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Wherever we find, like, this orange. That isn’t just a piece of ribbon or anything. That’s actually about five pieces of orange thread, woven together on the sewing machine, and then sewn right into the fabric. So it’s sort of like we’re weaving it in. And then you see the purple -- it’s two rows. See, it’s the purple and orange.

And placing just where that goes, you see, was tricky. Because the other side you see…

FF:  Yes, look at that.

William Ivey Long:  ... see it’s just green fabric. And we put all that into it. And, there’s that fabric, but we popped it by putting that yellow…

FF:  Right -- oh that’s great.

William Ivey Long:  ... see on top of it. And there we were, for hours and hours, days and days putting the yarn -- I can’t call it yarn, it’s thread. I’ll say yarn. The yarn over the fabric to try to get the stripes and balance them out. So we did little mini collage constructions in the fitting room with the lights aimed right at the fabric.

And then we rejected – as I said, I made some mistaken fabric choices, which ended up I think going to somebody’s quilt collection. But that’s not bad. I think, from two hundred suits to have three that just were not up to the level -- it was very clear that they didn’t work. And we took them right out.

FF:  When did you discuss with Jerry Zaks and Tony Walton that you had decided to go really bright and really bold?

William Ivey Long: Well, this is how it really happens. You don’t discuss "how I’ve decided." You try to, and listen to my -- to my tense -- verb tense -- you try to get everything they’re thinking. Because you want it to be supportive of the world that the director and set designer have created.

And so, I try to get as much information out of them as possible. And I even did a shot before these mug shots. I think it’s bitten the dust. But this would be the first one. These were all tracings of the illustrations from Damon Runyon’s books.

And this is how I started playing. This is Tony’s set. So to answer your question, I took the set -- you see I kept it all carefully covered up so it wouldn’t get coffee all over it. And I didn’t draw on it. I mean it’s just a color Xerox. But still I was respectful of the color Xerox.

And I picked these colors. There’s a warm range and there’s a blue -- and I was just playing.

And then I started with this sort of thing, see: Nathan Lane, because that was Nathan Detroit and Faith Prince, Miss Adelaide. See Sky Masterson. So you’re really seeing the first step. It’s almost as if I knew you were going to ask this question.

Faith Prince and Nathan Lane

Peter Gallagher

And then, here we go. And there they are; there’s Peter and his mockup, and there’s Nathan. You’ve been to fittings. That’s the interfacing showing.

FF:  And the fabrics, were they made or did you just search and search and put together ...

William Ivey Long:  The fabrics were all made. I found maybe this one right here, which I did not put the thread on. But here, you see, green fabric, and you see we put the yellow and black -- it’s shadowed with the black stripe. But the -- the ones that I found were few and far between.

FF:  Wow.

William Ivey Long: And look at the beautiful suit making. So when I say Vincent made these like proper suits, that was truly the secret. They weren’t jokes. They were made like proper tailoring. You know, nothing was a joke. And these white suits were breathtaking. But there -- there -- see that’s a -- there’s that. So that’s sort of like -- almost like the real person.

FF:  Businessmen’s suit, right.

William Ivey Long:  See, businessmen’s suit. You see.

FF:  And then it pops.

William Ivey Long:  But then you do that to it and it’s Guys and Dolls. See, there it is.

FF:  Fabulous.

William Ivey Long:  Yeah. And then the shoes go together.

FF:  The shoes are just gorgeous.