Fred Grzyb – Personal Impact Style Makeover
Personal Impact Style Makeover
We are privileged to have Fred Grzyb as our regular 'Guest Artist' for this work, and we imagine that no other company has anyone who can quite boast his credentials.If it has to do with clothes, then Fred's your man. He has spent well over 40 years costuming operas, ballets, musicals, movies, television and individuals seeking after his keen eye and sympathetic approach.
He started his career with the New York City Ballet, getting his grounding at best costume house in the country - Karinska's - and working with a succession of the best designers around: Eugene Berman, Irene Sharafff, Patricia Ziprodt. He then became Costume Supervisor of the New York City Opera, and worked there for nearly 40 years (yipes!). With the opera he has worked with Carl Toms and Zandra Rhodes among many others.
He's actually famous in the biz for being able to work well with the most temperamental artists around. Fred has worked on numerous movies (including Annie, Arthur, Sylvester Stalone's Night Hawks, several Woody Allen films, Jonathan Demme's Times Square, the list goes on). He's been involved with countless Broadway shows over the years (among them, West Side Story, A Chorus Line, Best Little Whore-House in Texas, Irene, Agnes of God, Mame, Frankenstein and Mooney Shapiro's Songbook).
In 2003 Fred won an Emmy Award for his work on The View, a TV series hosted by one of the US's most popular and respected journalists, Barbara Walters.
Fred is a much sought after speaker and lecturer in New York at places as diverse as tough inner city schools, Juilliard lecture halls, Lincoln Centre venues and the Guggenheim Museum. He has that invaluable ability to be informative, funny and engaging and he has an opera-house full of stories and anecdotes to enliven any lecture or presentation.
In 2002 and 2003 he also worked with the High School of Performing Arts (yes, the one from Fame), supervising their end of year musical productions.
Because Fred has worked on so many modern films and television, his experience as a stylist can't be beat, and he is in huge demand by the artists he works with to do his magic with their 'real life' wardrobes. He has a natural flair, an ability to work with the most awkward personalities and quirky bodies. His reputation is such that people seek his input to liven up their business wardrobes so they stand out from the grey crowd while blending in. He always makes people look fantastic on and off stage.
Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow here in the UK have already benefited from his expertise. While he can do a 'make-over' if that's really required, his special skill is in developing people's style without throwing out the baby with the fashion bathwater.
Now semi-retired, Fred has returned to his roots and is back at the New York City Ballet, boring the younger dancers and others in the Wardrobe Department with remembrance of ballets and costumes past.
If the name sounds familiar it's because he's married to one of the Founding Partners of Impact Factory, Jo Ellen Grzyb. Yes! Nepotism is alive and well and Impact Factory certainly benefits from Fred's considerable expertise.
Personal Impact Style Makeover
