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      Velvet, Organza and Vipers: Stage Costumes Dazzle

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      Here is what you can’t see from the rear mezzanine of a theater: the flocked velvet, the ruby-like rhinestones, the layered fabrics that shape a lush rosette atop each dance pump. This is the Red Death costume from the “Masquerade” number in “The Phantom of the Opera.” A carnival of flocked velvet and gold braid, it integrates art and craft, glamour and kitsch, fantasy and hand-sewn reality.Red Death awaits you on the lower level of “Showstoppers! Spectacular Costumes From Stage and Screen,” a pop-up exhibition to benefit the recently formed Costume Industry Coalition, an alliance of over 50 New York City-based small businesses and independent artisans.A costume from “Wicked” that involves hundreds of yards of ombré-dyed organza ribbon.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesOn Broadway, even in the best seats, an orchestra pit separates you from the finery. At “Showstoppers!,” which runs through Sept. 26 in a former Modell’s branch in Times Square, you can stand close enough to make out individual threads.When theaters went dark last year because of the pandemic, costume fabricators had to close up shop, too. Designers are the visible faces of this industry — they’re the ones who collect the Tony Awards, though not during the broadcast portions of the ceremony. But while they dream up the costumes, it is the fabricators — the tailors and seamstresses and embroiderers and weavers and beaders and pleaters and painters and milliners and glovers and cobblers — who actually build them.This gown from Heartbeat Opera’s “Dragus Maximus” features 3-D printed vipers.An Rong Xu for The New York Times“We create the three-dimensional moving piece of art,” Brian Blythe, one of the exhibition’s organizers, said. Many of the pieces are couture items, built on the bodies of individual performers and retired when those actors leave a show.“Showstoppers!” displays 100-odd costumes, as well as a handful of the tools used to make them, like millinery blocks and a 19th-century crewel machine from the embroiderers Penn & Fletcher.Even the boots in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” were designed to sparkle.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesThe exhibition was put together in three and a half months, and its lighting, sound and design (from Thinc Design) were provided at cost or gratis. So it feels inevitably ad hoc. The Broadway and opera displays put their custom-shod feet forward; the film, television, theme park and dance portions hang back. The selection reflects less a dedication vision, and more what could be begged, borrowed or briskly replicated.But what’s more theatrical than a let’s-put-on-a-show ethos?Replica costumes from the musical “Six,” which was set to open on the day Broadway shut down last year.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesThe Red Death costume, center, from “The Phantom of the Opera.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesNot every garment benefits from close study. Some need the alchemy of star power and stage lighting to shine. Still, each testifies to the men and women (mostly women), who have patiently attached every ribbon and rhinestone. A handful of these craftspeople will be on site, plying their spangled trades during opening hours. Here are 10 highlights from the show.‘The Cher Show’“The Cher Show” apportioned its heroine’s life among three actresses, referred to in the biomusical as Babe, Star and Lady. The exhibition includes the costumes for all three of them in the number “If I Could Turn Back Time,” a slinky triptych of velvet, rhinestones and boots. When Cher came to see the Broadway show, she reminded the designer Bob Mackie that she hadn’t actually worn the glamorous bat wings that crown the display. “You would have if I’d drawn them,” he told her.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesAn Rong Xu for The New York TimesAn Rong Xu for The New York Times‘Six’A few steps away huddle replicas of the outfits for “Six,” a pop musical about the six wives of Henry VIII that was originally set to open the day Broadway shut down. The Tudor-inspired minidresses are built from plastics, vinyl and the occasional Swarovski crystal. They gesture to the 16th-century — the lattice patterning, the corsetry — but also the likes of contemporary stars such as Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande. Thousands of metal studs, some so sharp they could cut you, adorn the outfits. Each boasts a personalized mic holster.An Rong Xu for The New York Times‘Aladdin’One of the exhibition’s displays pays tribute to Disney’s Broadway dominance. (“Frozen” announced its closure during the pandemic, but “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” will soon reopen.) Up close, the “Aladdin” costumes offer astonishing intricacies, like the beaded birds and flowering vines that meander up and down Aladdin’s turquoise robe. The delicate embroidery on Jasmine’s pink skirts may be difficult to discern without a close-up look, but see how it contrasts with the unapologetic opulence of her top.