Did you hear we had a little “weather event”? I love these euphemisms. We were fortunate here in MA. First, Sandy hit landfall south of us (keep our friends in NJ and NY in your thoughts and prayers, please). And by banging a hard left at Atlantic City, she lashed us with winds, and knocked out power, but she didn’t flood us like she did those on the western side. Second, we had the Halloween freakshow storm last year, which knocked down many, if not most, of the trees that would take down power lines. A friend of mine who lives on Long Island called me today to tell me she was okay, but without power. She said, “all you can here is the sound of chainsaws taking down trees.” That was what we went through here last year, so I completely sympathize. Hopefully the power will be restored soon.
We were without power in the warehouse today ourselves, so I was able to spend a bunch of time working on Tatiana’s ballroom dress. And I finished it! The point of this exercise was to change an American Smooth dress to an International Standard dress. So you may say, “So, Ann – what exactly are the differences between American Smooth and International Standard?”
Hell if I know. And just try finding information about dress specifics and floats and whatnot on the internet. Jimminy Christmas, you’d think I was looking for information on how to build some sort of WMD. No one will part with any information. So I had to wing that mother by looking at pictures of competition dresses in action, which is only so helpful.
Anyway, here’s what I did to change the dress. First – I added a lot of godets. International Standard dresses are big on volume, so I gather. They also like to have a little support, so I added a petticoat, made of stretch mesh.
Thanks to Phyllis’ suggestion, I cut the leotard off at the waist and attached the petticoat to it, then I sewed it back together. I used 2 inch horsehair braid to support the hem.
After checking out the hem of the dress, I decided that it would benefit by adding 2-inch horsehair braid to the outer dress shell as well. While the storm was raging, I was pinning horsehair furiously, I can tell you! Adding that second layer with the horsehair makes a world of difference. The dress moves smoothly and very Cindrella-ish
Yeah, well, this is the inside scoop:
Then there were the floats.
What are floats, you ask? Floats in International Standard dresses (and here’s where I show my ignorance) are doohickies that hang off the dress to underscore and enhance the movement of the dancers. (Here’s my aside, which I may edit out tomorrow, so grab it while you can) And a lot of times, they are tacky as hell. There, I said it. So my goal was to try to make them pretty, while avoiding the off ramp to Tackytown. I tried draping cotton muslin, which in this case is a pretty poor substitute for floaty fabric, but it gave me an idea, and I came up with a sorta-semicircular drape that would start at the left shoulder and go to the right wrist. Then I added a smaller float on the left arm, from the forearm to the wrist:
Here’s a picture of the front of the dress, which isn’t quite as interesting without someone posing in it:
And here’s the back, which I rather like.
I brought it, with about a thousand hotfix rhinestones and my Khandi Kane, to Tatiana today. She loved it, and she’s going to spend the next few nights getting her dress good and stoned. There are some minor changes we should make to the floats (more volume!!!!!), but it’s in good shape for the competition this weekend. I’ll get pictures of the dress in action later. Once again, this was a lot of fun and I learned tons. You know what I learned that I think is the most valuable? There’s a lady on Etsy who sells Ballroom Dance Sewing Patterns!!! I bought both of her patterns plus the CD manual she published on making ballroom dance dresses. I’ve already learned some things just from looking at her pattern instructions. This should make the next dress (hopefully) easier.
Next up, I think – a super sexy dress for moi.
Happy sewing!
Fascinating! DanceSportSewing looks like a great resource. Hope you can share more details in the future
It’s very impressive! These dance dresses are masterpieces and not at all easy to sew.
Ann it’s gorgeous The floats are thoughtfully added and I agree they can be really tacky looking but these look just right. If I was adding stones I’d put them around the neckline and down the middle to about waist length ending in a point, basically following and filling in the shape of the darker brown color that runs down the center of the dress. And then on the back I’d expand the coverage of the stones already there to make another point down the back of the dress as well maybe 8-10 inches.
OH, I love those floats – I think you hit just the right note (and no offramp to Tackytown, either!). Just lovely and I’m sure when Tatiana is dancing in it, she will look fab.
It is gorgeous, Ann! Hey if I remove the comma in that previous sentence, it still makes sense!
We also had a pre-Sandy event last summer. The derecho devastated our neighborhood, leaving us without power for a week, many trees down – blocking roadways, smashing cars and homes. After that, the cleanup was a big project. When Sandy hit, she drenched us and removed the leaves from the trees, but that’s about it.
These storms are, at best horribly inconvenient and uncomfortable. At worst, well, it’s pretty bad. Feeling much empathy for those who are suffering.
Beautiful! The float across the back is really nice.
And thanks for the Cinderella clip. I think my sisters and I did a performance of that show (using a donated wedding dress!) at least once a week every summer for years. Happy memories!
That dress looks awesome!
AWESOME work, especially if you’re a non-dancer and trying to make heads or tails of ballroom costumes without having tried to dance in one. I made all my competition dresses, and after the first one just didn’t bother with floats at all, even though I competed Standard almost exclusively. It matters more *not* to have them in Smooth than it does *to* have them in Standard, since you can break hold and do more twisty arm things in Smooth. If you look at websites for costumers like Chrisanne or Sapiel, you may be able to get at least a better array of photos from which to reverse-engineer gown designs. Or maybe you don’t ever want to have to try making a dance costume again; I don’t know–but this one is gorgeous.
Thanks for that information, Karen! I have to admit that, while I hate sewing for other people, the dance costumes for Tatiana are lots of fun. She’s easy to fit, and it’s so different than what I make for myself, generally.
Thanks for the details and insight into this world which is totally foreign to me. Also I want to know in which country singing princes wear gold lame……
To give you an idea of how much havoc Sandy caused — it took the power companies over 8 days to restore power to half of the people in NJ who had it knocked out. Halloween did not happen in NJ for schoolchildren — it was rescheduled for Nov 9th in my town, and there were still entire streets without power — and I live 1 1/2 hours away from the shore. The power company is promising to restore power before Thanksgiving to the rest of the town. Both NY and NJ are rationing gas even now. The best quote I heard was “Sandy won’t be over until you have power.”
Oh! It’s so beautiful!! I LOVE ballroom dancing!! But I cannot imagine working with those delicate materials.