Research-pass narrative.

• A robust commission economy with mature payment-stage discipline (30% up-front / milestone / balance at delivery is the industry-norm structure).
• A real and predictable first-timer cost-shock pattern — newcomers expect retail-clothing pricing and are surprised by commission pricing, often abandoning the inquiry before learning industry norms.
• Convention-anchored demand at major-show scale: Anime Expo (LA), NY Comic Con (NY), Dragon Con (Atlanta) all corpus-grounded as cosplay anchors. Three of HAE's five metros have these anchors.
• A workshop-grade vocabulary register: Worbla, EVA foam, sandwich technique, heat gun, fabrication, build. Same register as HAE's “we build cool shit” voice anchor.
• A DIY-vs-commission community-political tension: some community members regard commissioning as not “true” cosplay; others embrace it. Positioning that celebrates both serves better than positioning that dismisses DIY culture.

• The Glossary entries under cosplay (EVA foam, filler material, heat gun, priming, sandwich technique, thermoplastic, Worbla, closet cosplay, commission, commissioner, cosplayer, Comic Con, cosplay contest, cameko) all derive from this pass.
• The Questionnaire Branch 1 (Cosplay / con / fandom) — its sub-questions and branching logic — is shaped by this pass's first-timer-journey findings.
• The capability-demonstration purpose of the questionnaire (defusing first-timer cost-shock before consultation call) is calibrated to this pass's evidence.
• The “we build cool shit” voice register is corpus-corroborated by this pass's vocabulary findings.

• SEO targets like “Worbla commission Atlanta,” “anime cosplay commission Los Angeles,” “Dragon Con commission” are intent-supported by this pass's evidence.
• Outreach via Dragon Con community forums, Anime Expo community channels, NY Comic Con cosplay circles, and cosplay-Instagram / Twitch streamers in metro is corpus-supported as discovery channels.
• The first-timer-cost-shock dynamic is a real conversation-opener for inbound — HAE can lead with “we know commission pricing is surprising the first time; here's how to think about it” and that lands as honest and useful rather than defensive.
• Future Phase-G research could verify Minneapolis and Austin cosplay community depth (not corpus-grounded at this research scale).

• A six-class vendor taxonomy emerged: Class-A premier custom-costume studios (six-figure show-package tier); Class-B mid-market multi-service; Class-C theatrical-rental specialists; Class-D regional mixed-use; Class-E to-the-trade specialty (textile and supply); Class-F directories.
• NYC Garment District is the densest production-supply cluster in the corpus — EWI, JPKNY, Mio Sourcebook, Dyenamix, Wing + Weft.
• LA has iconic studios: Western Costume Company, Motion Picture Costume, Valentinos. Iconic at top, thin in the middle.
• Atlanta is film-anchored: TISS (TheaterMakers Costume + Set), TTD (Tom Talmon Studio). Stage-theater thinner than film.
• Minneapolis and Austin are single-anchor: TCC in Minneapolis (~30K rental pieces; closed sister-shop Theatrical Costume Co; Norcostco HQ); ACAC in Austin (~50K rental pieces; one-vendor-spans-everything because demand density doesn't support specialization).
• A distinctive procurement pattern: producer → designer → shop. The shop's actual customer at the premier tier is the costume designer, not the producer who pays the bill. This is a tripartite IP-design-object authorship pattern unique to theatrical / film production.
• Premier-tier pricing is opaque by industry norm; show-package vs piece-rate dichotomy is the published category structure but not unit prices.

• The Glossary entries under industry roles (costume designer, costumer / costume-maker, draper / dressmaker / stitcher / milliner / tailor / shoemaker / beader / patternmaker / machine sewer, designer-of-record, maison / workroom / workshop, wardrobe supervisor) and under service-offerings (one-stop shop / full-service, show package, day rate, from sketch to final fitting, to-the-trade / B2B-only) derive from this pass.
• The Questionnaire Branch 2 (Theater / film / production) is shaped by this pass's findings on designer-mediated procurement.
• The Phase G permission-letter templates — particularly V2 (work-for-IP-holder) and V4 (to-the-trade-vendor-partnership) — are built on this pass's understanding of tripartite production-rights structures and B2B vendor relationships.
• The “we build cool shit” voice register is also corroborated here: craft-roster vocabulary (drapers, stitchers, milliners) and theater-construction discipline are honest workshop-grade language.