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesAn Rong Xu for The New York TimesAn Rong Xu for The New York Times‘The Lion King’Perhaps the most memorable element of “The Lion King” is its life-size animal heads, designed by the director Julie Taymor and the mask and puppet designer Michael Curry. (The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has acquired two of them for its theater and performance collection.) But “Showstopper!” shows the complexity of subtler costumes. Take the grasslands corset: Strands of rope form a skirt below. Above, cloth blades are loomed, by hand, into more rope to create a bodice at once enduring and delicate.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesAn Rong Xu for The New York Times‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical’Diamonds are forever. Ostrich feather boas are not. In the Sparkling Diamond look from “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” the courtesan Satine perches in a swing in a strapless gown, a top hat, high-heeled boots and a necklace that could strain the cervical vertebrae. There are diamanté rhinestones in a firework pattern on the heart-shaped bodice, individual gems sewn to the stockings. Even the boots’ heels sparkle. In a nod to Satine’s vulnerability, the skirt — made of ostrich feathers and mylar tinsel — softens her look’s diamond hardness.An Rong Xu for The New York Times‘Wicked’During the “One Short Day” number from “Wicked,” the school-age witches Glinda and Elphaba arrive in the Emerald City, off to see the wizard. The verdant costume for just one townswoman involves 900 yards of ombré-dyed organza ribbon. (It gives the effect of an ordinary day dress overrun with lettuce.) The dress’s skirt has a kick pleat, and if you glance beneath it, you’ll find five layers of underskirt, three of them meticulously embroidered, just in case the performer lifts her dancing shoe.An Rong Xu for The New York Times‘Hamilton’When Paul Tazewell was designing the costumes for “Hamilton,” the musical’s creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, told him that Hamilton’s suit ought to be green. Not just any green, but the color of money. (Pity the costume assistant who had to visit the city’s fabric stores, clutching a 10-dollar bill.) The final outfit is ultimately more lush than cash, and it yields other surprises, too: like the feminine lace at each cuff, and the waterfall ruff that encircles the neck.An Rong Xu for The New York TimesWing + Weft GlovesSome of the gloves from Wing + Weft, the last glove-maker in the garment district, have built-in claws. Others are sequined, feathered, fringed, beaded, buttoned, ruched and pearled. The studio designs for theater, film and television, and (along with its immediate predecessor, Lacrasia Gloves) have also gloved a dozen first ladies. But many of the most splendid creations seen here are for drag and burlesque — gloves designed to be worn and then, finger by finger, flirtatiously removed.An Rong Xu for The New York Times‘Phantom of the Opera’The Phantom’s Red Death outfit is so top-heavy, it’s surprising that it hasn’t caused actors to fall down the stairs in “Masquerade.” There’s the feather-bedecked cavalier hat, the skull mask, the beads, rubies, buttons, trim and sofa’s worth of tassels that pull together the stomacher, a Renaissance-era decorated panel. Turn your back on that outfits, and you will find designs from another archetypical scene — Christine’s white nightgown and the Phantom’s black cape from “The Music of the Night.”‘Dragus Maximus’An Rong Xu for The New York TimesTake one look at Medusa, and you’ll turn to stone. That won’t happen at “Showstoppers!,” but when you see this mannequin dressed in the Medusa costume from Heartbeat Opera’s “Dragus Maximus,” a queer take on the Homeric myths, you might stop cold. The gown is wreathed in vipers, each of them 3-D printed at the behest of the designer Miodrag Guberinic. Compared with the other looks on view, it’s has a less artisanal approach, but it’s no less intricate or exciting. And it hints at fabrication’s future.Showstoppers! Spectacular Costumes From Stage and ScreenThrough Sept. 26 at 234 West 42nd Street; showstoppersnyc.com. More

