Armenia Dazzles Hollywood
Behind a faded storefront on the eastern fringes of Hollywood, the seamstresses of Silvia’s Costumes sing as they sew, much as their ancestors in Yerevan did a thousand years ago.
Their metier is fine detail work--the hand beading, embroidery and stitching that adorns some of the fashion industry’s most extravagant garments. They craft one-of-a-kind designs for a Bob Mackie gown or a jacket by designer Bill Whitten that will fetch thousands of dollars in a boutique across town.
Each of the 40 women employed in Silvia Tchakmakjian’s workshop is an Armenian immigrant. Many of them fled their homeland by way of Paris, Beirut or Damascus. Inside, Sylvia’s employees cut fabric, pin hems, bead and sequin by hand or hunch over sewing machines. The most experienced beaders teach the newcomers.
But this is no sweatshop. There are skylights, track lighting, a parquet wood floor and an air conditioner that blasts on a muggy autumn day. Beaders make about $5 an hour, but Silvia says her most skilled employees--the cutters, fitters and designers--can make up to $18 an hour.
Shelves are lined with huge skeins of thread in fuchsia, azure, marigold, Kelly green and every other color of the rainbow. A vase filled with fresh roses sits on a workbench. A huge poster of Armenia’s president, Levon Ter-Petrossyan, beams down on his Diaspora like a benevolent Big Brother. A steady murmur of Armenian fills the air. Everyone tunes in to Armenian cable TV and radio.
“In Armenia, until recently, there wasn’t anything in the stores,” Tchakmakjian muses. “You couldn’t buy materials from Hong Kong, from Taiwan, from China. So everyone learned how to do beautiful work at home. They became very handy.”
Garment cutter Hasmik Yalenian, who has been at Silvia’s Costumes for six years, is typical of the employees. She learned her trade in Damascus while apprenticed to an Italian designer. Fourteen years ago, she came to America, where she honed her fashion skills with classes at Glendale College and Los Angeles Trade Tech.
“It’s like a family business. We all work as a team,” Yalenian says. And sometimes they eat together. Yalenian is known for the pastries she brings in, especially an Armenian delicacy called nazouk made of flour, vanilla, sugar and butter. As she chats with a visitor, scissors in hand, her daughter Arpie, 6, wanders into the workroom, wearing a red plaid uniform from the nearby Rose and Alex Pilibo Armenian School.
“Everyone has a talent here,” says Yalenian. “One sings, one reads fortunes in coffee grounds, some eat.”
“You can write that Bella here married someone 16 years younger,” teases Tchakmakjian, looking at Bella Kmbikian.
It is a running joke in the workroom, and Kmbikian, whose husband is actually six years younger than she is, takes it good-naturedly. With four children and eight grandchildren, she’s too busy to worry about it.
Despite a fairly steady level of nighttime crime, the workers here consider the neighborhood--the shop is on Hollywood Boulevard between Western and Vermont--to be safe. One of the tailors and one of the beaders lives in an apartment behind the workshop. Almost everyone walks to work.
Indeed, this neighborhood is Little Yerevan. Within two blocks, patrons can buy dried figs at Michael’s Armenian Grocery, baklava at Ara’s Pastry and shish kebab at Caroussel Restaurant. They can worship at the nearby Armenian church and send their children to the Armenian School down the street.
In the mornings, Silvia’s employees fortify themselves with black Turkish coffee sipped out of demitasse cups. At lunchtime they open brown bags bursting with Armenian delicacies.
Job openings are rare; many of Tchakmakjian’s employees have been with her for years. When a job does come up, Tchakmakjian doesn’t advertise, she merely puts the word out on the Armenian grapevine.
One recent day, two Hollywood costume designers checking on progress of costumes for this fall’s “Circus of the Stars” TV special agreed.
“It’s very difficult to find this quality of work in Los Angeles,” said Jim Gadd, an assistant to designer Pete Menefee, examining the black and gold sequins stitched into a leopard-skin print dress that actress Sally Kirkland will wear on the show.
The finished garments hang crisply on racks in the workshop. Tchakmakjian pulls out a sample: a denim jacket decorated in a sequined sunburst pattern above which the word “Mackie” is written in gold embroidery. She says each jacket takes 10 hours of handwork.
“She’s quite unique,” says Mackie, who has worked with Tchakmakjian for about 10 years. “She understands the way I like things, the quality that I like. She’s turned out millions of things for me over over the years,” Mackie says, exaggerating perhaps just a little.
Another rack holds Bill Whitten jumpsuits so encrusted with beads that they feel like a heavy bag of groceries. The solid beadwork takes 120 hours--or three weeks for each outfit.
Tchakmakjian learned patience at an early age. As a child in Yerevan, she often helped her mother, a seamstress who made custom shirts. When she emigrated to America 25 years ago, Tchakmakjian took jobs at a bank, in real estate, “anything but this business,” she says.
But one day another Armenian immigrant told her that J&M; Costume Co. in Hollywood was hiring. She found a sitter for her 8-month-old daughter and went to work. After several years there and at another seamstress job, Tchakmakjian struck out on her own, hustling orders and working out of her Glendale garage.
Her first big break was landing steady work from Mackie--known for his beaded, sequined, peek-a-boo gowns worn by Cher and other Hollywood sirens. As the orders rolled in, she hired one employee, then another. In 1980, she leased the Hollywood workshop.
Additionally, Tchakmakjian is known for customized movie star costumes and works frequently with Whitten and Tony Chase, who designs for Dolly Parton. Among her current jobs: designs for the Ice Capades, a movie called “Boogie,” a Las Vegas floor show and the Neil Diamond Christmas Special.
One recent evening at 7, Silvia’s bustled as if it were noon.
“We’re so busy all the time,” Tchakmakjian sighed, “with the studios and all our other work. These ladies, they sure know how to work. But they also know how to party.”
