Style like a rock star

Abigail Franklin never pictured Play-Doh performing a crucial part in her career. But her work as a stylist and personal assistant to the stars really took off after Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl happily formed a skull out of the Play-Doh she gave to him. Working for House of Blues Orlando in the 1990s, the 36-year-old Ferriday native gained invaluable experience managing dressing rooms and fulfilling artist riders—those sometimes absurd lists of an artist’s food and amenity requirements the venue must provide. If she really liked the band, she would overdo it with a surprise cache of decorations and toys.

Franklin (friends call her Abby) still has Grohl’s skull, and the Play-Doh mushroom Kate Hudson sculpted when she came through with ex-husband Chris Robinson and his band, The Black Crowes.

Leaving quirky, unexpected gifts for rock stars belies the fact Franklin was working constantly, waiting tables at Disney and freelancing on commercial productions, on top of working for the House of Blues.

“One Florida band in particular really liked the toys, and they said, ‘One day when we get famous, we’re going to take you out on the road with us,’” she says. “And they did. That was Creed.”

Since that first tour with the post-grunge arena rockers in 1999, Franklin has worked for artists from Bon Jovi and Prince to Mötley Crüe and Van Halen. She even dated a member of Slipknot until recently, but she won’t divulge whom. Franklin signs non-disclosure contracts before working with her clients. Sorry, no tell-all books in the works. But it’s safe to say she’s seen the good, the bad and the diva in all of them.

Not just a clothes stylist, Franklin has done everything from coordinating with high-end wholesalers, shopping, dry-cleaning and laundry, to removing and installing lighting, hooking up satellite dishes, televisions and washing machines, to applying more than 6,000 rhinestones to a pair of cowboy boots for Big & Rich’s John Rich.

Others in the industry have taken notice of Franklin’s work. Before passing away from leukemia—she was diagnosed only days after her 225 interview—friend and former colleague Evie Carrano said she learned a lot about the industry and how to deal with rock stars from Franklin.

“Part of what she does is styling the band’s clothes and also the dressing rooms so that these performers who are away from home for so long have a comfortable place that is consistent and familiar,” said Carrano, who had been a Chicago-based tour manager and met Franklin when they both worked for Slipknot. “Abby has been kind of a mentor for me because she is so grounded. There are things that would stress me out that just roll off her back.”

In 2000 Prince’s managers were looking for a stylist to tour with the “purple one.” Franklin got the call, but the only problem was she did not know how to sew. On her first day on the job she was asked to take in Prince’s clothes. She never panicked, just simply faked it. She pinned every nip and tuck, then convinced the tour manager that she was too busy to sew it all herself, so they hired a seamstress. Eventually Franklin would take sewing lessons, but she attributes her ability to talk her way into jobs that might initially be over her head to paying really close attention while earning her speech communication degree from LSU.

Last summer Franklin managed a dozen dressing rooms for Prince, his band and entourage for 21 shows at London’s O2 Arena. The two-month stretch across the pond was punctuated with what Franklin says was probably her most nerve-wracking experience ever. The Rolling Stones were scheduled to play a concert at O2 in the middle of Prince’s residency, which meant Franklin had to coordinate the evacuation and storage of everything Prince-related overnight, then have it all back in place the next day.

“That day I left at 7 a.m. for the venue and got home at 5 a.m.,” she says. “Everyone was yelling. It was a lot to handle.”

It’s been a long road for Franklin, first from Ferriday to LSU, then to working daily with some of the most popular musicians in the world. After graduation she worked at Disney because she had enjoyed the company’s college intern program. While she was there MTV was shooting Sandblast, and she offered to work for free. Next, the iconic music channel gave her a job recruiting audience members for live shows like Spring Break. Soon she moved to Manhattan as a production assistant for the MTV Video Music Awards. “I was making coffee, getting paid nothing and working so many hours just to get my foot in the door and prove myself,” she says. Back in Orlando, her persistence paid dividends.

One day while working as a PA for a commercial production company, the wardrobe stylist for the TV spot quit, and the director asked Franklin to fill in, go shopping and make sure the on-camera talent looked their best.

Nine years, countless world tours and one Play-Doh skull later, Franklin has established herself as a full-fledged style staple of the rock pantheon. She’s grown closest to members of Bon Jovi, especially guitarist Richie Sambora, whom she shops for regularly. Bandleader Jon Bon Jovi keeps his own stylist on retainer.

“Being able to tell them when I didn’t like something they had on was something that took a little while to get up the courage to do,” Franklin says. “But you know, they’re rock stars. If they like it they are going to wear it.”

For nearly a decade Franklin has lived the rock-star lifestyle alongside her famous clients, getting up early, staying up late and jetsetting to 20 countries. Already this year Bon Jovi has taken her to Japan and Australia. She has lived in Baton Rouge for three years, but hasn’t been home often. Last year she slept only six sporadic weeks at her Spanish Town apartment.

Franklin admits she can’t live out of her suitcase forever, nor does she want to. Rather than be a personal assistant for the rest of her life, she wants to open a clothing store. “The [rock star’s] lifestyle has an effect on everyone working for them,” she says. “It’s hard because you have to give up your life to be around that person all the time.”

While her eyes are on the future, her current success won’t let her go. The artists keep giving her raises to keep her around. Looking back, though, her nearly 10 years in the business have had a positive effect. The intense, often demanding behavior of some of her past clients has forced her to mellow out a lot. “I’m the voice of reason,” Franklin says. “In the end, things will be OK, you know? Life will go on if ‘we’ never get our orange juice.”