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      How to Undress Someone Quickly

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      Don’t start frantically grabbing at someone’s garments; trust is key. Let the person you’re disrobing do some of the work. “Wear kneepads, there’s lots of kneeling involved,” says Lacie Bonanni, 36, who works as a so-called dresser, a theatrical worker who helps actors into and out of their costumes. Bonanni got her start on Broadway 11 years ago on a show called “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” which involved stripping off a multitude of skintight bodysuits. Although Bonanni’s husband occasionally jokes about her taking people’s clothes off for a living, her skills don’t necessarily translate outside the theater, where the focus of undressing is never singularly speed and where sometimes fumbling is part of the fun. During a show, it’s not uncommon that a complete costume change, including mask and shoes, needs to happen in less than 30 seconds.Let the person you’re disrobing do some of the work. Bonanni tends to go for the bottom half of the body and lets the actor undress up top. At first, you both might stumble, reach for the same garment simultaneously, bump heads even. You’ll get faster as you become more familiar with clothing and bodies. By the time a show opens, costume changes should feel like a choreographed dance.Undressing happens mostly in a theater’s darkened wings and backstage. “Wear a headlight,” says Bonanni, who learned the craft from her mother, a longtime dresser on shows like “Rent” and “Fiddler on the Roof.” Costumes get what wardrobe people call “quick rigged,” which mostly means replacing buttons with Velcro. Some garb is unavoidably time-consuming. “A corset is the thing you’re dreading,” Bonanni says. Once you’ve got a person’s clothing off, toss it into a basket to be sorted and cleaned later. Unless, of course, you’re required to put the same outfit back on, as Bonanni had to do repeatedly for the musical “Groundhog Day.” In that case, keep it organized and lay it out in such a way so that the sweat can dry. Backstage is often hectic and crowded; don’t start frantically grabbing at someone’s garments or you’ll exacerbate their nervousness and discomfort. The person needs to trust you. “You want them to feel like they’re in a safe space,” Bonanni says. More

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      That ‘Ziwe’ Look

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      On her new Showtime series, Ziwe Fumudoh’s feminine-with-a-wink style enables her sharp comedy.In the first episode of her new variety series on Showtime, the comedian Ziwe Fumudoh asks the writer Fran Lebowitz: “What bothers you more: slow walkers or racism?”“This character is hyperbolic,” Ms. Fumudoh said a few days before the premiere of “Ziwe.” “It’s only hyperbole that somebody would ask that question. And you see that reflected in how I dress.”Ms. Fumudoh was explaining how the wardrobe for the series came together: a tornado of pink that has sucked up a few feather boas, a mountain of crystal embellishments and an assortment of fuzzy hats, plastic visors, tiny sunglasses and opera gloves. When the costume designer Pamela Shepard-Hill would add a ring to an outfit, Ms. Fumudoh would ask for six more, “and then let’s do a cuff that’s entirely made of diamonds,” she said.On “Ziwe,” whether during a confrontational interview or parody music video, Ms. Fumudoh plays an audacious, quick-witted consumerist, whose attitude and armor is inspired by an unholy marriage of Dionne from “Clueless” and Paris Hilton in “The Simple Life,” along with a few other ultrafeminine pop culture figures of the 1990s and aughts. (In a sketch about plastic surgery, she wears matching pink sweatpants and a sleeveless crop top, wordlessly making a reference to Amy Poehler’s desperate mom from “Mean Girls.”)As a comedian who became famous for making people uncomfortable with questions about race and class, Ms. Fumudoh, 29, uses fashion like a weapon, creating an air of innocence with her Delia’s catalog looks, then slicing through it with the sharp heel of a Barbie stiletto.She is also an exceptionally physical performer, writhing and jumping through her musical numbers, whether channeling a jazzy “Chicago” siren or a girl-group member, circa 1999. Extensive legs-in-the-air choreography had to be taken into consideration when planning her ensembles, Ms. Shepard-Hill said.Ms. Fumudoh, in a LaQuan Smith catsuit, rose to prominence on Instagram Live, wearing equally bold outfits and makeup.Greg Endries/Showtime“We would have fittings, and I would be like, ‘OK, do your choreography,’” she said. “Then instantly: ‘That’s inappropriate. Take that off. That’s actually not OK for Showtime.”For the music videos in particular, hyperbolic Ziwe borrows from the real Ziwe’s closet. In a song called “Stop Being Poor” (a joke, in Episode 3, about people who believe being poor is a choice), Ms. Fumudoh wears a skintight all-crystal minidress by Aidan Euan of Akna.