The Reason So Many Military Spouses Are Part of MLMs

[View on the web]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Feature [Keri Russell’s Spy Disguises Have Been the Best Part of The Americans]( [Kerri Russell in the Americans]( After six seasons, the last and final episode of [The Americans]( is upon us. We’ve seen Elizabeth Jennings smoke countless cigarettes, wondered numerous times where the hell Henry was, said “Poor Martha!” often, and still haven’t stopped talking about that, ahem, suitcase incident. Mostly, though, we delighted in the spy disguises. From gloriously terrible ’80s wigs to Philip’s sad mustaches, the disguises kept fans talking season after season. They are arguably the defining characteristic of a show full of originality. In the course of The Americans’ run, the costume department created upward of 120 different spy disguises between Philip (played by Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth (played by Keri Russell), according to costume designer Katie Irish. Irish has been working on the show since the middle of the first season and became head costume designer in the fourth season. She says her department has about a month to do prep work before each season, during which she buys “many magazines, school yearbooks, catalogs ... anything I can get my hands on” from the applicable year. She orders a lot of this vintage material from eBay and Etsy. While we have seen the characters taking off their disguises occasionally throughout the season, they’ve never been filmed putting them on. There’s a reason for that. “It’s just not sexy. It’s not as interesting to get dressed as it is undressed,” Irish says. “And in the ’80s, there were a lot of [pantyhose](. No one wants to watch people putting pantyhose on, even someone as lovely, beautiful, and talented as Keri Russell!” One of the incredible things about The Americans is how true to the time period the wardrobe styling is. If you didn’t actually live through the ’80s, it would be easy to assume that everyone looked like a character out of a John Hughes movie or the cover of a Culture Club album. Portrayals of that time period tend to be highly stylized and exaggerated. But Irish focused on looking at real people via old family photos she found. She also referred to old [Vogue magazines]( and the Sears catalog to see how outfits were put together at opposite ends of the wealth spectrum. The costumes used on the show are a combination of vintage, custom-made, and modern items that were altered. Most of the wigs are rented or borrowed, not made specifically for the show. For spy persona that had recurring roles during a season, like Stephanie the home care nurse this season, Irish was given fleshed-out character bios starting in season five. “They often tell us whether [the character is] single, married, divorced, if they went to college, if they didn’t, where their hometown is,” she tells Racked. “These are things that the audience doesn’t necessarily need to know about that disguise, but it helps me really root the character in a real time and place and persona.” Irish took the time to chat about seven of Elizabeth Jennings’s spy disguises from the past few seasons, which range from arguably the frumpiest to the most stylish of the whole season. [Read the rest of the story >>]( Ad from our sponsor Feature [Why MLMs Are So Appealing to Military Spouses]( [A family outside a house]( According to data from [the White House]( and the Department of Defense, there are nearly 690,000 spouses of active-duty service members, 12 percent of whom are active-duty military themselves. The unemployment rate for military spouses over the past decade has hovered between 20 and 25 percent, four times the rate for adult women. At the same time, direct selling business models have exploded in the past few years, making [military spouses uniquely prone]( to joining those companies, believing the answer to a frequently interrupted lifestyle lies in independent selling. Or as Courtney Christensen, a 36-year-old Navy wife and Rodan + Fields seller in the DC area puts it, “You’re at the whim of where the military required us to be.” More than half of military spouses have moved at least three times during their partner’s military career and they are frequently placed on or near military bases located more than 50 miles from major cities, “effectively limiting both the quantity and types of jobs available” according to the DOD. “It’s really challenging to run a career when you don’t know how long you’re going to be in one area or you’re discriminated against if you’re not there long,” says Christensen, a former pharmaceutical sales rep who moved every two to three years while being a mother to four young children and a wife to a Navy officer now completing a naval medical residency. For Christensen, working in direct sales means “getting to take back control about when and where and with whom you want to work. When you’re a military spouse, someone else is always calling the shots.” Still, joining a direct selling company, regardless of whether you’re a military spouse or a civilian, is divisive. There are those who say direct selling companies are [harmful to military spouses and their families](, while others claim it’s their key to financial freedom. Direct selling companies: more than just a Tupperware party Direct selling companies — also referred to as multilevel marketing (MLM) or network sales companies — are organized such that a company operates with a network of independent sellers, also called consultants, who have agreed to sell inventory and do not work as company employees. Typically, existing sellers recruit new sellers and may earn bonuses depending on how many individuals they can recruit to join the company. That may sound like a “pyramid” structure, but the principal component distinguishing a legal direct selling company from a pyramid scheme is whether consultants make money primarily from recruiting new sellers (in the pyramid scheme model) or from the products they sell (the legitimate way to do business, as outlined by the Federal Trade Commission). Military spouse unemployment is hardly a new problem. Direct Selling Association (DSA) president Joe Mariano says the issue reached Capitol Hill in the 1980s when he worked to make military base commanders more aware of the advantages of direct selling. Despite early efforts, DSA data from 2014 shows that among more than 50 companies surveyed, less than 10 percent of companies offered any type of program for military spouses. When they did, they offered easier shipping logistics, no enrollment fees, and at times free products through philanthropy programs. 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