EXPOSED
The core of this job — dressing performers, executing 40-second quick changes in the wings, steaming and repairing garments, hooking corsets and wigs under time pressure — is hands-on work in a chaotic backstage environment that no current robot touches. What AI can absorb is the paperwork layer: costume plots, inventory and tracking spreadsheets, laundry and repair schedules, rental correspondence, and continuity photo logging. The real threat to this occupation is production budgets and touring economics, not software.
Nearly all of this fall was the 2020 shock. It has been climbing back since.
Median pay $41,410 → $50,400 -2.6% in real terms
This line is counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the one figure on this page that isn't a judgement of ours. Headcount moves on demand, offshoring, demographics and the business cycle, and automation is one term among several, often not the loudest.
So a falling line is not evidence that AI did it, and a rising one is not evidence that it won't. Both happen in this register: some occupations resist automation and shrink anyway, others are highly automatable and keep growing. The marked year is 2020.
BLS projection, 2024–2034
+5.9% 6,700 → 7,100 on the projections basis
Growing, and only partly exposed
The BLS expects +5.9% more of these jobs by 2034, and at 53/100 the work is only partly exposed — some tasks are automatable, the core of the job is not. Nothing here is in tension.
Different clocks. The score is what current AI could do to this work today. The projection is how many of these jobs will exist in 2034. Everything between the two — how fast employers actually adopt, whether demand grows in the meantime — is why they can point opposite ways without either being wrong.
~1,800 openings a year on average, including replacing people who leave.
DraperDresserCostumerCostume CutterCostume DraperShop AttendantCostume DresserCostume MistressWardrobe DresserWardrobe StylistCostume AttendantFashion AssistantUniform AttendantWardrobe MistressCostume SeamstressCostume SpecialistCostume TechnicianCostumer AssistantWardrobe AssistantWardrobe AttendantWardrobe CustodianWardrobe SpecialistWardrobe SupervisorWardrobe Technician
Holding it up: embodiment . Weakest point: liability shield .
Tasks largely resist digitisation Fastening a hook-and-eye placket on a moving performer in a blackout, spot-cleaning sweat rings between acts, and re-setting a quick-change booth in the four minutes you actually have are all manual, unrepeatable, and situation-specific — the 15 rather than 18 reflects that costume plots, piece lists, size charts, and continuity photo databases are genuinely software work already.
Hands-on in uncontrolled environments You are on your knees in the wings, hauling racks up loading-dock ramps, steaming in 90-degree quick-change tents and running fittings across three floors of a theatre — a 17 rather than 20 only because the fitting room and wardrobe shop are relatively controlled spaces where a share of the sewing, dyeing, and pressing happens.
No licence, no signature requirement There is no licence, no state board, and no certification anyone asks for at the stage door; a producer can hire you on a recommendation and a first-day trial, and when a costume fails onstage the responsibility lands with the designer and production management, not on your signature.
Meaningful discretion You decide in seconds whether a split seam gets a safety pin or a swap to the understudy's track, and whether a stained bodice can go back out under the lights — real calls, but made inside a costume plot fixed by the designer and stage management who own the aesthetic and scheduling consequences.
The verdict above describes this occupation as a whole. Almost nobody does the typical version of a job — tick what's actually in your week and see how your own mix sits.
Your task mix speaks to task resistance (15/20 here) — how much of the day's work current AI already does. That is the dimension the boxes above are about.
It cannot move the other three. Liability shield (1/20) is whether the law requires a licensed human to sign. Trust premium (11/20) is whether buyers specifically pay for a person. Judgment and accountability (9/20) is whether the role exists to own consequential calls. Those are facts about the occupation's standing, not about which tasks are in your week — a paralegal who does only trial exhibits still holds no licence. Together they are 21 of this occupation's 53 points (40%).
Embodiment (17/20) is also a property of the work rather than the worker, but we don't tag individual tasks as physical or not, so the picker can't tell you anything about it. That's a limit of this tool, not a claim.
Did we get the list right? Tell us what's missing — the tasks are written from the outside, and you're reading this from the inside.
