Vocalist, aerialist and showgirl Anne Martinez is a woman of many talents that involve a stage. She performs with her band Red Penny Arcade at the Venetian and in Sexxy After Dark at the Hustler Club. But Martinez’s latest creative pursuit is something now. Saint Showgirl technically still involves the stage, but not in the way you might think.
“I started kind of by accident,” Martinez says. She wanted a costume covered in rhinestones, but the prices were astronomical. So she decided, well, heck, I’ll just do it myself.
Martinez got to work, researching “how to stone a costume properly” and ordering supplies online. She was delighted by the results. “It was kind of like coloring … really relaxing,” she says.
Then COVID-19 shut down Las Vegas. “I had nothing going on,” Martinez recalls of the pandemic’s early days. “So I thought, maybe I’ll make some more stuff.”
In doing so, Martinez happened upon an unfilled Las Vegas niche. Unlike in, say, New York City, bespoke costuming options here are limited. “As performers, we want to go out and get a really cool showpiece, [but] there really isn’t that much in the market,” Martinez says. “A lot of times we end up buying the same bustier or bra outfit.”
To combat that sameness, Martinez posed this question: “What if I could make something that could fit anybody, and also be unique?” To realize that goal, everything she makes is couture: “I don’t repeat the pattern. I take a picture of it, and then I archive it.”
Rather than creating a website, Martinez simply posted a few of her creations on social media. “My phone just exploded,” she says. Martinez also gets orders from fans who’ve seen her pieces live in Sexxy.
Thu, “this really fun side business of making showgirl costumes” was born. Martinez called it Saint Showgirl, in honor of the year she spent singing in the classic Vegas show Jubilee!.
“I was the shortest person they ever hired,” says the 5-foot-5-inch Martinez, who was blown away by the grace and talent of her peers. “They were just fiercely dedicated to the art form of being a showgirl. I loved their devotion to it. It was really beautiful, and it was so sincere,” Martinez says. “It was almost like a religion; they treated it with such delicacy and respect.” To Martinez, being a Las Vegas showgirl “is like a crown that we all want to wear.”
Martinez has converted her dining room into Saint Showgirl central; it’s now full of glittering art supplies. To make a costume, Martinez will either start from scratch—hand-sewing a piece—or buy a simple wardrobe item, such as a bra, and build on that. Once she has the base piece, Martinez adds stones and appliqué by hand. Since her pieces are made for performers who will be very active, she makes sure the stones are firmly in place. She glues or sews the stones onto the costume, and sometimes does both.
The work is very intricate and labor intensive, but Martinez says she loves it. She can “knock out a full bra in about four hours.” Bigger or more elaborate costumes can take several days.
Saint Showgirl commissions aren’t limited to showgirls. Martinez also costumes burlesque performers and brides. She says her costumes run the gamut from “elegant and very formal” to “quirky pin-up” to “showstopper pieces” and even “bondage and S&M pieces.” Currently, Martinez is developing a 1920s flapper-
inspired pearl line.
Above all, Martinez says she’s looking to put a twist on common Vegas costume tropes “so someone can find something unique and a little different.”
Saint Showgirl Instagram.com/saintshowgirl
