La Femme Nikita
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FF: How do you go shopping?
Laurie Drew: I mostly have it brought to me.
 (By Harry Zernike) |
I can’t seem to get out of the office as much as I used to. And I thought that as the series progressed I would get into a nice groove, and that would give me more free time, but it doesn’t seem to have worked that way. It’s really demanding still. So I’ve got two mean shoppers who go out and pull in anything that’s out there on the racks that is looking like it might have a potential here.
 Anita above, and below, Chuck, are the main shoppers (by Harry Zernike) |
 (by Harry Zernike) |
They’ll bring it in to me, and we have really good close relationships with a lot of the boutiques and stores in town. And you know, we pull stuff in from them, and take a look at it or show it to Peta or the other actors, and then return what we don’t use. And then they also are always scouting for fabrics and elements that might be interesting, right? And then bring some of that stuff in and oh, we can make such and such out of this you know.
 Natasha (by Harry Zernike) |
So that’s how we kind of keep it going.
We’re all pretty hands on, and we’ve got like an amazing department actually. If we had more people then we might be stumbling all over each other. I mean we all work really, really hard, probably too hard. But, I don’t know.
 (by Harry Zernike) |
FF: It’s a crack team, right?
Laurie Drew: We’re sick individuals.
FF: I understand that Peta comes to New York often and goes shopping, and on these trips she picks up things possibly to wear on the show, or for herself. What places does she visit? Does she visit stores or does she go up to ateliers?
Laurie Drew: She has been invited to a lot of ateliers actually, and there have been a lot of people interested in working with the show; but it’s funny because we work so fast that to call, say, Gianfranco Ferre and say, oh, can we have that great coat? By the time it gets through Customs and all that stuff it’s like, it’s a pain. And we’ve all been struggling, them on their end, we on our end, you know trying to get this working. But it’s just like logistically it’s a nightmare.
And you know Pete’s not a sample size necessarily either, because she’s a bigger gal, right?
FF: Right, right.
Laurie Drew: So we can’t always use samples, and oh, just getting the stock in, and it’s all kind of seasonally...it’s really been hard for us. I think if we were located down in New York doing the show down there we could nick over and grab stuff and it would be much easier. But this way it’s very difficult.
FF: And how tall is Peta?
Laurie Drew: She’s five ten.
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FF: And when she shops for herself, what designers does she favor?
Laurie Drew: She goes in and out, and it just depends on who’s doing what. As we know, you could love a designer one season and the next season you’re going ...
FF: For sure ...
Laurie Drew: ... what? But pretty consistently Dolce & Gabbana’s pretty fabulous, and she likes sort of the more sophisticated couture houses. I think she’s really partial to the French couture as well. And she wears it really interestingly. Like she’ll wear it offbeat kind of.
FF: Cool.
Laurie Drew: She’s not all sort of ladylike in those terms. She’s got a completely different energy. But she can certainly wear clothes, and it’s kind of interesting to see her put stuff together. You know, she’ll put it all together in a way that would probably have people freaking out. But she pulls it off.
FF: So she has a real fashion sense herself.
Laurie Drew: Oh boy, does she ever. She has an amazing eye.
 (by Marni Grossman) |
FF: Wonderful. And when you say she favors the French couture houses, what others? Is it like Galliano or ...
Laurie Drew: No, not Galliano because he’s so out there right now. More Givenchy and Balenciaga and those ...
FF: Oh great ...
Laurie Drew: But you know the really good cuts like Mugler and those people who are really strong, she can wear that stuff.
 (by Firooz Zahedi) |
FF: And what is your--both of you--what is your interest in vintage clothing?
Laurie Drew: Used to, although it’s not as important at the moment. You know like maybe in ten minutes it will be, but like right now it’s…I mean the thing is when you’re poor and you know you really need to sort of pull a look together, you know vintage can often be a great refuge.
FF: It sure can.
Laurie Drew: If you know, if you have an eye, because God knows, if you’ve got that quality in something made today it would cost you a fortune, right?
FF: Yeah, and sometimes you can’t even find it.
Laurie Drew: Exactly, you know. So that’s a great thing about vintage. But we’d used a lot of vintage in the first season, less in the second and none in now.
 (by Jeff Katz) |
FF: Because here it’s gone crazy in Manhattan for...
Laurie Drew: Oh has it?
FF: ... for some reason. And of course also the very, very high end stuff that they auction off at the various auction houses. But it’s very big with the very rich Park Avenue ladies, as well as people who can find…you know, there are places in Chinatown that are great resources for very, very inexpensive but good quality vintage clothing. So it’s interesting that that’s sort of taken off here.