Suzette Guilot-Snider, Twisted Sister costume designer, will be inducted into Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame

Suzette Guilot-Snider never became the Paris-bound fashion designer of her dreams, but the garments she crafted for one of Long Island’s biggest bands fueled parents' heavy metal nightmares.

On Saturday, the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame will honor Guilot-Snider, 66, as its first costume designer for her most instantly recognizable pieces: the outfits her husband, Dee Snider, and his Twisted Sister band mates sported from their Long Island club days to their indelible MTV videos and beyond.

The Bellmore native believed for a long time that motherhood was her only career. But looking back all the way to her teens, she recalled designing costumes, styling hair and perfecting makeup for a list of clients she said spans other local bands and Off-Broadway performers to Howard Stern and now-President Donald Trump.

"I never really felt like I achieved my dreams because it wasn't what I imagined," Guilot-Snider told Newsday in a recent telephone interview. "But I’ve done so many things I wouldn't have done if my career went where I wanted it to go. … When [the hall of fame] contacted me and they told me I was being honored, I just cried. It's surreal. I don't feel worthy."

Snider, who will induct her into the hall 20 years after his own induction, told Newsday he is "so happy that she’s getting this spotlight shined on her."

"Suzette’s designs were some of the designs that made the '80s what it is," Snider, 71, said. “ ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ is an iconic song, and the iconic part of it comes from the overall look that was created. That was guided, designed, drawn and came together because Suzette was there."

‘What are the odds’

It was a crocheted, one-shoulder, turquoise women's top that inspired the mostly black, brightly-fringed outfits Twisted Sister sported in that track's hit video, at least indirectly.

When a 15-year-old Guilot-Snider walked into the fledgling quintet’s concert at the long-shuttered 1890’s Club in Snider’s hometown of Baldwin while wearing that top, she was embarrassed to spot not just anyone sporting the same item, but actually her microphone-wielding new boyfriend, who began jumping onstage with excitement at the coincidence. He said he liked her garment, asked where she purchased it and wore it to the show.

"I’m finishing the last song of the set and I’m pointing to my shirt, like she didn’t notice her boyfriend’s wearing a one-shoulder, crochet-knit turquoise top," Snider recalled. "What are the odds we both wore our tops the same night."  

The excitement was one-sided.

"I was horrified," Guilot-Snider recalled. "I mean, it’s bad enough when your girlfriend or somebody else's wearing the same outfit as you, but your boyfriend wearing the same outfit?"

She couldn’t bear another incident like it. Drawing inspiration from a fringe-laded jumpsuit Snider admired on The Who frontman Roger Daltrey and imbuing her own love of asymmetry on satin belly shirts, skin-tight spandex pants and feather boas, she handmade the Sister's front man 10 rocker-worthy outfits for Christmas. In lieu of elves, she said she relied on her three younger siblings to run the "sweatshop" in her home. She also sewed pieces together in Nassau BOCES while her classmates practiced crafting peg skirts and blazers.

‘They're like creatures’

Before Guilot-Snider, Snider and his band mates looked less like the men in the "I Wanna Rock" video and more like women. They were heavily inspired by the New York Dolls, the glittery protopunk outfit who sported makeup and feminine fashion. Snider said he wanted to "carry the torch" of other "glitter rock" bands like T-Rex and other shocking '70s acts like Alice Cooper because they all got a "reaction" from their audiences.

"I liked seeing bands that looked like they came from another planet," Snider recalled. "When David Bowie walked onstage, he looked like an alien, and that had a tremendous appeal to me, to stand out from the crowd." 

As Snider garnered more attention than his band mates for his outrageous attire, Guilot-Snider said guitarist Jay Jay French requested she make outfits for the whole gang. Still a Fashion Institute of Technology student, she found herself earning a salary outfitting a metal band just a few years away from their breakthrough.

"I had to set a whole studio up in Dee’s apartment because I was working nonstop," she recalled. "I can't believe Twisted trusted a 17-year-old to make them costumes and helping them with their hair and their makeup and all this stuff. I had no clue what I was doing, I was just doing it."

After changing their wardrobes, Guilot-Snider said she helped Twisted Sister face the music. She sat them down and told them "you guys are not pretty men." The androgyny of bands from the early '70s didn’t work for them.

"I realized they are not feminine at all, they're like creatures," Guilot-Snider said. "They're all over 6-foot, and when you see them live, they were out for murder. … I said, ‘This isn't makeup, this is war paint.’ I changed the costumes to be more like creatures, and that's when their career started kicking off."

Before the band's triple-platinum "Stay Hungry" album was released, Guilot-Snider contributed one more critical design that landed on its cover: the "TS" logo made of bones. Snider said his wife made the logo, which the band has used as a backdrop and on merchandise throughout the decades, in "five minutes with a pen and typing paper."

"She had just woken up, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, wearing her bathrobe and she does this quick sketch and goes, ‘Like this?’ ” he added. "I said ‘I’ll show it to the art department.’ They just took it and ran with it. … She’s embarrassed by it, it would have been a much more refined piece if she thought it was going to be used the way it was."

Guilot-Snider said she never took any credit, or money, for making the logo. The nature of her work leaves her in the background. While theater and film more commonly recognize behind-the-scenes craftspeople, those behind the music are generally unsung.

On Saturday, she said, she will accept her induction into the Long Island hall of fame "for all the people that are behind the scene that don’t get recognized."

"We are the people that bring things to life," she said. "Without us, things would be boring."