Thomas Haden Church's fashions on Ned and Stacey

The TV series Ned and Stacey brought me my first fan letter! It was from a guy in New York who just loved the way Thomas Haden Church was dressed and wanted to know where he could buy similar clothing. It was so exciting to know my choices had an impact!

I was hired to costume design the sitcom New and Stacey just days before production started on the first epsidode, and literally one day before TV Guide did the photo shoot for their Fall Preview issue. I talked to Tom by phone and got a sense that he liked the high buttoned jackets and vests he had worn in the pilot. I had one day to race around and gather as many choices as I could - I think I worked 16 hours that day! Then I met with Debra Messing, who immediately looked at the long bias-cut skirt I was wearing and said “Can I wear that?”, so I took it off and lent it to her to wear for the shoot.

That’s how my two seasons with this marvellous show started. Thomas Haden Church and Debra Messing, though totally opposite personalities in reality, were a perfect comedic foil for each other in this crazy sitcom. I had grown tired of designing sitcoms, but this one piqued my interest with its quirky characters, sharp writing, and the opportunity to do something really different in the costume department.

I have to credit Tom for initially creating his look. He in no way wanted the usual sitcom look - the “Seinfield” style - jeans and casual shirts. He wanted Ned to be formally dressed no matter what, buttoned up and wearing a tie, even cooking in his kitchen.Tom is tall and slender, a size 42 long, a perfect figure for male fashion.  I used almost exclusively four button jackets for him (not easy to find), with vests with a very high stance worn underneath. A few were purchased, many were made. Shirts were crisp and with a high collarband where possible, as his neck is long, and his ties were of very stongly colored regimental stripes. Since such a small part of the tie showed, we needed that punch of color.

I was very proud of some of the more daring looks I created for him. I had several wing tipped shirts, usually made only in white for formal wear, made in striped fabrics. I also did a white scarf wrapped around his neck, Beau Brummel style, for a New Years’ Eve formal outfit. One fan wrote and said he was copying the look for his wedding. I was tickled pink when Church was named “One of the Best Dressed Men on Television” by TV Guide, “E” Entertainment, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution by Scott Walton, who declared the sitcom to be “more fashionable than anything else on TV.”

Tom’s humor was dry dry dry! Debra, on the other hand, is funny, outgoing, disorganized, generous, and everything with her was right up front. I went for an eclectic look for her, mixing tops and bottoms together that were flattering but unexpected. She liked a special one-of-a-kind jewelry made by designer Aklia Chinn, which has an exotic ethnic style.(aklias.com/ ) Debra also refused the producers requests to pad up her bras - she saw no need to fall into that cliche. She is her own person.

The two other leads were the darling Greg Germann, whom I had costumed on the drama Sweet Justice, and later co-starred in Ally McBeal,  and Nadia Dajani, who opted for a very New York look. Some of the “unknowns” who had guest starring roles were Megan Mullally (pre-Will and Grace),  Marcia Cross (pre-Desperate Housewives), Kathy Griffin (pre-LIfe on the D list) and John Slattery (pre-Mad Men) 

It was one of the big disappointments in my career that Ned and Stacey never had the huge mainstream success that Debra’s next hit show, Will and Grace had. Ned and Stacey suffered from a change of networks between season 1 and 2, and never got the full power of a network behind it. However, it has a huge cult following, and I often hear how much the show was loved. I know I did.

Filming On Location

People often ask me which of the TV shows or films I have designed costumes for is my favorite. That’s a tough one as each show is so unique. It’s like asking which of your children you like best!

I loved doing “A League of Their Own” ( see my last post) because of the 1940’s period costumes and filming on location. I loved doing “Family Law” because, as a 60 minute prime-time drama, we had top level actors, wonderful scripts, and spent 3 out of 7 filming days on location, which lends lots of variety to the job. 

One day we’d be on Venice Beach amidst the roller skaters and beach-goers, another day on skid row, another in a beautiful arboretum, another in a high school. I never got tired of driving to an entirely new place (usually at 6 am!), looking for the parking lot where all the trailers were parked, finding my wardrobe trailer, and getting started with my crew preparing the actor’s wardrobe and setting it up in their dressing rooms.

