Friar Tuck Provides Formalwear for Awards Show Crew
For most formalwear retailers, February is the time to start thinking about prom season. For Friar Tuck, based in Anaheim, Calif., February means it’s time to start thinking about the lights, cameras and action of the awards show season.
This year, Friar Tuck has the job of outfitting the camera crews, stagehands and seat fillers for the 76th Annual Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Grammy Awards, the Golden Globes and the American Film Institute Awards.
Jeff Lemitzer, a regional manager with the 28-store chain, said there is nothing glamorous about this gig.
“We’re not the prestigious part of these award shows,” he said. “We’re the blue collar part of it.”
For the Academy Awards, Friar Tuck will set up a mobile tuxedo shop at the Renaissance Hotel near the Kodak Theatre, where Hollywood’s greatest honors will be bestowed.
Lemitzer and a five-person crew will suit the men and women working behind the stage and cameras with a basic tuxedo: a single-breasted coat, black bow tie and black cummerbund. The only variation to this uniform will be that the lighting crews will wear black shirts because white clothes reflect light.
Lemitzer has been working the awards show circuit since 1999, when Friar Tuck purchased Tuxedo Warehouse, the West Los Angeles formalwear store that had been servicing many of the awards shows. Lemitzer said inheriting the awards show work was part of the deal in buying the Tuxedo Warehouse store.
Awards shows make up less than 1 percent of Friar Tuck’s business, Lemitzer said. More than 20 percent of sales come from the thousands of high school proms across the Southland, and another large portion comes from weddings.
“If it wasn’t for prom season, we would have to drastically change the way we do business,” Lemitzer said. “The awards shows get our name out there. After the Academy Awards are over, we take a half day off and get ready for the proms.”
—Andrew Asch
