Pumping Up A Star: The Leaky Suit That Blew Up A Career

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:

We're collecting stories of triumph, big and small - moments when people make great leaps forward in their careers. We call it My Big Break. Here's one from back in March - June Ambrose. You may not know the name, but her work has gotten a lot of attention.

JUNE AMBROSE: I am the girl who put Puff Daddy in a shiny suit. I am the girl who put Nas in a pink suit and white shoes. I am also the girl who put Will Smith in a hibiscus suit - head-to-toe. (Laughter).

RATH: Before her days as a stylist to the stars, she worked in costume design for music videos. Her break came when she was called in to work on Missy Elliott's hit "The Rain."

AMBROSE: The question was posed to me - how are you, June Ambrose, going sell this young lady to mainstream America? She was a full-figured girl, and at the time it was all about racy, provocative females in music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RAIN")

MISSY ELLIOTT: (Singing) Sock it to me. Sock it to me.

AMBROSE: The lyrical content was very racy, and it was almost an animated racy. I said Missy Elliott will be my modern-day cartoon character. Music video director Hype Williams came to me with this amazing video treatment that talked about Missy Elliott being blown up in this - what he described as, like, a Michelin Man.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RAIN")

ELLIOTT: (Singing) Me - I'm super fly, super-duper fly. Superficial...

AMBROSE: I said, oh, like a big, white blow-up bubble, (laughter) like the tire commercials? And I just saw it so differently. I said, well, I would love to use black patent leather. And I designed this big, blowup suit out out of a tire inner tube and patent leather on the outside, like, more of a vinyl. The contraption was very small deflated, but once you blew it up it was the size of maybe a 900-pound man. And we had to take the suit to a gas station to have it blown up. So we walked to the gas station, we blew her up. And then we walked her back to location where we were shooting, and the suit slowly deflated.

(SOUNDBITE OF THUNDER)

AMBROSE: It had a small leak. Now, with the way this costume was built, any bit of air that seeped out would not keep the suit inflated. So now I'm like, oh, God, what am I going to do? Everyone was screaming get art department. Let's figure this out. I was like, I need a bicycle pump.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RAIN")

ELLIOTT: (Singing) This is a Missy Elliott exclusive.

AMBROSE: And the director would yell action. Little me - I'm behind this big, inflated suit, and I'm just pumping, pumping, pumping, pumping as she's dancing. I stood behind the suit during every take keeping the air pressure in the suit, but just allowing enough of it to seep out so that it would pop-lock in a way that was just so dynamic.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

AMBROSE: The slight leak actually made the suit a lot more dynamic than I could have ever imagined. And that crazy luck, I've got to tell you, probably changed my life.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

AMBROSE: I earned my wings. If she was skeptical before this experience, she now knew that she could trust me. And I did every music video in her career after that. I think Missy Elliott was really when my big break happened. These outrageous music video moments - because they there were so highly recognized and celebrated, they caught on. We never came from behind the curtains. We were the wizards, but people always want to seek out who's creating magic.

RATH: June Ambrose - a celebrity stylist who's worked on more than 150 music videos. We want to hear about your big break. Send an email with your story to mybigbreak@npr.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RAIN")

ELLIOTT: (Singing) Beep me 911. Call me on my cell phone. I'll call you... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.