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" Brad Armstrong and Jessica Drake don&amp;#039;t just produce, write, direct, and star in adult films for Wicked Pictures, they also design the costumes. Cosmopolitan.com&amp;#039;s Style Editor, Charles Manning, spoke on the phone with them about what it&amp;#039;s like designing costumes for films where actors spend most of their time more or less naked.  How did you get started in porn? Brad Armstrong: I was a male stripper putting myself through college for commercial advertising. I got into porn from there, first as a performer and then as director, writer, and producer, and now I&amp;#039;m on contract with Wicked Pictures. Jessica Drake: I was going to college in El Paso, Texas, and stripping. I did some magazine shoots out in California and fell in with a great group of people who worked in the porn industry. They took me onto the set of an adult film, and it was nothing like I thought it would be. Six months after that, I made my first movie. After a few years, I started writing [adult films], which turned into directing, and now I&amp;#039;m the creator and director of Jessica Drake&amp;#039;s Guide to Wicked Sex, which is an instructional line of sex ed movies. When did you start designing costumes for adult films? Brad: When I was stripping it was tough to find good costumes. I bought a sewing machine and made my own stuff, and everybody was like &amp;quot;Oh, that&amp;#039;s cool!&amp;quot; and it turned into kind of a lucrative business. I would make costumes during the day and dance at night, and I was making as much money from the costumes as from the dancing. When I started making movies, the things we wore were so embarrassing. I put some money together to make my own movie, Checkmate, and I made the costumes for that. The set was a giant chessboard and the actors were all chess pieces. Jessica: I was making a movie with Brad called The Collector. He took me to all the wardrobe places with him so I could try everything on, but then I was helping him choose things for other characters as well and from there I just started helping him out with stuff. I&amp;#039;m the assistant, though. He&amp;#039;s the visionary. What makes for a good porn costume? Brad: Easy in and out, for sure, but I also like clothes we can leave on during the sex, like a short skirt as opposed to pants, and a top with buttons as opposed to a pull-over. We especially need that easy access with period pieces \u2014 big, flowing gowns and stuff. No one-piece gowns, though. You need to be able to get the skirt off, but leave the bodice on to maintain the period-piece feel. Once everyone is naked, you lose the characters. Which celebrity do you think has the best wardrobe for porn? Jessica: Lady Gaga. Those shoes! I was a big fan of hers right before the music video for &amp;quot;Telephone&amp;quot; came out, and I was actually in that music video. I was pretty much enthralled with everything she did back then and it was a period where she hadn&amp;#039;t quite gone over the top with that meat dress.  Lady Gaga  What kind of budget are you guys working with? Brad: Smaller movies can be anywhere between $1,000 and $2,000 and the bigger ones, maybe around $5,000. Do you have any formal sewing or design training? Brad: Self-taught, pretty much.  Where do you get the clothes that you don&amp;#039;t make yourselves? Brad: We don&amp;#039;t have the budgets to go brand shopping and designers aren&amp;#039;t so eager to loan for adult films, but we shop in the fashion district in L.A. and we use the same costume houses as people in the TV and film industries. Do the costume houses know you&amp;#039;re using the clothes in adult films? Brad: I have one in particular, Western Costume, that&amp;#039;s been very good to me over the years. They are very receptive and courteous to us at Wicked Pictures, but not everyone is like that. What do you do with the costumes after you&amp;#039;re done? Brad: If we rented them, they get dry-cleaned and taken back to the costume houses. Do the dry cleaners know where the clothes are coming from? Brad: We have a cute little dry cleaner down the street that knows exactly who we are and has our 8x10&amp;#039;s are hanging on the wall of fame. Jessica: I would like to add that he signed his 8x10, &amp;quot;Thanks for getting the stains out.&amp;quot; Is staining an issue? Brad: For the most part, the clothes are off by the time there&amp;#039;s any staining going on, so we don&amp;#039;t have any Bill Clinton moments, Monica Lewinsky moments, depending on how you&amp;#039;re looking at it.  Do you have any pro tips to get semen stains out of clothes? Brad: It depends on what the garment is made out of. For the most part, I soak them and then scrub them with a toothbrush. An old toothbrush! I save all my old toothbrushes just for that. Jessica: I will run them through rinse or delicate cycle at home if there is the potential for disaster. I&amp;#039;ve thrown an entire business suit into a bag and put it through the delicate cycle. Then I take it straight to the dry cleaner the next day.  How to you plan your costumes? Jessica: I love Pinterest. Occasionally, for things I wear on the red carpet, I make a vision board. I make it a private board though, because I don&amp;#039;t want people scooping me. What designers inspire you? Brad: I am not so much a designer guy. I am more of a concept guy. Jessica: I like Alexander McQueen, but I don&amp;#039;t really follow any designers. What&amp;#039;s your favorite porn genre for costuming? Brad: Sci-fi. It&amp;#039;s always futuristic, but sometimes it&amp;#039;s high-tech and crisp, and other times it&amp;#039;s post-apocalyptic. Jessica: I like fantasy a lot.  What movie do you think shows your best work as a costumer? Jessica: Curse Eternal or Eternity Brad:  I&amp;#039;ve got to go with her with Eternity. It was a period piece. But some of the most extravagant costumes we made were for Fuck. It was kind of a history of sex, so it went from barbarians, to period old English, to sci-fi, and some of the pieces were really cool. We also did one of [the Indian goddess] Shiva, with all the arms. That was tricky.   Original sketches and costumes from Fuck. What&amp;#039;s the kinkiest costume you&amp;#039;ve ever made? Brad: In Underworld we had this Edward Scissorhands guy on stilts, so he was about 12 feet tall and the girl who was fellating him was rolling around in the metal thing with no legs. That was the most interesting of late.   Original sketches and costumes from Underworld. No Disney princesses? Brad: No, we kind of stay away from Disney for fear of lawsuits. Do the actors who work with you weigh in on the costumes or refuse to wear something? Brad: Not really. If they think they look fat or something, I just kind of talk them off the ledge and say &amp;quot;Trust me,&amp;quot; and usually it works out. I never had anybody go. &amp;quot;Oh my god! You made me look horrible!  Is there anything you think women can learn about dressing from adult films? Brad: Well it depends on which ones you watch. Some of the girls in films are in atrocious outfits and sometimes overly sexy isn&amp;#039;t sexy. Sometimes the subtly of an outfit is what makes it sexy. RELATED LINKS: How I Became A Porn Director This Is How You Watch Porn Follow Charles on Twitter.      Photo Credit: Getty Images, Brad Armstrong, Wicked Pictures     "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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