Intimate Apparel

Vintage Theatre
1468 Dayton Street Aurora

Set in 1905, Intimate Apparel tells the story of Esther, a 35-year old African-American woman moves from North Carolina years prior to seek her fortune as a seamstress in New York City. She is excellent at her trade, humble, religious, frugal and discrete - all of which make her successful and a confidante and friend to wealthy white women and prostitutes alike. In spite of her success, her two dreams - of love and marriage and of owning a beauty salon where African American women will receive the same quality of pampering and care as her wealthy white patrons do in theirs - remain unfulfilled. She does marry a man who turns out to be an opportunist and takes her money using it destructively. Yet, rather than take these setbacks and obstacles as defeat, Esther, with the same grace and character with which she has lived her entire life, begins again.