• Outreach for theatrical production should target the costume designer as primary contact, not the producer. Production directories and designer-side referral networks matter more than producer-side outreach.
• For Atlanta: lean film / TV not stage-theater. Film-industry supply (TISS, TTD) is the corpus-grounded ecosystem.
• For LA: compete with iconic studios at premier tier (if HAE wants that fight) or position at the mid-tier where the corpus shows structural thinness (less-populated competitive space).
• For NYC: Garment District density supports specialty positioning; the corpus shows the broadest taxonomy here.
• For Minneapolis / Austin: position as specialization-alternative to the single-anchor mixed-use shops; lower commercial volume expected but less competition.
• ZACH Theatre and Austin Opera buyer-side procurement isn't covered in this pass; that's Phase-G follow-up if HAE wants Austin theatrical positioning.

• A five-category market intelligence layer: planner (lead), coordinator (subordinate to planner), venue-coordinator (employed by venue), day-of coordinator (lighter-scope service), floral-and-rentals (adjacent vendor categories with shared discovery channels).
• B2B platform tier with pay-to-play discovery: WeddingPro and The Knot are the dominant platforms; participation is paid; ROI varies by market and tier.
• Reciprocal preferred-vendor lists between non-competing vendors: one-way (vendor recommends others as courtesy) or reciprocal (paired endorsements between businesses).
• Chase-direction is bidirectional: sometimes the vendor chases the planner for referral-list inclusion (newer / lower-tier vendors); sometimes the planner chases the vendor for capacity confirmation (established / higher-tier vendors). Identity often determined by who has the scarcer resource — calendar availability vs. preferred-vendor-list slot.
• Luxury-bridal couture at NYC and London handles pricing privately by default: “Bridal commissions are handled privately and discreetly.” Six-figure commissions are not menu-priced.
• The “atelier” word has two distinct meanings here: at luxury-bridal it signals a high-end couture house (Halfpenny, Phillipa Lepley, Vera Wang, Galia Lahav, Paolo Sebastian); at the regional alterations layer it can simply denote an independent seamstress's studio. Same word, very different signals.
• Mid-luxury bridal $5K–$15K tier is under-represented in the corpus — a real research gap if HAE considers a hybrid offering at that price point.

• The Glossary entries under industry roles (atelier — with the dual-meaning copy-risk note; bridal alterations expert; partner sewist; sewer / sewist; seamstress / tailor; garment fitter; wedding planner; wedding tailor; endorsement / preferred vendor; preferred vendor list; referral network; screening questions) derive from this pass.
• The Glossary entries under service-offerings (alterations, bespoke, in-house alterations, partner sewist, triple-service stack, vintage redesign / heirloom revamp) also derive here.
• The Questionnaire Branch 4 (Wedding — you're the planner) is shaped entirely by this pass's planner-side journey findings.
• The “talk to us” pricing CTA pattern at luxury-bridal copy is corroborated by this pass.
• The atelier dual-meaning copy-risk is surfaced in both the Glossary's word-choice notes and the Market Intelligence brief.

• Per-metro planner partnership outreach: identify 3–5 planners per HAE-metro for relationship-building. The corpus is national-scale; per-metro identification is Phase-G follow-up.
• ROI evaluation question for HAE: is WeddingPro / The Knot platform participation worth the fee at HAE's stage? The corpus evidences these as discoverability channels but doesn't give HAE-tier-specific ROI.
• For NYC: position luxury-bridal-via-editorial-routing is the most corpus-grounded path (editorial gatekeepers like Brides route to NY / London ateliers).
• For mid-luxury bridal $5K–$15K: if HAE wants to test a hybrid offering here, run a targeted Phase-G research pass first — the corpus doesn't cover this tier well.

• Five sub-buckets within recreational-luxury: (1) wealthy private costume-party hosts; (2) Texas Rose Festival families (multi-generational legacy referral); (3) Mardi Gras / New Orleans krewe royalty; (4) Halloween-affluent custom-luxury garments; (5) period / historical recreational.
• Multi-generational legacy referral is a real and distinctive pattern at Texas Rose Festival: daughters and granddaughters commission from the same dressmaker who made gowns for their mothers. Documented in Tyler TX.
• Cost-as-status-display register is real in Mardi Gras krewe culture: customers proudly say “Yeah, I spent some money too.” This is OPPOSITE the luxury-bridal register, which is “handled privately and discreetly.” Same luxury-tier domain; opposite consumer-cost-conversation norms.
• Coronation-secrecy norm: Queen's gowns and court costumes are not photographed publicly or revealed before the coronation event itself. Affects portfolio display and permission-letter scope.
• Theater-construction grammar is the corpus-evidenced way recreational-royalty vendors explain their work honestly — foundations beneath, larger-than-street, multi-petticoat support, hoop infrastructure, made-to-last. Not couture-precious; workshop-grade.
• A substantial vocabulary cluster for recreational-royalty: mantle, train, crown, parure, scepter, plumed headdress, collar (Medici / Mardi Gras / krewe), cape, gown, bodice, brocade, cloth of gold, beadwork, bugle beads, crystal pieces, court roles (Queen, Princess, Duchess, Lady-in-Waiting, Train-bearer, Scepter-bearer, Designer-of-record).
• Pass D Bucket 1 (wealthy private costume-party) and Bucket 4 (Halloween-affluent) are intrinsically thin: private events aren't editorially documented at scale by design.