“How absurd is it to have a dress that luxurious in a time like this?” she said. “It so encapsulates the idea of ‘Stop Being Poor’ that I got it for ‘Stop Being Poor’ before we even wrote the song ‘Stop Being Poor,’ when I just knew that it was something I wanted to do.”In the 1920s-inspired number “Lisa Called the Cops on Black People,” she wears her own off-the-shoulder black velvet-and-mesh catsuit by LaQuan Smith.When putting together a mood board for the show, Ms. Shepard-Hill included iconic — a favorite “Ziwe” adjective — models like Donyale Luna and Naomi Campbell, as well as rappers like Rico Nasty and Saweetie. She included Josephine Baker, the music-hall star and World War II spy, too.“It was a real range of women that span time but are all iconic in their visuals, iconic in their style and sensibility,” said Ms. Shepard Hill, 37, who is also a stylist and instructor at Parsons School of Design.But in creating her wardrobe, Ms. Fumudoh was also thinking about the white comedians who dominate late-night TV and how to portray herself as the opposite of the suit-wearing men she calls “Jimmy, Jimmy, John, John,” whose wood-heavy sets are “really, really masculine — all blues and blacks and sharp images.”Ms. Fumudoh credits “Legally Blonde,” Rihanna and Lindsay Lohan (among others) as influences on her character’s style.Greg Endries/Showtime“If all of late night is painted with masculinity, my show is hyper-feminine,” she said. “I wear a lot of sparkles. You would never have seen John Oliver in a choker.“When I was growing up, and especially when I first started in media, the idea was to downplay your femininity. If a woman wants to be taken seriously, she wears glasses and pants and she talks with a lower voice like she works for Theranos.”On the wall of the set where Ms. Fumudoh conducts her interviews, there’s a large photo of a young Oprah Winfrey, who deeply influenced “Ziwe,” Ms. Fumudoh said. The Meghan Markle and Prince Harry interview was broadcast the night before the team began cutting the show, and the drama of it “really shaped the way we framed every episode.” It’s not a stretch to imagine Ziwe delivering the same scene-stealing “silent or silenced” line.There’s something else about the plastered photo of Ms. Winfrey that feels tied to “Ziwe”: In it, she’s wearing pink and pearls. Early in her career, Ms. Winfrey found a way to ask tough questions while communicating her femininity.In the first episode of “Ziwe,” when Ms. Fumudoh sits across from Ms. Lebowitz, Ms. Fumudoh wears a short black blazer dress with electric pink lapels, and her own thigh-high chunky-heel leather boots. It’s not a designer piece; it’s available at AD Los Angeles for $149.Despite the opulent aesthetic of “Ziwe,” the costume budget was somewhat limited, in part because it’s a new show, Ms. Shepard-Hill said. The dream, if there’s a second season? “A whole in-house team, where everything could be custom-built from head to toe,” she said.The blazer dress outfit was originally intended for a sketch in which Ziwe, channeling a billionaire Marilyn Monroe acolyte, announces her candidacy for New York City mayor. (“Gone are the days of old white men abusing the office of the mayor to do crooked favors for their ugly friends. Because I don’t have any friends, and I only do favors for myself.”)But Ms. Fumudoh felt strongly about wearing it for the first episode instead, using it to set that subversive anti-late-night host tone for the series.“That pink lapel is such a splash accent that it really captures what the show is,” she said. “All the outfits are telling a story in, like, 19 different ways, beyond the actual text that we write and say.” More

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      Back in the Girdle Again: Getting Fitted After a Year Untouched

