#wgnsalem

“It’s the toughest show I’ve done in 30 years in Hollywood—by far,” says Porro from his wardrobe office in Shreveport. “Salem” shoots on stages in the western Louisiana city and on an expansive set nearly 40 miles south that painstakingly recreates the 1690s village.

The project has depended on Porro’s vast knowledge of every aspect of costume design and production. Aside from the pressure to produce a stunning wardrobe for the first-ever original, scripted series for WGN America, a cable network set on becoming a destination for compelling content, there was also the complication of shooting a period drama in rural Louisiana—a show that needed more than 1,000 costumes and nearly 600 pairs of shoes and boots. And that also required an international array of materials and factories to finish and ship it all in just four weeks.

Porro pulled it off, sometimes working 110 hours a week.

“I made everything. There was no aspect of the show that was rented,” he said. That meant that Porro made the gowns, corsets, hats, socks, knickers, the sash ties to hold up the knickers, pleated shirts, hand-finished collars, vests, ties, capes, gloves, jackets and every ruffled jabeau.