Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1542297
who are Local 705—we're very protective of our people. We're very protective of our costume houses. We want those pieces to come back. We want to be able to reuse them. We know that these costume houses need business, and they need the money coming through there, so we get that part of it. Then we also are fighting stylists who come in, and they also love to keep things for their personal stock, and they L&D (Loss & Damage) everything. Not only are we fighting these productions not wanting to hire us, we're also fighting to protect the stock within the costume houses so we have stuff to pull. KS: On one of my shows, my fellow Shopper and I spent a lot of time and money buying and having belts made that were the correct width for this period that nobody really has anymore, because they've been used to death. At the end of the show, the production company wanted to just liquidate whatever we had le aer we got rid of our rentals and we said no. We bought this stuff specifically with the purpose that it would go back into the costume houses and we would be able to pull it again on other shows, because we need it. We filter things out to get into the costume house so that we can still have that stock to pull, we are really protective of them. On that show in particular, normally a Supervisor won't keep a Shopper on for wrap, but it was really helpful to them because we could remember exactly where we pulled something, what paperwork that might be on. We also know implicitly what costume houses don't have, what they want, and what's gonna be valuable. TR: I've been able to stay on through entire wraps just to do the trades because we have a unique knowledge of what they will accept. A lot of times on wrap, you get Costumers who had never even worked on the show starting wrap, and they don't know where this stuff came from. They can't find it. "Oh, that's in so and so's closet. It got pulled for background, so go check that rack." AE: As happy as I am to see all those people who run the costume houses, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, I think they're also happy when they see me. They know that I'm going to take care of this all the way to the end. What are challenges Costumers face working as a Shopper? TR: One of the biggest challenges that I have is that these shows don't understand, especially with the period shows, contemporary as well, is that they seem to think that everything is on Amazon and it's same-day delivery. There's no 1892 store on Amazon. There's definitely things that you can cheat and we've all done our fair share of cheating period stuff, but they don't want to give the time that it takes to hunt these pieces down and you can't just order it and stores are not on demand. Our biggest challenge right now is having the time to get the pieces or have the time to make the pieces or have the time to look for the fabric. They just think that everything can be ordered online. Now with the California tax incentives, it has to be purchased in California. So, if it's not in the store, they don't want to order online because now they don't get the tax credit if it's ordered online, but they don't want to give the time to go shop it. Well, you can't just buy everything in LA, you have to go outside of LA to purchase the stuff. Now, because most of the stores have closed, you have to go outside of LA. Personally, I live in Orange County, so there's a lot of times that I have to convince them to let me go down to Orange County because I know those stores have it because other Shoppers aren't going to Orange County. KS: The time frame and especially how long things take, it's very unrealistic. I don't think that a lot of the production companies, the people heading these shows, you can tell that they're more inexperienced people. This isn't like the people who have been making movies since the '70s. They just don't care. A lot of times, the Costume Department, we know this, in all aspects of the Costume Department, we just always make it work. We kill ourselves to make it work. Before, we were geing actual fully staffed Costume Departments, and then the strikes happened, and now we have not been able to get that back. It's even harder, and you can't be in four places at one time. AE: It's like the Stockholm syndrome that we'll just take on the challenge. But it's not a challenge we should be rising to. We need to advocate for ourselves. TR: That's kind of how I became this "pack and shipper" Costumer—it was the last writers' strike in 2008 where we were geing all of these shows going out of town. We had tons of them and I re-shied what I was doing, and started just packing and shipping stuff from California, and it was no big deal, but with those state's tax incentives having thrown in a huge curveball, because everything has to come from that state. On top of that, now they just don't even want to pay the labor. I can't fight the fact that they don't want to pay our wages. Now you have places like Dubai that have this 100% tax incentive, and they will pay you extra to pull stuff from here, ship stuff from here, and leave it there. They want to pay the L&D, because they're building their own houses. KS: On a shop and ship show, it could be like four to six weeks, a good chunk of time that you're working. Now it's like, maybe a week. I'll have several weeks, and then all of a sudden, maybe a week or two, and they'll say, "We can't afford you anymore," 34 SPRING 2026