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      Confessions of an actress seeking reassurance — and sleeves — as she steps before a live concert audience again.The actress and singer Melissa Errico returns to the fitting room for the first time since March 2020. Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesHere I am, back at the confessional at last. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been 13 months since my last visit to you. The father-confessor, to whom I am looking for absolution, is Eric Winterling, one of the great Broadway costume makers, and my confession is that (whisper it!) the pandemic had been unkind to my arms. To be specific, my upper arm in the rear, with a strange new pocket of femininity developing just to the interior of my elbow, on both sides.I had to confess this news because that is what actors do when we are in a costume fitting. For a show, we want to make an impression, and that means we have to deal with our bodies, and we need someone to whom we can tell the truth.A lovely fitter named Rita zips me into a dress and adjusts my undergarments. The pandemic has been filled with women writing about their bra drawers and what they don’t need; a woman actor has an additional secret drawer filled with Spanx and other strange, confining underwear, some almost medical, with fiercely strong zippers.The dress needed to say femme fatale — betrayal! cruelty! jazz! — while, of course, covering the arms.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesThat morning I had ransacked mine for the first time in forever. “Back in the girdle again,” I hummed to myself. I turned to Rita as I struggled into one, and said I hoped her day was going well. She said simply, “You are the first actor I have seen in a year.”Eric slipped into the room, turned me to the mirror and laid his hands on my hips — the first time that had happened in a long time, too. We stared at me in three-sided reflection, and I asked, meekly, if I was now a singer who required sleeves.His task was to find, or create, a dress in which I could sing an evening of film noir-inspired songs — many, dauntingly, in French — to a limited in-person audience on May 6 for the French Institute Alliance Francaise. It will be the first time I have sung in front of living people since March 2020. Four cameras will be present, for those watching virtually, making it a concert in the round, so to speak.Eric Winterling, one of the great Broadway costume makers, created a dress of his own after several Donna Karans were rejected.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesThe dress needed to say femme fatale — betrayal! cruelty! jazz! — while, of course, covering my arms. No stranger to creating costumes for ripening actresses, Eric projected confidence that the vintage improves in a tightfitting bottle. I tried to trust him.Intimacy, humor and humiliation hung in the air as we quickly tested a series of sleek Donna Karan gowns he had assembled, all of which were wrong on me in various, dreadful ways. Then he spoke decisively. “It would just be easier if I made you a whole new dress,” he said, adding benevolently, “Angela Bassett ruined everything with her toned arms.”A Psychic EncounterOf all the intimacies of an actor’s life, none is as intimate as that with the costume fitter; he is your confessor and also, sometimes, your co-conspirator.As a child growing up in a suburb of Philadelphia, Eric spoke sewing the way a violin prodigy speaks music. He watched his mother and used his paper route money at age 9 to buy dress patterns.“The dress is made in the fitting room,” he says, quoting the designer Jane Greenwood.Landon Nordeman for The New York Times“I have three brothers — they were very athletic,” he tells me. “One day, I realized that in the back of the pattern books in the fabric stores, they had stuffed animal patterns and Barbie dress patterns. And that was it. I was off to the races.” His first triumph was an orange gingham stuffed dog that he made from a store-bought Simplicity pattern.Eric studied costume design at Temple University, and after three years working as resident costumer of the Houston Grand Opera, he moved to New York in 1987, taking a job at Terilynn Costumes. When they closed, Eric decided to start his own costume-making business, though he was only 29.“I’m rarely the designer, as a matter of fact,” he explains. “I decided a long time ago that I’m much better at interpreting designer sketches than designing myself. And so, I thought that what I could do sewing was much more useful for the world.”Before the pandemic, as many as 15 shows were being worked on at once in Eric’s shop.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesEric’s light-filled Flatiron district fitting room has French doors that open out to 8,200 square feet of industrial space, with 38 sewing machines and 18 cutting tables, while hundreds of yards of rolled fabric lie on shelves like sacred scrolls. If he is my confessor and the studio his cathedral, the fitting room is the mirrored apse where the very essence of his craft takes place.