Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542297
this venture. Owner and Motion Picture Costumer Natalia Gaini tells us that this business is the result of a lifetime of growing up in a pro-labor family and a workplace head injury. Gaini is a proud daughter of Chilean immigrants who have deep-seated roots in organized labor. "My father's mother, my grandmother, Olga, she was the President of the teachers' union, she was a school principal, and she would spend every weekend checking in on all the teachers, making sure that all of the demands were being met that they had requested. And she would take my dad along with her, and he thought it was so boring until he started to see how much she was able to help everyone, just by paying aention and talking. On my mother's side, my grandfather, Tito, was a labor organizer, and he unionized the railroad in Valparaíso and he worked for the railroad his entire life." From a young age, Gaini learned sewing skills, making curtains and hand sewing. "My interest in garments goes generations back, on both sides of my family. We've always been Tailors, and sometimes it skips a generation. My dad was an engineer, but now he also works with me at the studio, and he's the one who taught me how to sew." Carlos Zuniga, Gaini's father, was one of her first employees. She had gone to university for animation and computer science but when she watched her roommate make her own clothes and she herself had sewn lile creatures to inspire her animation projects, she leaned more into sewing and threw herself into making things. "It was like discovering a secret that I had, that I could just do this and I had always been able to, but it just felt really powerful to have that kind of making skill. I've just learned from experience." When Natalia moved to Los Angeles, she started in red carpet alterations and commercials. "I went from not knowing what Local 705 was to being able to join the union a year later. Because when I get a goal in my head, I just tend to really go for the gold. But I got a job on a commercial by mistake as a Key Costumer, and I did so well." The production company agreed and hired her repeatedly to work on their next several projects. "I think I did 10 commercials in a row or something, where, unfortunately, I was so green that I was doing everything. I was shopping, I was on set, I was doing the alterations, and I was building stuff too. So, it was a really big wake-up call, that even though you know your position is protected by a California Union Made Paerns By Erin Wenrick L Last winter, California Paerns celebrated its fih anniversary with a party hosting Costumers and clientele alike, bringing the costume community together to congratulate the signatory workroom on its growth as a business and to thank those who had supported 46 SPRING 2026