When your test pattern makes it on stage

Have you ever made a ballet tutu before? Well, this was our first one. We had to start over so many times that I lost count, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually not that difficult. It’s just a lot of work and sometimes a bit uncomfortable when you try to stitch and the tutu get stuck in your face.

The final costume we made for the opening scene “Creation” from the Les Danseuses dance production “When Life Happens”, is the Big Red Bird. This character was actually created by accident. What happened was, that we knew that we wanted to make tutus for the dance show, because what is a ballet show without any tutus featuring somewhere? So we decided to draft and test a basic tutu skirt. Luckily it turned out so good that we’ve decided to use it for the bird character.

Apparently it is a top secret on how to make a tutu and there aren’t many patterns available. So we’ve searched online and watched plenty of “behind the scenes” and “how it’s made” costume videos of great ballet shows like the Nutcracker. We would scour the background in search of more clues on how to make it and even pause and zoom in to try and see better…well finally we figured out our plan and we could start to test our idea.

We decided to first make the tutu itself and worry about the bodice section later. Firstly, we drafted the pattern and determined how much layers of tulle we needed. A few years ago, my mom gave me a bunch of tulle in different colours and I was waiting on a special project to use it for. The size of the tulle varied quite a bit, so we had to sort the colours together and see how we could optimize each piece. After we’ve cut the tulle in the desired lengths, we ruffled it and stitched it to the panty section of the tutu. Lastly, we had to steam the layers one by one, and this was a mission. In the end we used a ribbon to hold the upper layers in place and that worked like a charm. In a future post, I’ll explain the process of making a tutu in a little bit more detail, but luckily our test tutu was a success and we decided to turn this into a costume for the bird character.

If you ask how we decided on the colour for the bird, well then I have to admit, we did not really put a lot of thought into it, the maroon was the only vibrant colour stretch velvet we could find. We did not expect the lockdown to be so long or our show being postponed, so we had to source all the last couple of things we needed to finish the costumes so that we can be show ready for June 2020. So next we used the stretch velvet to make the bodice and we made the plate in the same fabric. We’ve also made a mantel to resemble “wings” that cover the shoulders, but in the end it was rather changed to fit around the upper arm and add embellishments on the bodice.

Thanks for reading!

PS: The studio photo is from the dance production “When Life Happens” by Les Danseuses Adult Ballet studio. Photographer: Carla Nel Photography.

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