pieces had gone in a different direction and were really interesting.” The result? “I ended up using three or four pieces. Mischa [Barton] loves them.”
PERFECTLY SUITED
Amy Stofsky, costume designer for NBC’s Las Vegas, is wary of accepting designer offerings. “There are strings attached when people give you things,” she says. “Because there’s a pecking order — people much bigger than me make the final decisions — I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
Since Las Vegas travels up, down and around the fashion circuit – Stofsky has to dress showgirls, cops and every Vegas denizen in between – she scours the shops on Hollywood Boulevard, thrift stores and high-end boutiques for a range of clothing. She now has a handle on what works – Josh Duhamel in Hugo Boss and John Varvatos, for example. “It’s great because I know from the get-go that I not only have much more of a chance of having the right fit, but also that I have something both he and the powers-that-be like,” she says About 60% of Stofsky’s job involves shopping, she estimates, and whenever possible she buys items in duplicate. “You count on so many people – the driver to bring the dry cleaning, the dry cleaner not to lose it, someone to deliver it so that it’s there when we start at five the next morning – that it’s better to be safe.”
WHEN ONE JUST WON’T DO… ORDER TWENTY-FOUR
Jim Lapidus, costume designer for the Fox thriller 24, can barely fathom a world where he would only need doubles of garments. “Characters may be in one outfit for the whole season, so I may need twenty of something,” he says, though sometimes six and twelve of the same item will do. As a result, he can’t always use his designers of choice.
“I would love to use Jill Sander or Costume National, but often they’re one-of-a-kind designs so they only have a certain amount in each size. Once I bought an oilcloth jacket at Barneys and figured I was safe — if they didn’t have more of them, I could always contact Barneys in New York. But we called everybody and couldn’t get it anywhere, so we knocked it off.”
When he can find the multiples, Lapidus may have to abuse certain items to make them look worn. His tactics vary but one tried-and-true method is to take a brand-new jacket it, beat it, sand it and put it in the dryer with tennis balls. “It will knock the fabric down so it looks like someone’s had it for a while,” he explains.
But occasionally even characters in a show that unfolds in real time need a costume change. “If I feel it’s necessary to get someone in different clothes,” Lapidus says, “sometimes I can go to the writers and they’ll write something for me, like a moment where a character goes to his locker. I always joke, ‘Why can’t they break into Bloomingdale’s?’”
GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
Acquiring costumes used to be far simpler, says Betsey Potter, a governor of the Costume Design and Supervision Peer Group of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and designer for such series as Silver Spoons and The Jeffersons. “In the ‘seventies and ‘eighties, the Fred Hayman store would send over gowns,” Potter recalls. “That’s not really done anymore.” When Potter designed for The Jeffersons, Botany 500 provided the suits worn by star Sherman Hemsley. “There was a credit on the screen that was negotiated into the contract. It was perfectly wonderful – the suits were fit to size, and it didn’t matter if he didn’t wear a suit one time.”
While a deal like that would be unusual today, designers like Chrissy Azzaro of both My-Tee (a T-shirts, tanks, scarves, pins, hats and capelets) and Cree (more sophisticated shirts) are hoping to make the costume supervisor’s job easier – and to get their own screen credit. Azarro figures she’s sent packages of line sheets to some 30 shows and given away between $3000-$5000 worth of her clothing each season. Her efforts have paid off: her wares have been worn on such series as Friends, Good Morning Miami and The Bernie Mac Show. “I usually say, ‘Go ahead and keep it – as long as you wear it and I get a copy of the tape,’” Azzaro says. “I request a credit at the end but it doesn’t always happen.”
Costume designers don’t always have the time to comply with such requests, Azzaro acknowledges. “I sent a packet to Friends and they never called me,” she says. “But still, I would watch and look for [my designs]. Then one time, Courteney Cox wore one of my shirts.” Miss Match, Reba and Eve also featured her clothing, even though she hadn’t approached them. “The costume designers probably got them at Macy’s or Nordstrom’s,” she says.
Azzaro, like other designers and publicists, targets her mailings to the shows that seem best suited to her lines. “I get about a 30 percent response,” Azzaro estimates. “I think it’s key not to harass costume designers to get them to use your product. If people are interested, they’re going to call me back because they want to, not because I’ve called and annoyed them.”
And if costume supervisors and designers don’t respond to certain fashion designers, that doesn’t mean they didn’t like the clothing. After all, part of their job is to choose garments that look good — but don’t steal the show. “If you’re thinking about what’s going on in a show and not what they’re wearing,” says Jim Lapidus, costume designer of 24, “I’ve done a good job.”
