Marco Morante, or Marco Marco as he and his design house are known, may not be as household of a name as Shakira or Katy Perry. But if there was any justice, he would be–he’s the man behind the outfits that have made Nicki, Fergie and Ke$ha constant style phenoms. Marco has designed and engineered some of the most iconic costumes of concert stage and magazine editorial of the decade, and it looks like he’s just gotten started. In his spare time, he also does wedding dresses and beautiful watercolors. I got to talk to Marco just before his tonsillectomy (ouch!) about what it’s like to work with some of the biggest personalities in music, his days of designing for low-budget theater and the brand new underwear line he’s got in the works. And while you read, make sure you listen to Marco’s amazing designing playlist!
I hear you’re going in for surgery tomorrow?
I am! I’m scared.
Oh, don’t be scared, you’ll be okay! It’s not so bad. I mean, it is horrible, but you’ll be fine.
(laughs) I’m just concerned about, like, I’m going to see my phone ring, and want to answer it, and I’m not going to be able to talk.
That’s like an awful nightmare.
Yeah, totally.
So are you working on anything right now that you’re kind of trying to wrap up?
Yeah, I mean, I’m just trying to let it go. You know, I’m not allowed to drink water or eat or smoke cigarettes, so it was a little too much for me to handle. So I just had to go home and prepare, just be comfortable and not think of anything too much. But we’re working on a bunch of projects this weekend and I just have to lay my trust in my team. I’m sure they’re going to do just fine without me for a couple of days.
I’m sure you’ve trained them well! So you work with a team—what do they do?
Well, I have my assistants and then all the people that work in the studio, there’s probably about 6 to 10 of us at any time. We do a lot of projects at once, so we have different people who do different things. We have beaders and patternmakers and seamstresses and we all kind of work together on every project to make sure everything gets done in a short amount of time.
What’s the turnover rate like for you guys? How long do you usually have to finish a project?
It totally varies. I got a dress for a wedding reception that she came in for the meeting and it’s in a year and I couldn’t believe it. Then there’s these totally elaborate superhero costumes and we’ll have a week. We get a lot of projects where it’s a Thursday and they need it by Monday, that happens all the time. It can be a very, very quick process. We’ve had a lot of people come in this week and we’ve had to make a bunch of pieces. You know, they came in at 11 and you need to ship by 4. So we have that little window to just throw it together.
At what point did you know you were going to be a designer?
Well, it’s what I went to school for, so I guess when I started going to school. I wanted to paint and when went to Cal Arts and they suggested I look in to costuming, something in the way I was drawing. And it turned out to be something I really liked so it just stuck with me. And my grandparents were seamstresses as well so I guess it runs in the family.
Do you have a favorite costume designer?
Oh gosh there’s so many. But I guess who inspired me a lot when I was younger was Erté. My mom used to collect these little statues from this Spanish sculptor, and they were women in these dancing dresses, kind of long, flowy, very graceful porcelain women and I always liked those a lot when I was a kid. So that’s probably where a lot of the fascination with clothes started.
The seed was planted early. Would you ever think about doing a runway collection or a Ready-to-Wear line?
Sure, I mean, that sounds like a lot of fun. I’ve always tried to maximize the amount of impact I could make at the level I was at. It didn’t make sense for me to try to do a runway show when I wasn’t able to produce the runway show that I would want to. So that’s where it became specialized, because piece by piece I could live a little larger. I always found with fashion design you’re always cutting yourself down to fit in to a budget or make something producible, and I didn’t necessarily want to make anything producible. But that’s not to say that I won’t. All in good time, no rush.
So what’s it like working with people like Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry? They seem like larger than life people; is it a collaborative process?
Well, I mean I think they are a little larger than life. They have big personalities and they have big ideas and they’re not afraid to dream big and that’s part of why they’re so renowned. But it’s totally a collaborative process. I work with stylists always, and they’re contributing ideas, and they’re mitigating ideas between what they might think and what I might think. We go in to fittings and things start to change—a piece that we thought might be long, now it’s short, or we loved it before you put the skirt on. It’s always a living document before it’s been shot or put on the page.
So what’s your favorite piece that you’ve ever done?
I don’t know, I think they all have a special place because they’re all very different. They’re all really different materials and processes so it’s hard to say. It’s like saying “Do you like pizza or Chinese?” They’re so different. But I think if I had to choose, when I first came to L.A. I got to do the costumes for a musical called Annie Rexic and it was really very large, larger than life. All of these costumes that we made were giant and vulgar and we didn’t have any money and it was put together with anything we could find and it felt very visceral. It was the most fun I’ve ever had working on something.
Are there any musicals you would love to do the costumes for now?
Oh, one with a budget I guess. (laughs) I did the low budget kind and loved it and I’d love to see the other end of it as well.
The next Cats maybe? What’s the most difficult project you’ve ever taken on?
We did a lot of costumes with the Black Eyed Peas when they did their final tour, and we went through a lot of different versions of the show. There were so many dancers and so many numbers that it wound up being about 95 looks just for the dancers. And then the band, and that’s before you even get to the Peas. So when we changed one look or wanted to change one color or something, 20 costumes had to change. So that was really challenging. But it was a lot of fun too because it was a really collaborative project again with the stylists and the artists. The Peas are really involved in what they wear, and there were the creative directors and there was so much input and everybody was really working hard to get the best possible project. And that was a long tour, it was a process that took a really long time and everybody learned a lot I think. It turned out really beautifully in the end. I’ve never felt that I’ve made anything that I didn’t like. You learn from everything.
Is there anybody that you would really love to work with that you haven’t gotten the chance to yet?
I mean, I love working with new people. I love building long-term relationships, but it’s also great when someone new comes in and it’s a whole new body and a new aesthetic and maybe new colors or a new style of music. And that’s always fun because you get to explore a new part of yourself. Like, this week I feel really rock and roll and next week I’m going to try and feel country. I like how it’s very random and whoever comes in the door I get to work with.
Are they any costumes that you wished you designed? Any iconic ones that are favorites for you?
I’m really happy with the stuff that we have. I love very costumed movies and I love looking at them. And sometimes I pull inspiration from them, but it’s not like I look at them and say “Oh, I could have done it better.” Nothing like that. Some people have done really wonderful things that I wouldn’t have, and I wouldn’t want to take any of them.
What’s next?
We’re still doing a lot of tours and music videos, we’re always making new custom pieces for different artists and I love that part of our job. We’re also getting in to some underwear. We’re trying to do a men’s underwear line, which is fun because it’s totally the opposite of what we do. So that’s been really refreshing.
What’s the underwear going to be like, without giving too much away?
It’s definitely going to be colorful but it’s going to be more evening oriented. A lot of men’s underwear tends to be very bright, and for me they’re like day time colors. So we’re gonna do more darker, muted, sophisticated but still colorful underwear with different kinds of fabric treatments and nice elastic bands. It’s something that we’re new to and every sample that comes in we’re learning more about it. There’s a lot of little nooks and crannies you don’t really think about.
Literally.
(laughs) But we’re having a lot of fun doing it. And it’s totally different from a gown or a leather body suit.
