Pins & needles

Erika ESPINOSA says her classmates have been asking, Have you bought your dress already? How does it look?

“They told me last year all the dresses were similar,” says Espinosa, 17. That’s why she’s not buying one off the rack.

She knows exactly how she wants her dream dress to look for her first prom. She fell in love with a picture of a gown with a strappy crisscrossed back. She chose a halter neckline from another photo, and the color from yet another ripped from the pages of People magazine.

The result: a one-of-a-kind champagne satin sheath with a train that she can catch up in her hand as she dances at the Downtown Business High School prom on May 28.

To find the perfect shop to make her perfect dress, Espinosa and her boyfriend, Rosenvert Portillo, 18, went bargain hunting Monday along Broadway, downtown.

“One said $250. One said $225. This one said $185,” Espinosa says as the couple hold hands in Bridal World, their last stop.

He prefers Yadira’s, the shop that quoted the middle price. She’s unsure until they discover that the same modistas sew for Bridal World too. Both shops -- and two more, one in Las Vegas -- are owned by Johnny Granda, who says that collectively they turn out 80 to 100 prom dresses per season.

The high school sweethearts opt for the lowest price. Portillo puts down the deposit (which she promises to pay back). Espinosa is measured.

Their order sets off a flurry of activity in a small, well-lighted room in the basement, where unfinished dresses hang from rods the length of two walls, an array of peach, turquoise, tangerine, aubergine, smoky mauve, burgundy, royal blue, coppery green, black, gold and, of course, ivory and white. Another wall holds more than 100 large spindles of thread in different colors. Here, the modistas prepare to create another prom dress -- like the 14 made by one seamstress last week.

Down here, “Dona Elisa,” as she is known, is the star, the master cutter who works by eye in the same way that a pianist plays by ear. Tape measure around her neck, she wields her scissors freehand. Without a pattern, and with only a glance or two at the measurements and a picture, today she is slicing through navy blue matte jersey, deep rose satin, white organza. She’s been doing this for four decades, since she learned the skills at Ceaotillo, a four-year university in the Yucatan.

Is she a pattern maker?

“She’s better than that. She goes straight to the material,” says her boss, Granda.

How long does it take her?

“It takes 35 to 45 minutes to cut it,” Elisa Frias says in Spanish.

Which style is hardest?

“For me, nothing is difficult, thanks to God,” she says. “I cut all styles.”

After Frias finishes, she may iron a piece or two before heading to a mannequin.

“Pin it here,” she says to seamstress Danelia Freyre. “Pull it

As they work, Jose Benavides sits at his sewing machine, finishing a lilac and white prom dress.

“Men don’t normally work in this world,” he says, “but the money’s good.”

Benavides, the only man in the room, says he’s been sewing for 10 years after picking it up here and there in factories.

At the next machine, Freyre works on pastel blue and white straps for another gown. She learned her trade at the Isabel de Somosa School in Managua, Nicaragua -- and by making quinceanera, prom and wedding dresses for her nine sisters.

Does she ever see the customers in their finished prom dresses?

“If there’s a mistake,” she says, laughing.

“When the work is quick,” she adds, “people are happy.”

Generally, a prom dress takes eight hours, work that may be spread out over a week or two. But this team has produced one -- from photo through final fitting -- in three hours.

How much a modista is paid depends on the dress, Granda says. It runs between $30 and -- for a bridal gown that costs $1,000 -- about $200. For sewing Espinosa’s gown, the seamstress will make “about $49,” he says. Frias, the master cutter, is salaried.

About an hour after Espinosa orders her dress, the lining is ready for the first fitting. As she stands in a mirrored fitting room upstairs, Yazmin Landa and Ada Henriquez pin the flowing gold fabric on her.

“How long do you want it?” Landa asks. “How long do you want the back?”

Henriquez positions a pin and says, “Is it fine like this? How does it look from the right side?”

As they work, Frias appears upstairs. She pins the bodice as Henriquez explains, “We’re going to put something transparent in the front so it doesn’t open. We’re going to put something like in that Jennifer Lopez dress.”

Henriquez is referring to a slinky chocolate creation Lopez wore in a photo in TVNotas, a Mexican magazine. She suggests adding a small strip of fabric across the decolletage. “So they won’t see the front,” she says. “It’s going to be tiny.”

As Espinosa turns, her boyfriend stares. The two are on their way to Cal State Fullerton after graduation, she to become a social worker or counselor, he to become an entertainment lawyer. But the prom comes first. He has already picked out his tuxedo, an ivory Oscar de la Renta from Romeo’s in the Lakewood Mall.

Normally garrulous, Portillo is wordless.

Overwhelmed, Espinosa can only say, “I like it.”

She’s happy, because she remembers the horror story of her older sister Martha, whose prom dress was made by a friend’s mother. “It came out totally like she didn’t want it.”

For her next prom, Martha bought off the rack. That’s where most girls find their prom dresses, spending an average of $205, according to a study of readers of Your Prom magazine, a Conde Nast publication.

On Tuesday, Frias works her scissors through satin the color of champagne.

“Dona Elisa cut it. I sewed it on the machine,” Carmen Hernandez says, also in Spanish. “It’s not very hard. It’s a simple dress. It took a half hour.” That afternoon, after school, Espinosa arrives for the second fitting.

“Do you want the straps a little thinner?” Yazmin Landa asks.

Espinoza answers in Spanish, “Just a little thinner.” And can they make the train a little shorter?

Frias comes upstairs again. Perfecting the fit of the dress -- pinning bust-line darts, narrowing the hip, raising the train -- she admonishes Espinosa: “Stand up straight. Because the material is very thin, everything will show.”

Espinosa straightens up.

She plans to have her hair colored light brown with blond streaks to match her dress. And she wants to buy stiletto heels. At 5 feet 1, she’s a foot shorter than Portillo.

The teenagers come again after school Thursday. But the dress is not ready.

“It’s our busy season,” Granda says, as other customers are fitted for bridal gowns and dresses for first communions, proms and quinceaneras. “Things get crazy down there. Things get behind.”

Espinosa and Portillo go across the street to Grand Central Market for pizza and fruit drinks, and return in an hour.

Soon, the dress arrives upstairs.

Espinosa slips it on in a dressing room, then comes out to model it on a low pedestal. Bits of thread and straight pins fleck the carpet.

“The front is a little different,” she says to her boyfriend before she tries sitting in it.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

She does, but it’s a little too tight in the hips. Frias comes up to check, and assures her that the dress can be let out a tiny bit without losing its form.

Again, they wait.

Does Portillo have to approve the dress?

“I think so,” Espinosa says as he nods yes.

Finally, it is ready.

“Do you want to see the back?” she asks as she turns to show it off.

He answers, “How do you feel about it?”

She’s satisfied.

Portillo’s reaction?

“Nice.”