Sewing for J. Lo

The other day, one of the dressers, Marianne, pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted to make some extra money on the side. Apparently Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were in town, the first stop of their first national tour, and their costumes weren't finished. Their production company was hiring as many stitchers as they could get to come in and finish everything.

I checked around to make sure there was no conflict of interest with me working for someone else and then said “I'm in!” How could I not go sew for J. Lo?

I got home around 11pm on Thursday night after The Producers show and got up at 5:30Am on Friday. We got to the Trump Taj Mahal casino at 7Am and the lighting guys were already there with the Lopez/Anthony show set up, going through the light cues. I'm not sure they had ever been to bed. The “wardrobe room” was a roped off area to the side of the stage with racks and racks of costumes and sewing machines and a little fitting room. And there was no one there. So we grabbed some coffee and waited around.

The wardrobe supervisor, Kirsten, showed up at 8Am – she was previously the supervisor for the TV show “Dancing with the Stars” and has won an Emmy. The very first thing she did was look at Marianne and say “I'm putting you in charge today because I've had 7 hours of sleep in 3 days and I just can't answer any more questions.” She walks over to the rack of costumes with Marianne, looks at her and says “please tell everyone I'm not a bitch...” and then bursts into tears. Poor girl...

Apparently the show was way behind because shipping on crucial costume pieces had been delayed, a lot of costumes had been custom made by the Italian couture fashion house Roberto Cavalli (Roberto Cavalli!!!) and they had arrived unfinished, plus the supervisor was used to working in LA where everything can be done on a tight turn around. In LA, she had a custom pair of thigh high patent leather boots made overnight for J. Lo. Overnight!! That kind of thing can't get done in Atlantic city. So they hired us.

All the stagehands that work at the casinos are part of the casino union. They call it “being badged” and to work in a casino you have to be badged at that casino. Well, I'm clearly not badged at any casino but Marianne said “you're a better stitcher than a lot of these local wardrobe people with badges and they need some good people and will pay you well, so I brought you along.” So I show up to work for J. Lo and end up working alongside several of the stagehands that are working for us in The Producers. It was a little strange...

And about the costumes? Lots of beautiful stuff easily recognizable as J Lo's style to anyone who follows award shows. Flowing silk caftans with hot pants, lots of animal prints, gold and silver sequined fabric, rhinestones and beaded trim. Her female dancers were wearing these cute little beaded shimmy skirts with halter tops and most of the male dancers were wearing these gorgeous silver and black suit coats by Cavalli. I had to actually cut Cavalli jackets apart to alter them to fit the dancers more closely. It was a little bit painful...

We had a dress already made for J. Lo (who incidentally was called “Jen” or “Jennifer” by all the wardrobe people so I think gossip accounts of her being a complete diva are probably exaggerated.) Anyway, this dress fabric was gold sequins backed on silk chiffon – gorgeous and a little bit hard to work with – and gold spandex hot pants underneath. About 3 in the afternoon, her stylist came in with an costume of white mother of pearl sequined fabric cut like a 60's swing style mini dress. The dress had clearly been worn multiple times and was starting to rip apart, had makeup stains around the neckline etc. The stylist hands the dress to Kisten and says “Jennifer wants something like this made out of the gold fabric.” So 10 minutes later, their tailor has the dress on the ground on top of a sheet and is patterning it out. In 3 hours we had a new version of that dress made out of the gold sequined chiffon (I made the belt!) ready to go.

That's just one example of how the whole day went. Every time we started clearing off the “to do” rack, someone else would come in with a pile of things “Jennifer likes this but wants the necklace attached, Jennifer wants this to be red, Jennifer likes the way that this fits, except tighter around the waist...” plus back up dancers coming in for fittings, plus all the costumes for the band. It was a busy day. I worked 11 hours and made almost as much in that one day as I make all week at The Producers. They paid me very well...

Interesting things:

Marc Anthony is a tiny little man. He has a 29 inch waist and a 29 inseam and he hates costume fittings with an uncontained passion. J. Lo was the only person who could get him into the fitting room. So most of the costumes he wore that night he had only tried on one time because he wouldn't come back to try them again after they had been altered.

There was a wet bar in the production office. A huge tub of ice and many different kinds of beer, a bottle of Patron tequila, a bottle of Ketel One vodka and a whole range of condiments like olives and limes to make margaritas or martinis or whatever, dozens of bottles of wine, etc. This is one of the differences between working a theatre gig and working in the music business...

And yes, J. Lo and Marc Anthony were both in the building by the time I left but I didn't see them. The closest I got was seeing Kirsten outside of J. Lo's dressing room. She had the gold dress we had just made in her hands and the security guy said “I'm sorry, Ms. Lopez isn't seeing anyone before the show.” Kirsten said “Oh, she'll see me!” and just marched into the room. I thought that was funny :)

Marianne gave Kirsten my contact info because she works a lot in the film/TV/music business. This J. Lo/Marc Anthony tour will be going for 6 weeks and they are hitting all the major cities – Vegas, LA, NYC, Miami etc. I would be a really fun tour to work, I think. Maybe next time, right??