Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541330
mantis stiltwalker costumes for music artist SZA's Grand National Tour and she brought in Specialty Costumer and stilt walker Bre Horn for their knowledge in building costumes for stilts. "Designers come to us when they cannot find what they are looking for anywhere. Perhaps the costume has to do something odd (like explode or rip off or turn into something else, for instance), we figure it out. We have done everything from beautiful couture work for Colleen Atwood to walk-about characters and circus stilt walkers, larger-than-life superheroes, tiny miniature stars, amazing clothes for amazing artists, leather/foam/3D armor and just about everything in between." Oentimes, designers will bring last minute projects that they trust MavenCra to do in lile to no time, sometimes overnight, for commercials, live events and talk shows. This year, the live Netflix talk show Everybody's in LA aired an episode around the MET Gala and the writers wanted a (MLB) Mets Gala look for Richard Kind to wear the next day, OrtMeier tells the designer "Okay, bring me some fabric ASAP. Bring me some baseball gloves" and overnight they whipped out a MET Gala Mets structured cape to work the next evening that matched Kind's three-piece suit. MavenCra is oen hired on to build costumes for commercials as they can keep up with the fast pace and last- minute decisions made by the clientele. "Almost everything we do is because someone reaches out, because they're in a bind, they're in panic because they need something weird, or they just need something fast." DesRosiers brought work to MavenCra recently through a Paramount+ commercial, starring Sir Patrick Stewart where they created a leatherhead football uniform to wear in two days. OrtMeier says that for the wool long sleeve football jersey, the designer found the wool and "we boiled it down so it had that nubby, weird, old looking feeling. Then we custom-made that jersey for him, and we augmented some other things for the costume, but he was thrilled. He said that our costume was more comfortable than his Star Trek costumes." She adds, "Again, that was with no time—commercials seem to just never have enough time to do stuff." The commercial world has many weird things dreamed up that just don't exist until they are made and MavenCra oen gets zany projects. "There are times that we finished the gig and it's up on a mannequin, and we're just laughing because we're just like, 'Oh, my God, this is so ridiculous.' And then you see it on a commercial, and you're like, 'wow, that is as ridiculous as we thought it was going to be.'" MavenCra has come to the aid of large budget features and television shows as well. For one project, Babylon, designed by Mary Zophres, the workroom recreated the pink "Singing in the Rain" raincoats from the Hollywood Revue of 1929. The designer "had been looking for something that looked like that vintage kind of thing that that emulated what the original was. She found these shower curtains at the dollar store for $1 each, and she got hundreds of them, so it was like a couple 100 bucks for that. She had plastic shower curtain sheets dyed, and that's what we used to make the period rain caps and the lile raincoats for the men and women for that entire scene." The MavenCra team built 50 to 60 raincoat sets for the background and principals in an assembly line and OrtMeier recalls "we were all just laughing because we were making these coats out of shower curtains." Like many workrooms, OrtMeier hires additional fabricators and stitchers to work on large projects when she has the work and when MavenCra organized under Local 705, OrtMeier was able to help several Costumers earn their qualifying days. "My recruitment process is simple—I ask 705 members I know and whose work I trust for recommendations. People they have personally worked with and trust and are great to work with. There have been members unknown to me reaching out to me for work in the last couple of years who I'd love to be able to hire, but unfortunately, I have not yet had the chance to employ more than my usual trusted talents." Despite the industry's slowdown, MavenCra does not offer services to the public. "We exist to serve the entertainment community. However, there are a few instances when we work on personal projects for production clients as a courtesy to them because they trust our work enough to entrust their own items to us. We feel honored to do so." If your production needs a costume that most people will think is crazy, OrtMeier says, "our specialty is problem solving. I feel it's what makes us unique. We don't say no until we are absolutely certain the answer is no." MavenCra is an IATSE union workroom. For more information, visit the website hps://mavencrastudios.com Designed overnight, Richard Kind wears the MLB Mets structured cape for the MET Gala episode on Everybody's in LA on Netflix. 36 WINTER 2025