One of my favorites was the day we shot “Sweet Justice” at the racetrack. No matter how long I am in the costume designing business, there is ALWAYS something new to learn, some new aspect of “clothing” that I knew nothing about prior to finding it in my script. I had never really paid any attention to  jockeys’ outfits, other than that they are brightly colored. But I learned that the jockeys and their horses wear specifically designed outfits called “silks”  which are provided by the horse or stable’s owner. Though we had professional jockeys in our shoot, I had to know what was ocrrect so I could outfit my actor jockey in the right thing. (Who knew jockeys wear four or five pair of goggles so they can peel them off one by one when they get mud kicked up over them? I didn’t).

Another day in the same script we were about an hour out of Los Angeles at a gorgeous ranch with beautiful stables. Inbetween takes we walked around and looked at the gorgeous horses grazing in green pastures, or being exercized in their water treadmill. It hardly seemed like work! (for me, not the horses!)

Not all location days are that pleasant. I remember one day we were downtown in a very seedy neighborhood and it poured with rain all day, a cold, hard-driving rain. Since on location we work out of “trailers”, every time we had to deliver a costume to an actor, or head for the set, we had to deal with getting soaked, but keeping the costume and the actor dry.

I’ve also filmed at a prison, which is weird. The coldest I ever felt was during an all night shoot in Detroit in March. The hottest I’ve ever been is on the beach in Fort Lauderdale in mid August.

The saddest day on location happened to be the first day back to work after September 11th, 2001, the day of the terrorist attack on the world trade center. We were filming, ironically, in a cemetary. Everyone, cast and crew, seemed to be walking around in a fog. We were so overwrought anyway, the cemetary setting made it worse. I had worn a vintage American flag pin, and when one crew member (a big burly male) saw it, he burst into tears. 

Well, I had started out thinking I was going to write about one of my favorite shows, Ned and Stacey, but that will have to wait for another post.

Some stories about using vintage fashion in TV and film

I was reading my Entertainment Weekly magazine last night and came across the feature called “Wardrobe Notes” for Olivia Good’s costume for “Cowboys and Aliens”.

That got me to thinking about some of the research I have done in the past for period projects.

Many people assume that all costume designers love to do “period”, major “costumey” pieces like “Dangerous Liaisons” or “Jane Eyre”.  Not me particularly. But I do love vintage clothing from the 1900’s on, and even co-authored a book on vintage fashion called “RetroChic”. Therefore I was ecstatic to be hired in 1992 by Penny Marshall to costume design the TV series “A League of Their Own”, based on the film of the same name, and set in wartime 1940’s. All of the outfits had to be found, made, rented, or purchased  except for the uniforms which we rented from Sony Studios where they had been in storage since the film.

Since I already loved vintage clothing and over the years had purchased items from the 30’s and 40’s for myself, I was in seventh heaven! I had even co-authored a book on vintage fashion called Retro Chic (http://www.amazon.com/Retro-Chic-Fabulous-Designer-Shopping/dp/1893329151/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313339640&sr=1-1 )  

I visited every vintage store in Los Angeles (and there were many) and bought two or three of their best items. In the 90s there were still many 1940’s dresses, jackets, skirts, even nightgowns, robes and underwear still available and in good condition. Each new find was like discovering a hidden treasure and most of the dresses the girls in the TV series wore were original pieces. 

We had a very large cast plus extras who were in several different outfits for each episode. We shot all the baseball scenes on location at an old baseball field in Pomona, Ca, which was a blast. We had four teams in four different sets of uniforms (as, of course, the Peaches had to play various opposing teams) and everyone got pretty bruised and banged up. Penny (Marshall) who directed is not known for skimping on the number of takes!

One day on location we had about 200+ extras who played the baseball goers in the bleachers. You have no idea how much wardrobe is needed for 200 extras - they need everything from tops and bottoms to hats and shoes, and they MUST look authentic for the period. We had men, women and kids, we had all sizes and shapes - it was quite a challenge. Just getting that many people outfitted top to bottom in a short time and off to the set was an accomplishment, and only achieved because of the great help of my team of costumers.

Another interesting story about vintage comes from “Passions”, where often we would do flashbacks or dream sequences. One time one of the male characters was seen in a flashback to the 1980’s, and after checking with the producers that this was a one-time shot, I found a vintage shirt that was perfect. But soaps being what they are, in a couple of months they did ANOTHER flashback to the same scene, only this time they needed a stunt double. Oh-oh! What to do? There obviously wasn’t a second shirt like it. What I eventually did was to take the shirt apart. I made the front of shirt #2 from the back of the original shirt, substituting plain fabric in the back, and made the collar and cuffs for shirt #2 from the sleeves of the original. Then I added a jacket to the actor and the stunt double and they both appeared to be wearing identical shirts, since only the front, collar and cuffs was really showing!

