![]() Occasionally, crew members who ended up with items from a show will decide to resell them on eBay, but that’s pretty rare. These online auction forums are really the only opportunity for people who don’t work in the business to purchase costumes and props. Photo: Artyom Korotayev\TASS via Getty Images Sometimes studios will sell things through auction houses and companies that specialize in selling old movie clothes and props, such as It’s a Wrap or Prop Store, both in Los Angeles.Ī woman in the wardrobe department at Mosfilm Studios in Russia. Shelton calls this “Shopping from the return rack.” “But,” she says, “It gets tricky when you have say, five black skirts by Theory: which of the black skirts was it, and did you get into those details? Probably not!.” It’s also possible to have items purchased for one character and then nabbed for another character when there is last-minute casting or something that would work in the right size for the other character. Shelton explains that it’s not unusual for the design team to remember something that was a “contender” for a look, but was later sent back. But, more often than not, they are not marked as such on the list. The initial asset list the studio sends out often has a large number of items listed that were later returned. She tells me that one of the “trickiest things” is that so many items are purchased, then returned if not used. “An extraordinary amount of time is spent tracking down and ID’ing things.” I ask Shelton if she could explain the extensive item tracking that is done in pretty much every wardrobe department. I try to get production to donate the unestablished (pieces not seen on camera) and non-asset items to places where the clothing can go to people in need. “Unless you’re doing an incredibly low-budget job where they cannot afford storage, most studios want everything featured back and sometimes have auditors on the case. “An extraordinary amount of time is spent tracking down and ID’ing things,” Liz Shelton, another experienced ACD in New York, tells me. These departments usually implement their own tagging systems so that during wrap it’s easier to find all the assets (accounting generates a list which needs to be checked off, with the location of every piece notated). Accounting departments keep track and mark things above a certain value (usually $100) as an asset, which means they need to know where it is at the end of a shoot. They often have a parent company, such as HBO, Sony, or ABC, but each show operates within its own budget, and so each show is responsible for each individual piece of clothing. Shows are typically set up as limited liability companies that are specific to that show only. The thing most people don’t realize is that everything that is bought in every department is recorded. Photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images Tables of shoes during a post-movie prop sale. Principal actor clothing is kept in their permanent “closets.” Even if an item is never worn again on the show, it stays, because you never know when a random flashback scene might appear in a script. Everything is catalogued and recorded from season to season. Television shows rarely get rid off anything until the show is cancelled. When HBO’s Vinyl wasn’t renewed for another season, a lot of the clothes went to The Deuce. Studios will also occasionally roll over stock from one show to another. Some of the big studios, like Disney and Warner Brothers, have their own rental house businesses, so everything gets filtered into those. Everything is held until all edits are complete and the time for reshoots is past. Most studios have the policy that no asset can be sold, promised, or given by anyone but the executive producers. “Other than that, we have a fire sale, typically only for the crew, at the end to sell as much as we can, same as we do with props and set dressing.” “Several actors have it in their contracts that they get the pick of their wardrobe,” he says. Still, producer Michael Flannigan tells me that sometimes, costumes are gifted to cast members. Costume departments don’t really have any say on what happens to the clothes it’s ultimately up to the producers and the studio (HBO, Sony, etc.). They have accounting departments and detailed asset tracking. The answers aren’t as exciting as people want them to be, mainly because television shows and movies are businesses. One of the most common questions people ask me is, “Where do all the costumes end up? Do you get to keep them?” I’ve worked in film and television costume departments for about 25 years. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here. The archives will remain available here for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years.
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