No occupation passed every test: close enough to costume attendants on skills and subject matter, at least 10 points more resistant, no big jump in training, no new licence, no pay cut, and not shrinking on its own. That happens for 223 of the 654 occupations here that aren't SAFE, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving the section off.
The usual reason is that exposure travels with the skill profile. The jobs most similar to yours tend to be exposed for the same reasons yours is, so the near neighbours don't clear the gap — and the ones that do are a different kind of work, not a transfer of what you already know. Read that as a limit of this method, not a verdict that you're stuck: it only compares whole occupations, and it cannot see specialisation, industry, or anything you'd bring that isn't in a federal skill survey.
Here is that claim on your own job rather than in the abstract. These are the three occupations closest to this one by skill and subject matter — the places the work would most naturally transfer — with what the register scores them:
That is the whole problem in three lines. The nearest work is not meaningfully safer, so there is no move here that trades a similar skill set for a better verdict. This is not us running out of ideas — it is what the neighbourhood looks like.
The moves above are yours to make. This is the other half: what would have to change in the world for the occupation itself to score higher. None of it is in any one person's gift, but it is where the floor actually comes from. Scores here are not a one-way ratchet. Only two of the five dimensions — task resistance and embodiment — track what machines can do. The other three track law, what buyers will pay for, and who is answerable, and those move in both directions, often in response to the same pressure AI creates. If every lever below landed, this occupation would score around 65/100, still EXPOSED.
Genuine two-tier structure: if the plot/inventory/continuity-log tier is absorbed by production software (Propared, Yesplan, AI photo continuity logging), the surviving role is fitting-room judgment, on-the-body alteration, and live-show crisis improvisation — none of which is text work. Watch for job postings that drop 'maintains costume database' and keep only run-crew duties.
Performer-safety framing: if an OSHA or Equity-negotiated rule makes the wardrobe supervisor the named person accountable for flame-retardant treatment certification, harness/flying-rig garment interface, and quick-change sightline safety on a given production, the role owns a consequential call under ambiguity rather than executing someone else's plot.
Wardrobe work stays bodily by definition; the score only rises if the job's remaining hours concentrate further in the wings — e.g. IATSE Local 764 (NYC) or 705 (LA) contract language that reserves quick-change and on-body dressing duties to bargaining-unit members while allowing producers to offload plots/inventory to software, so the paid day becomes almost entirely hands-on.
Audience-facing 'live, human-crafted' positioning already prices this in for legit theatre and opera; a rise would need something like Actors' Equity or a producing house publishing a hand-tailoring/human-dresser guarantee in marketing, or Broadway League practice making named wardrobe credits contractual, the way 'live orchestra' billing works after the 2003 musicians' strike.
No licensure exists and none is proposed. The nearest real hook is NFPA 701 flame-resistance compliance for stage textiles, where a venue fire marshal, not a costume attendant, signs. A route would require a state fire code amendment naming a certified wardrobe supervisor as attestor for treated garments — not visibly in motion anywhere.
The limit. Scoring gains are small and mostly cosmetic against the actual threat named in the profile: 6,510 workers whose headcount tracks production budgets, tour capitalization, and how many dressers a house is willing to pay for. Non-union regional and cruise/theme-park wardrobe work is where cuts land, and no liability or trust mechanism reaches it. A high score here would mean the job is hard to automate, not that it is safe.
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,210 | $106,810 +112% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 890 | $95,230 +89% |
| Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL | 540 | $43,780 -13% |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV | 350 | $56,690 +12% |
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX | 210 | $45,750 -9% |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN | 120 | $49,180 -2% |
| Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD | 120 | $59,420 +18% |
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA | 110 | $65,460 +30% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA | 1,210 | $106,810 +112% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 890 | $95,230 +89% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA | 70 | $94,900 +88% |
We have no reported case of a named organisation automating this occupation. Not one deployment, not one announcement.
That is worth saying out loud next to a score of 53. The verdict above is about what the work exposes — what current AI could do to these tasks. It is not a claim that anyone has done it. For this occupation those two things have come apart completely: the capability argument is on this page, and the evidence column is empty.
Has AI actually changed your work? One tap, anonymous, and the running tally is public. Nothing else is asked of you.
Rather than check back: get the digest and we'll tell you what changed — or watch a single occupation from its own page.