Built for the Back Row, Stitched Like Couture: Inside Showstoppers!

From the mezzanine, a stage costume is a flash of color. From six inches away, it is an engineering project. That gap, between what an audience sees and what a team of artisans built, was the whole point of Showstoppers!, a 2021 exhibit that put the machinery on display.

• Showstoppers! opened August 5, 2021 at 234 West 42nd Street with over 100 costumes in a 20,000-square-foot, two-level space ^[1].
• Elphaba’s Wicked skirt took about 40 yards of fabric and, per the exhibit, 40 to 60 hours for one person to stitch ^[2].
• The Six costume shop hand-applied 18,000 studs across the exhibited mini dresses ^[2].
• Live stations for dressmaking, millinery, crafting and embroidery let visitors watch the work being done ^[2].

A shop floor in Times Square

The exhibit opened on August 5, 2021, in the former Modell’s flagship at 234 West 42nd Street, filling 20,000 square feet across two levels with more than 100 costumes ^[1]. The lineup mixed theater with screen: Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, The Lion King, Phantom of the Opera and Frozen, alongside television’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the Bond film No Time to Die ^[1]. It was organized by the Costume Industry Coalition, a group of independent costume businesses and artisans, and ran through September 26 ^[1][2].

The numbers behind the sparkle

The exhibit’s labels put real quantities on the work. Elphaba’s skirt in Wicked required roughly 40 yards of fabric, pieced together from multiple materials, and took “40-60 hours for one person to stitch” ^[2]. For Six, the costume shop hand-applied 18,000 studs across the exhibited mini dresses ^[2]. And The Lion King, designed by Julie Taymor, drew on shells, grass, bamboo, feathers, beads, rope and quilted suede across 300 puppets built by Tim Lucas and Mike Grimm ^[2].

Those are not luxury-fashion numbers. They are the daily arithmetic of a show that has to look extraordinary and survive eight performances a week.

What else was on view

The show was organized by the Costume Industry Coalition, which launched in 2020 and includes 56 independent businesses and artisans; the sector was reported to have lost $26 million in revenue the previous year ^[2]. The listed run was August 11 to September 26, 2021 at 234 West 42nd Street, with proceeds supporting the coalition’s recovery fund ^[2]. Named productions included The Phantom of the Opera, with 280 costumes needing 14 dressers; Aladdin, where the exhibit cited 1,125 different fabrics and 712 types of beading, with 1,428 Swarovski crystals per pair of trousers; Hamilton, with a Thomas Jefferson coat finished with exactingly bound buttonholes; and The Lion King, with 300 puppets ^[2].

The human detail is the best part. The costume designer Catherine Zuber is quoted saying “The time it takes for a costume is usually the time there is,” and the specialist Polly Kinney is reported to have spent ten hours a day for five months beading a single costume ^[2]. The exhibit was mounted in three months, and four staffed stations let visitors watch dressmaking, millinery, crafting and embroidery ^[2]. Numbers like these explain why a costume that looks simple from row Z can represent weeks of work.

Craft, with an audience

Four live stations staffed by working artisans, covering dressmaking and tailoring, millinery, crafting and embroidery, let visitors ask how a thing is made while it was being made ^[2]. Standing at a table while someone sets a bead by hand explains the price of a ticket better than any program note.

It also reframes what theater merchandise is. A shirt with a logo is a souvenir of the show. A costume is the show’s skeleton, and this exhibit let the public look at the bones.

Questions readers ask

What was the Showstoppers! exhibit?

A 2021 exhibit of over 100 Broadway, television and film costumes at 234 West 42nd Street, organized by the Costume Industry Coalition and open from August 5 to September 26 ^[1][2].

How long does a Broadway costume take to make?

One piece in the exhibit, Elphaba’s skirt from Wicked, took about 40 to 60 hours for one person to stitch ^[2].