Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Man Who Checks Coats

New York Fashion Week attendees wait in line at the coat check, which can hold up to 450 coats before workers must turn people away. The dominant color: black.
Jesse Steel has a bit of unsolicited fashion advice for the stylish attendees of Fashion Week: Ditch the black coats.

If the runway-watching crowds really want to make his day, they would also empty the pockets on their any-color-but-black coats of all important belongings before checking them with his fellow staffers at the coat check.

“When people lose their tickets they need to describe their coats — and I can tell you, half the coats in here are black Burberry,” Steel said from the back of the coat check area at Mercedes-Benz New York Fall Fashion Week. “And then people come back asking for their cellphone from their pockets, and it takes forever to dig everything back out.”

Steel, 23, is normally a golf pro who competes in tournaments. But he comes from a long line of coat-checking professionals, and this week he’s helping out in the family trade. His mother Betti started a checking company, called Hang It Up, some 25 years ago with her sister and mother. They now have contracts to provide staff at coat rooms all over New York City, including the ones at Lincoln Center.

Until Fashion Week ends on Thursday, Steel is consigned to 14-hour days of accepting coats in exchange for claim tickets. One perk: he had the chance to meet designer Betsey Johnson last week. Steel said she was really cool, but he doubts he will cross paths with any other big-name designers.

“I think they have someone carrying their coats for them,” he said.

Just like in the fashion shows themselves, there is a VIP section for special coats. American Express, which sponsors the coat check, has a rack at the front of the room for card holders.

Inside the tents, the space carved for coats to squat while their owners mingle is about seven feet across in most places, and it snakes into a corridor 60 feet deep. There is room for about 450 coats in total, and the check hits capacity three times a day, Steel said. Everyone involved seems to wish the space was a little larger.

“Once we max out we’re done, so we have to wait to swap out new coats,” explained Garvin Baptiste. The Trinidad-born coat checker works as a greeter at the Marriott Marquis when he isn’t at Fashion Week. Sometimes Baptiste sneaks a non-VIP coat onto the VIP rack just to make extra room.

“We just rush in circles, try to stay out of each others’ way, and try not to hit each other,” Baptiste said of the hustle and bustle in the back room of the crowded coat check.

Baptiste and Steel are constantly doing favors for guests. They’re not supposed to accept packages or bags, but Steel does it anyway since he feels bad watching people lug things into a fashion show. When one woman flung a box of shoes into the check room and took off for the bathroom without bothering to grab a ticket, Steal patiently waited for her outside of the ladies’ room.

Earlier in the week, a mother checked a — you guessed it — Burberry coat for her daughter, who would return later to claim it without a ticket. Steel told the girl to give him a secret password, and they agreed on the name of her dog. ”The daughter came up to me and said, ‘My dog’s name is Wellington,’ and I gave her the coat. Little things like that make this work,” he said.

The challenge for Steel, who is usually working with four other workers per shift, is dealing with the monotony of 14-hour days in such a tight space.

“It’s more tedious than difficult,” he said. “Tedious because I’m here every day. But the paycheck’s gonna be good, and no one does tedious things if they’re not getting paid.”

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