Fancy garb collects dust
GIVE your regards to Broadway? Not until springtime. So what’s with a show’s custom wardrobe that cost long months and big money to create? Per John Kristiansen, who handles the costumes for productions all across America: “Our 52 employees make bodices, corsetry, gowns, spats, shoe coverings, flowers, feathers, beads, millinery, special finishes. Pattern makers, sewers, knitters, hands that cut special fabrics. We have warehouses, storage, operators specializing in starching, stretching, handwork.
“Theater wardrobe requires major care. Performances every night, quick changes, four seasons, summer heat, performers adding or losing weight. There are hundreds of us in this industry.
“Fabrics hand-painted to match something get ripped, stained. Water damage. Food spilled. People who fall ill need clothes disinfected. Fabrics get brittle. Thin silk shifts. Wrong needle pokes a hole. We build with seam allowance. Quick changes bring quick rips. Daily wear and tear. Hems drag. Ruching’s caught. Shoulder pads shift. Zippers stick. Buttons fall. Buttonholes tear. Linings need laundering. Bones and interfacing move. Understudies have changes. Holes get poked, makeup smears.
“For Jeanna de Waal — who plays Princess Diana in the musical about her, which never opened but which Netflix filmed — people made gowns last July. With designers sitting on our shoulders, we sent them to India for special beading.”
What’s happened to all that when theaters close and shows are shut?
“They’re in locked rooms. Locked theaters. It’s the producer’s paid property. We don’t store anything. All belongs to the productions. The stuff is sitting around. Wrapped in acid-free tissue paper.” How did Kristiansen, who once delivered stained “Phantom of the Opera” wardrobe to Winzer Cleaners and back same day, start?
“College. I was an actor. I came to New York to be a designer. Working for a pattern maker, I cut the seam allowance for ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame.’ It was a fantastic experience.
And, No. 1 in the industry, he says: “Costumes are now just sitting in boxes.”