I must have been doing something right, as I won Emmy  nominations for both “A League of their Own” and for “Passions”.

Costuming the charming George Clooney, and other stars in The Facts of Life

Of all the celebrities I have costumed over the years, I suspect George Clooney is the biggest star.

I outfitted him during the first full-time job I had  designing a TV series, the sitcom “The Facts of Life” in the mid-1980’s. George was an unknown at the time, a handsome young man of 24 years. NBC really liked him and kept trying to find the right vehicle for him - which they didn’t do until “ER” in 1994. 

George was cast as a “neighbor”, probably in an attempt to bring more male energy to the series, but they didn’t want to pair him up with any of the four girls as a love interest. After a season and a half, he was not renewed.

I remember him pretty as I see him today - very easy going, charming, with a sweet dry sense of humor. He was mostly dressed in jeans and plaid shirts. 

Some years later we were filming next door to each other at Warner Bros, he on “ER”, and me designing “For Your Love”. He dropped over to say hello to one of the actresses, saw me, came over and gave me a big hug, causing envious stares from all the female crew!

But George was not the only star to emerge from “The Facts of LIfe.” 

Of course, the four girls were hugely famous at the time - Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Mindy Cohn, and Nancy McKeon, who continue to lead successful lives in the industry and beyond. But I also had the irrepressible Cloris Leachman to costume! She was very strong willed, opinionated, funny, and her instincts were so right on that all I could do is learn from her.

In the three years I designed “The Facts of Life” we had many young guest stars that went on to become well known actors today: “Austin Power”’s Seth Green (14 years old at the time) guest-starred as a bratty kid trying to get into the girls school, and even wearing a dress to do so! Mayim Bialek, now being seen on “The Big Bang Theory,” was also a 13 year old guest star. Doug Savant (“Desperate Housewives”) played one of the girls boyfriends for an episode,  as did Richard Grieco. Other guests were “24”’s Dennis Haysburt, “Saturday Night Live”’s David Spade, Juliette Lewis and more.

One of the challenges of designing “The Facts of Life” was that I often had 5 women in every scene, so they each had to look unique, not only in style, but in color. They often had 3-4 changes in a half hour episode, so there were a lot of clothes to find, fit, and prep, and juggling color preferences was often a challenge. Also, each girl had their own figure issues, favorite footwear and styles. Cloris had her strong opinions too, so it was a juggling act to do all in one week and required all my patience and tact as well as design talent.

That’s why dear George Clooney in his jeans and plaid shirts was such a relief! 

How the show "Jubilee" changed my life

Last night I attended the 30th anniversary performance and celebration of Las Vegas’ greatest showgirl production “Jubilee”.

It’s hard to believe, but 31 years ago I hired by famed Costume Designer Bob Mackie, (who had met me while I was working with entertainer Ann-Margret,) to be his assistant for “Jubilee”. the next six months I worked full time assisting Bob in the production of thousands of thousands of lavish costumes, all the time learning everything about costume design from a true master. I also assisted the co-designer Pete Menefee, who taught and mentored me as well.

During this time, I also met my husband to be, actor Dominic Calandra, who was working for the transportation company that brought all the costumes from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

On November 21st, 1981, as we were in final dress rehearsals for the opening of the show, there was a huge fire, in which the entire hotel was devastated and many people died. I was on the eleventh floor, and was able to make my way down the fire escape to safety. 

I returned to Los Angeles and  worked with Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee for another 8 months, starting from scratch, and recreating all of the costumes. All new feathers had to be imported from France, fabrics bought, shoes re-made, and there was such a shortage of Swarovsky crystals that a team of costumers had to pluck the existing rhinestones off the jewelry, polish the settings, clean the stones, and re-insert. It tooks months to complete. In August of 1981, the show finally opened and has been playing ever since, still looking as gorgeous as it did on opening night. Over the years costumes and feathers have been replaced, but always true to the original designs, and today this show is the one and only showgirl spectacular in Las Vegas.

So as you can see, this show has had a HUGE influence on me - my career, my husband, my life itself. Now as I drive down the Las Vegas Strip or along Flamingo Blvd I can look up at the huge electronic billboards with images of the girls in their costumes and know that I had a part in it.