The Advocate

November 27, 1986

By Bonnie Barber

Michael Kaplan, the costume designer who inspired a national craze with the ripped, off-the-shoulder, sweatshirts he created for Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, is now lending his eye for fashion to Tough Guys Don't Dance.

The former art director for a Philadelphia publishing company has worked on about a dozen films since he made a career switch to costume designing several years ago.  Among these films are Blade Runner, Against All Odds, Perfect, and Clue.

A graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, where he studied drawing and sculpture, Kaplan utilized his drawing skills after abandoning publishing and moving to Los Angeles.

While deciding what he wanted to do in his new locale, Kaplan worked as a sketch artist for costume designers.  "It occurred to me that it was something I was really good at," he said.  "So I decided that I should do it for myself."

He got his first break working as an assistant designer and sketch artist on the Sonny and Cher Show.  "That was an incredible experience that early on," Kaplan said of his days as an assistant to Bob Mackie's co-designer.  While Mackie designed Cher's glamorous and often revealing dresses, Kaplan helped design clothes for the show's guests.

After a year on Sonny and Cher, he moved on to films where he could have more of an impact helping to "create a character."  He worked on Thank God It's Friday, Donna Summer's disco vehicle, and several television movies-of-the-week.

Kaplan also got a break through one of his designer friends, and became Bette Midler's costume designer for one of her night club tours.  He also later designed costumes for her world tour. One of the dresses he designed for Midler, a dalmatian print dress, created quite a stir in the fashion world.

But it was the costumes he designed for Flashdance that really made the fashion world sit up and take notice.  He was even offered a contract to design his own line of Flashdance clothes for the general public.  But Kaplan was interested in movies and creating alluring characters through his clothing, not dresssing America's Flashdance wanna-be's.

"Flashdance got a lot of notoriety," he said.  "But I don't feel it's my best work."

Kaplan feels his best work is on display in Blade Runner and last year's Clue.  Blade Runner, which preceded Flashdance by a few years, won a British Academy Award for Kaplan's futuristic costumes.

"They were the most challenging because I had the opportunity to design everything,"  Kaplan said of the two films. "One was set in the future, and one was set in the past."

His most recent work was creating the "look" for the pilot of Michael Mann's newest NBC-TV show, Crime Story.  Then it was time to quikcly prepare for Tough Guys Don't Dance.  Most of the prepartion work was centered in New York, as Kaplan had some costumes made, purchased others, rented some from costume houses, and used a few outfits from his personal collection.

He also flew out to Los Angeles to do fittings with Ryan O'Neal (Timothy Madden) and Debra Sandlund (Patty Lareine).

As the film's costume designer, Kaplan chooses the fabric for the costumes and designs the costumes that have to be made.  Most of these costumes are then made in costume shops in New York.  However, the police uniform and jacket that Wings Hauser wears as Chief Regency were made in Boston.

While Kaplan was able to find appropriate clothing for the majority of the cast, John Bedford-Lloyd (Meeks Wardley Hilby III) proved somewhat of a problem. Kaplan had to have most of Bedford-Lloyd's clothes made, such as the white linen suit he is seen wearing most often during filming. 
"It was hard to find clothes in his size (44 extra-long),) Kaplan said.

Kaplan was attracted to working on Tough Guys Don't Dance because of Norman Mailer's involvement with the project.

"I've been offered a lot of commercial things that often have little or no redeeming qualities other than that people think they will make lots of money," Kaplan said.

"I'm working on something literatre and gutsy for a change.  And I like dealing witih developed characters as Norman's written them."

During the course of getting the costumes together for the film's characters, Kaplan has received a lot of input from Mailer.  "Norman has a definite idea of what's right and wrong since he's been living with these characters as the person who conceived them," Kaplan said.

"I always give Norman my opinions on how things will photograph and whether they're appropriate," he said.

"Norman's very open to the people he has chosen to be around him. But he's also sure of what he doesn't want."

One of the things that Kaplan has found helpful in doing his job in Provincetown is the cooperation he has received from local merchants.

"The merchants in town have been wonderful," he said, allowing him to take out clothing and jewelry on approval.

While Kaplan added that he's found a lot of the clothing and accessories he's needed here in town, a few items just aren't available locally.
It's hard to find Patty Lareine's wealthy-looking clothes in the small boutiques here," Kaplan said.

What's next for this talent young designer once he departs Provincetown in a couple of weeks?  Kaplan is still uncertain, faced with making a decision between two film offers and one "large commercial."