Writers’ Strike Made Retailers Say ‘Cut!’ : The Long Walkout Had a Ripple Effect on Related Firms

There was a joke circulating through fashion circles during the television writers’ strike. It went like this: “You ought to go shopping at the Beverly Center. You can actually find a parking space.”

If shoppers have had an easier time navigating the city’s specialty stores this summer, the writers’ strike has had more than a little to do with it. Although Larry Beerman, the Beverly Center’s general manager, reported that sales figures are up about 5% from last year, he hastened to add that tourism accounts for much of that percentage increase. Other reports from around town seem to dissipate Beerman’s comparatively upbeat news.

“Stores that depend on TV series for sales are really hurting,” asserted Nolan Miller, resident costume designer for Aaron Spelling Productions and one who moves in the higher retail circles of Beverly Hills. A longtime member of the Spelling team, Miller also knows about the production company’s fashion-buying habits.

“We spend $200,000 or $300,000 a year, divided between two or three major stores,” he said. “And everybody else goes to the same places.” By everybody he means wardrobers for Columbia Pictures, Lorimar Studios, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox and a handful of other studios where TV series are produced. Normally, this time of year each one spends thousands of dollars a week on clothes, for a grand total in the hundred-thousands-of-dollars range. So far this year, they say, they haven’t spent a cent.

“Typically, we spend from $15,000 to $20,000 per show, per week,” said Eilish Zebrasky, who oversees costumes for Spelling’s nighttime TV series, including “Heart Beat” and “Hotel.”

Warner Brothers TV wardrobe director Jules Melillo said he spends several thousand dollars per week for each of eight to 10 shows, among them “Growing Pains” and “Head of the Class.” Now, Melillo said, “compared to what we would be spending we’re 100% off.”

All the costume department heads interviewed for this story said they would have been spending liberally starting as long ago as last May. But Richard Egan of Lorimar said at his studio as at the others, “There’s been no shopping whatsoever.” Egan oversees fashion for 10 TV series, including “Dallas,” “Knots Landing” and “Falcon Crest.”

The local stores where he has not been shopping lately cover a broad range, from high-end specialty shops and exclusive boutiques to budget chains. But they haven’t seen him or his staff since well before the writers’ strike began. Earlier they were on hiatus.

At Paramount Pictures, where “Cheers” and “Family Ties” are among the eight TV shows that should be in production now, costume department head Bob Harris pointed out that retail outlets and other fashion-related business affected by the strike include dry cleaners and fabric shops that he and his staff frequent, as well as specialty stores.

Like other wardrobe department heads, he was concerned about his staff of assistants, most of whom have been out of work for months. He usually employs up to 45 people. This week he was down to two.

Columbia’s Grady Hunt said talented young costumers are getting out of the business because they now see it as too unstable. His wardrobe assistant recently left town and shifted her career to computer science.

Among other side effects of the strike, Zebrasky noted, “people like me who are in the business aren’t shopping for ourselves the way we usually would.” She often buys personal items when she’s in stores looking for wardrobe, she said, but it has been weeks since she has been shopping at all.

Noticeably Absent

“It’s killing business, sales are off 40%,” one Beverly Hills beauty expert admitted. She asked not to be identified, but said her client list is heavily weighted with writers, actresses and producers she hasn’t seen in weeks. Some would normally keep three or four appointments a week at her salon--women for makeup, men for eyelash tints, and everyone for manicures--on their way to business lunches. But these days, she says, they aren’t going to business lunches.

Both Saks and Neiman-Marcus do such a brisk trade with Hollywood that they have “studio service” suites, staffed with a trained sales force that caters to Hollywood’s particular fashion needs.

In adjusting to the drop in spending, Neiman-Marcus Beverly Hills vice president and store manager John Martens said: “We did go through a bump initially, but our people sought out other avenues.”

At Saks Fifth Avenue, where Bobbie Aiona oversees studio services, daytime soap operas as well as TV and print commercials account for most of the business right now. Ordinarily, her brisk sales are in costumes for nighttime series.

Aiona reported that overall, the volume of sales at Saks is up from a year ago. But this summer the store has been noticeably quieter. She blames it on the strike’s trickle-down effect. Hollywood friends, including actresses and writers as well as wardrobers, tell her they’ve had to rearrange priorities, she said. “If you’ve got house payments, car payments, kids in college, you can’t put shopping first.”

As for the good news, “business will go up like a mushroom cloud” once people go back to work, predicted Harris at Lorimar. He believes spending by studios will be frenetic when the rush is on to get shows into production.

But, Harris cautioned, the shopping squads won’t be out in full force for about six weeks. He figures it will take that long before he sees the first of the new scripts.