Three weeks ago I was contacted by a retailer. They had a photoshoot planned for this week with one of their vendors, but that vendor had abruptly and unexpectedly pulled out of their stores leaving them with nobody to dress the model. Three weeks is tough when we haven't yet fit the person, but is doable. Then they dropped a bomb on me. Two, actually.
Retailer-He's a basketball player- he's 6"11".
Me-Yikes. So how soon can I see him to measure him up?
Retailer- Actually, you can't. He's in Senegal until the day before the shoot. But our vendor already made a suit for him, maybe they can get you the specs.
In a highly unusual move, the vendor, who is our competitor, helped me out with specs.
"But wait", retailer said. "We made tons of alterations to that suit so you had better speak with the stylist to see if he remembers what we did". Which he did, sort of. He told me what he thought they had done, but wasn't entirely sure. What they wanted was very close-fitting, and as you get closer to the body, you have that much less room for error- it's easier to fit a mitten than a glove.
So I took the initial specs, spoke with the stylist, then looked at a bunch of photos of the basketball player online, and made a guess. A very risky guess. What happens if I get there for the shoot and what we made doesn't fit? I was sweating bullets.
The day of the shoot, we had our first fitting, which was being filmed by the retailer (no pressure!) There were, as expected, issues to be fixed. And since their tailors were all very busy, I ended up on a sewing machine doing the alterations (not my favorite thing in the world to do). I didn't have time to fix everything I wanted to, but I think we saved the shoot.
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