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"  It was the first film I ever wanted to own. It was the love story that taught me everything I needed to know about never settling for anything less than a man who will untie your robe and slide you, lower back first, across a piano and smile lovingly as he watches you cry at your first opera. And it was the dialogue\u2014classic lines like, &amp;quot;If I forget to tell you later, I had a really nice time tonight&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;She rescues him right back&amp;quot;\u2014that would lace my conversations and pad my &amp;quot;Dear John&amp;quot; letters for, as of today, 20 years. On March 23, 1990, the romcom classic Pretty Woman premiered, clinching Richard Gere his third straight decade as one of Hollywood&amp;#039;s sexiest and most versatile leading men and established Julia Roberts as so much more than a shock of gorgeous hair and an ear-to-ear smile. The two of them, Gere, then 40, and Roberts, a very new 22 (who only took the role after several actresses, Molly Ringwald and Daryl Hannah, among them, passed), weren&amp;#039;t a likely couple, which, in the opening scenes of the film keep you from ever guessing their characters\u2014workaholic businessman Edward Lewis and wig-wearing working girl Vivian Ward\u2014would go on to serve as one of the most sustaining cinematic love stories in modern film history.  While it&amp;#039;s usually the case that we attribute a film&amp;#039;s success to its most visible contributors, with Pretty Woman (which, until just before its release was to be called 3,000, referring to the amount Edward would pay Vivian for her six days of companionship) there is a star beyond the actors, beyond director Garry Marshall, and even beyond that hippie stringbean at the end who shouts, &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s your dream? Everybody&amp;#039;s got a dream!&amp;quot; That person is veteran costume designer, Marilyn Vance.  The woman who took Vivian from thigh-high patent boots to a floor-sweeping, off-the-shoulder red gown, Vance, a Brooklyn native who now resides in Los Angeles, not only styled the clothing you see in Pretty Woman, she also designed, selected all fabrics, and took Haute Couture care of every outfit&amp;#039;s every single stitch. Aside from a pair of Chanel heels and the tie Vivian wears (with nothing else) to greet Edward with when he returns to the hotel after work, Vance and her team created every last one of the iconic fashion moments in the Oscar-nominated film.  Vance, who, last year received the Career Achievement award by the Costume Designers Guild for her 30 years in the business, began her career when she suited Phoebe Cates in the red Norma Kamali two-piece in Fast Times at Ridgmont High, gained momentum when she &amp;quot;literally forced&amp;quot; Molly Ringwald into the pink patchwork prom dress in Pretty in Pink, and reached fever pitch when she slipped Patrick Swayze into nothing but tight sweatpants and high-tops in the Tai Chi scene in your author&amp;#039;s second favorite film, Road House.  Quite simply, if it was a movie born in the `80s and `90s, and one you love more today than you did back then, Vance was likely the hands-on-deck designer. In an interview I&amp;#039;ve been waiting to conduct since I unwrapped my very first VHS copy of Pretty Woman on that Christmas morning back in 1990, Vance graciously fielded my many (many) questions and discusses, among other things, how &amp;quot;incredibly patient&amp;quot; Gere and Roberts were during their marathon of fittings, how one of the most famous red dresses in film history almost wasn&amp;#039;t red, and what might&amp;#039;ve happened to the polo match hat had she not been able to find enough brown and white polka-dot fabric.  Julia was so young when you worked with her on Pretty Woman. What was she like back then?  She was just so new back then. 21, 22-years-old, I think. She was so terrific to work with, and so patient. I can&amp;#039;t even tell you how patient she was\u2014fittings for hours, color tests for hours, and she never complained. Not once! Fittings for hours? Is that unusual?  These days it is. Unless you&amp;#039;re working on a period piece or something that requires a lot of original costuming because the theme of the film is very specific in a certain way, most of the time now, it&amp;#039;s all styling. For Pretty Woman and all the films I did back in the `80s and `90s, it wasn&amp;#039;t styling\u2014it was actual costuming. I designed and had made almost everything you see on-screen. My team and I did all of that! You designed the red opera dress?  Yes! And did you know that it almost wasn&amp;#039;t red? The studio really wanted black, but I knew it needed to be red. Before the decision was made, we ended up having to create three different dresses. We took every color, lit it, and shot her. Poor Julia had to sit for so many color test shots for that one dress. Finally, I was able to find the right shade and convince everyone to go my direction. Pretty Woman wouldn&amp;#039;t have been Pretty Woman had that dress been black\u2014what were they thinking?  (laughing) I knew what I was doing! And what&amp;#039;s so funny about that dress is that every year since its release, Western Costumes (the manufacturer that cut the pattern for the dress) gets multiple requests from men who send in their significant other&amp;#039;s measurements to have it recreated. They want to recreate the entire scenario! That is incredible. I knew women loved that film, but to have men get involved\u2014  \u2014What&amp;#039;s odd is that these men are almost always from Texas. Who knows why!  Are there any untold anecdotes behind any of the outfits?  My favorite has to do with the polo match dress. I found that polka-dot fabric when I was crawling around in the basement of Beverly Silks and Woolens. I had to beg to get in there, but I found it, and I just loved it! It was perfect. But the problem was, there wasn&amp;#039;t much left, and to make a dress like that, you don&amp;#039;t just need the amount that ends up in the dress, you need more. So, we were in a position where we had a choice: either we make the dress a ballerina-length, which was what I wanted to do, or we do it at the knee. If we did it ballerina-length, we&amp;#039;d go with Chanel flats; if we went knee-length, we&amp;#039;d do Chanel heels\u2014plus we&amp;#039;d have a little fabric left over for a hat.  What did Julia want?  She wanted to wear the heels, of course. Did the actors or Garry Marshall offer input, or did you pretty much have free reign to do what you want?  I was given a lot of freedom with this film, but there were a lot of voices, too. There were studio voices, Garry&amp;#039;s voice, and a few others. The great thing, though, is that they always listened to me\u2014they always let me plead my case if there was a disagreement. I never felt obligated to do something I didn&amp;#039;t believe in. What was an example of something one of these other `voices&amp;#039; added to the film?  Well, in that first outfit of Julia&amp;#039;s, she&amp;#039;s wearing on oversized tuxedo jacket. It&amp;#039;s sort of like a bandleader jacket. That was Garry. He wanted that from the beginning. He wanted Vivian to be wearing a jacket that looked like an ex-boyfriend&amp;#039;s. I&amp;#039;m still reeling from the revelation that you created every piece of clothing in the film. Even the opening outfit Julia wears\u2014the `hooker dress&amp;#039;? That wasn&amp;#039;t something you picked up at a seedy Hollywood Boulevard store?  Oh no! That dress, or the entire outfit, was one of my favorites. It was inspired by a bathing suit I had from the `60s. A different ring, of course, in the center, but no, I made that myself. The boots I did buy\u2014I had to order them from a store called NaNa in Chelsea, England.  And let me just say that I&amp;#039;m not surprised you&amp;#039;re surprised we designed these clothes. Today, designers are the big stars. Designers dress you like they want to, to make their clothes stand out. That&amp;#039;s important, and that&amp;#039;s beautiful, but costume designers create a character. There&amp;#039;s a big difference. How did you use clothing you designed to create the characters of Vivian and Edward?  I&amp;#039;m glad you ask about Richard&amp;#039;s character. All of his suits except for the tuxedo at the opera were made for him. He was meant to be this sleek, successful businessman, but none of the suits\u2014not even the material!\u2014here in the U.S. at that time was right for him. Everything was nubby and heavy, and for him, I really wanted something sleeker. I ended up going to the Cerruti factory in Biella for everything. Can you imagine that nowadays? The time it took to do all of that\u2014it would never happen. But it was worth it.  And for Vivian?  Her clothes really do tell a story. Those first four looks\u2014the `hooker&amp;#039; dress, the black cocktail dress, the polka-dot dress, and the white dress she wears out shopping\u2014totally shape her story. In the beginning, she&amp;#039;s wearing so much `stuff&amp;#039;: a jacket, those boots, the hat, it&amp;#039;s all very busy. In each successive look, you begin to see her take his `less is more&amp;#039; direction. By the end, she&amp;#039;s very simply put together\u2014pure sophistication. That&amp;#039;s so true. Near the end, when she sits with Laura San Giacomo (&amp;quot;Kit&amp;quot;) by the pool, you look at Kit with her busy jean jacket, flip-up sunglasses, and literally see what Vivian used to be compared to what she&amp;#039;s now become. And you buy it!  That was my whole goal. I&amp;#039;m so happy you said that. You really have seen this movie 100 times, haven&amp;#039;t you? When Vance isn&amp;#039;t spending every moment she can with her grandchildren, she is working on one of her many TV, film, and interior design projects. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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