• The Glossary entries under recreational-royalty (mantle, train, crown, parure, scepter, headpiece, plumes, collar variants, beadwork, bugle beads, brocade, cloth of gold, gown, bodice, court roles — Queen / Princess / Duchess / Lady-in-Waiting / Designer-of-record, theater-construction grammar, coronation / coronation ball, krewe, krewe ball, festival royalty, masquerade ball, Texas Rose Festival, Mardi Gras, secrecy norm, multi-generational tradition) all derive from this pass.
• The Questionnaire Branch 5 (Festival / krewe / masquerade / themed event — recreational-luxury) is built on this pass's bucket structure.
• The Phase G permission-letter templates — particularly V3 (festival-participation) — embed the coronation-secrecy norm (post-event display only + pre-event embargo respected + year-specific terms).
• The anti-extrapolation rule for HAE's 5-metro positioning is built directly on this pass's geographic mismatch finding.
• The segment-aware cost-conversation register tuning (krewe customers' open-about-cost vs. luxury-bridal's opacity-by-preference) was surfaced here.

• Position recreational-royalty offerings by archetype, not by institution. “If you're commissioning a debutante gown, a krewe-ball costume, or a festival-royalty piece, here's how we work” is safe across all metros.
• Do NOT publish metro-specific recreational-royalty claims without Phase-G per-metro research first. The Tyler / NOLA institutional findings don't transfer to HAE's 5 metros automatically.
• Use the theater-construction grammar register honestly when describing recreational-royalty labor — foundations beneath, multi-petticoat support, made-to-last, hand-applied beading. This is the corpus-evidenced workshop-grade voice.
• For wealthy-private-host events (Bucket 1) and Halloween-affluent (Bucket 4): the substrate is intrinsically thin from public-web sources. Long-term, questionnaire-collected qualitative data over time becomes the source of truth here. Phase-G workaround: targeted research only if HAE prioritizes either bucket.

“Custom” is the universal anchor word with cross-segment register-stability; appointment-as-entry-gate above alterations tier; multi-stage progression (consultation → fittings → final); payment-stage discipline (deposit → milestone → balance); portfolio + reputation + reciprocal-network as trust mechanisms; word-of-mouth dominates discovery channels; fitting-call as universal pivot point; opacity-at-high-end pricing; theater-construction grammar across production + recreational-royalty + luxury-bridal corsetry; handsewn / handmade / handcrafted as cross-pass craft-labor vocabulary.

• Cost-conversation register: Pass D Mardi Gras vs Pass C luxury-bridal — opposite registers for same luxury-tier domain.
• Atelier usage frequency: Pass C high-frequency vs Pass D absent.
• Commission terminology: Pass C couture-only register, Pass D recreational-luxury rare-or-absent register, Pass A cosplay direct-to-end-client register — same word, three operational meanings.
• Bespoke usage: present at Pass C luxury-bridal + Pass D Bucket 4 Halloween-affluent; absent in Pass B board pins; absent at Pass D festival-royalty.

The 8 HAE strategic implications documented in the Market Intelligence brief §6 — two-tier funnel corroborated; 5-metro geographic mismatch CRITICAL; voice register corroborated; quadruple-purpose questionnaire corroborated; “talk to us” CTAs corroborated; cosplay positioning corroborated as lowest-friction; atelier copy-risk surfaced; segment-aware cost-conversation register tuning.

• The 116-entry Glossary is the synthesized cross-pass vocabulary substrate.
• The 61-question Questionnaire (with six branches plus universal entry block and cross-branch closer) is the synthesized customer-journey substrate.
• The Mock2 visual register (“we build cool shit” voice + theater-construction grammar) is corpus-corroborated voice substrate.
• The Phase G permission-letter templates draw on the cross-segment norms surfaced in the synthesis §11 (especially V3 coronation-secrecy and V4 vendor-partnership norms).
• The Market Intelligence brief is the Lindsey-actionable distillation of this synthesis.

• The cross-pass synthesis is the substrate for ANY future copy decisions that span more than one segment. When you're writing copy that has to land across cosplay + theatrical + bridal, the universal patterns (custom, appointment, multi-stage, fitting-cycle, “talk to us”) are safe substrate. When you're writing copy for just one segment, the segment-specific patterns and register tunings apply.
• For Mock3+ or future iterations: the §13 open-gaps list is the priority queue for Phase-G follow-up.
• For future research-pass design: the four-segment-pool-into-close-synthesis pattern worked. Future projects with similar multi-segment-research scope can use the same shape.