“The dress is made in the fitting room,” Eric tells me, quoting the designer Jane Greenwood, with whom he has often worked, and whom I first met when she designed (and he made) the costumes for the Broadway musical “High Society.” (Just over my shoulder, on the back wall, hangs a framed, and fading, sketch of me as Tracy Lord in my — her! — wedding gown.)The fitting room itself has to be just so: “This room is 400 square feet, and not just a corner of the room with a curtain on it. You have to really have people be comfortable in it.” Eric long ago installed stage lighting on the ceiling.The final product is bosomy without being modern, the neckline inspired by Jane Greer’s in the 1947 noir film “Out of the Past.”Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesAnd he understands that a costume fitting is a psychic encounter as much as a physical one. “You have to listen to people,” he says. “What the person who’s wearing the costume sees with her eyes, you have to make the match through the process of a fitting. You have to switch each other’s glasses to just see what they’re seeing.”Struggling to Stay OpenBefore the pandemic, as many as 15 shows were being worked on at once in Eric’s shop. His atelier created Elphaba’s witchy dress for “Wicked” (designed by Susan Hilferty) and the blue velvet harem ensemble for the Genie in “Aladdin” (designed by Gregg Barnes). He solved the challenge of the breakaway costume for Elsa as she belts “Let It Go” in “Frozen.”Nearly 50 full-time employees were working in Eric’s studio, hailing from the Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Thailand, Japan, the Czech Republic and Russia, among other places. Now, though, he is working with only a third of his usual team.He’s been active with the new Costume Industry Coalition, which raises awareness of how hard hit this sector has been. Last summer, he struggled even to keep his shop open.“I spent a lot of time last May, June, driving things around to people’s homes, like this ice dress,” he says of a beaded number, intended for a Tokyo production of “Frozen.” “It had to be hand-painted over here, and then it had to go over there to be beaded, then it had to go to New Jersey to be made.”Eric understands that a costume fitting is a psychic encounter as much as a physical one. “You have to listen to people,” he says.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesHis staff was working and sewing from home, and he lent his studio to organizations making P.P.E.; instead of magical dresses, they made protective gowns. And television work, including HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” replaced the theater.I sensed that one reason Eric was pleased to make me a dress was because he saw it as an offering to the Gods of the Balcony: If I go on making dresses, the singing will come back.Sleeves Again!At my second fitting a week later, a black sequined gown was placed on my body. I stepped into it, and Rita guided my voluptuous elbows into two tunnels of sparkling masquerade. Sleeves!She zipped me into a near-finished, brand-new dress and sat on the floor to stare at the hemline while Eric came in to get a look. The look was bosomy without being modern, the neckline inspired by Jane Greer’s in the 1947 noir film “Out of the Past.” While describing a Parisian bead-and-sequin shop he loves called Fried Frères, Eric tended to my arms and pinched the fabric, experimenting with taking it in, or shortening the sleeves.After 14 months of Lululemons and T-shirts, I had a real costume on my body. It felt wonderful to be in a slinky, sinuous gown with a flirtatious satin sash. I felt like a candy box.Inspiration for a noir-era costume and cabaret show.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesI’m no stranger to doing cabaret jobs in rented gowns — there is an app for slightly-used dresses for gently-worn actresses — so this feeling was precious. Eric and I looked at each other. The costumer-confessor and actress-penitent were in a state of hope. He, because sewing is what he does; she, because despite all the agonies, singing is what she does. That’s the irony of the actor’s life: The costume frees us from the insecurities that the need for a costume creates. It’s the actor’s version of infinity — a new look, a new role, a new possibility.More practically, I suggested he could tighten the waist.“There is no need,” he reminded me. “You have to sing. You have a lot to do in this dress. It’s fine as it is.” I wiggled my hips, with a few bars of “Put the Blame on Mame.” Eric let out an audible sigh. He moved to the back of the room and turned off the lights. Then he flipped the switch, and the ceiling’s stage lights burst into a warm glow.“There’s the magic,” he said. I was dressed.Melissa Errico is an actress and singer. “Mystery,” her new concert, is Thursday at 7 p.m. at Florence Gould Hall in Manhattan; stream at fiaf.org. More