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On the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, one in every of Denis Pizzacalla’s designs noticed the highlight as Tessa Advantage stood on high of the rostrum in a chic white gown (pictured, proper). The costume was newly created for the Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 free dance with which Advantage and companion Scott Moir captured the gold medal. This season, the designer, primarily based in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, hopes for an additional podium run: he’s the person behind the brand new free skate costumes for 2013 World bronze medalist Javier Fernandez of Spain and Canadian pair Kirsten Moore-Towers & Dylan Moscovitch, fourth on the 2013 World championships
Whereas Pizzacalla can depend Fernandez and Moore-Towers & Moscovitch amongst his highest profile long-time shoppers—having labored with each often because the starting of the present quadrennial—ice dance has comprised a key a part of his aggressive efforts. A number of younger groups from the Mariposa Faculty of Skating, together with Junior Grand Prix rivals Lauren Collins & Danny Seymour, depend amongst his present shoppers, whereas his years of labor with former Mariposa college students Alexandra Paul & Mitchell Islam by the 2012-13 season provided one other stage for worldwide publicity.
Pizzacalla, who balances his aggressive workload along with his duties as costume designer for Disson Skating’s annual collection of productions, studied theatrical costume design at Ryerson College. In 1987, quickly after ending college, he discovered employment as a cutter within the wardrobe division on the CBC, the place he labored for 13 years.
“CBC at the moment used to do loads of skating exhibits – issues like Kurt Browning’s specials, Liz Manley’s specials, and stuff like that,” he stated. “It turned type of necessity that if you happen to had been going to be working on the CBC, you had been going to need to study to make these skating costumes. So I simply threw myself into it and tried to study as a lot as I might from the girl that was there, and it simply began to develop from there. , we might do a skating present after which we might have sure skaters within the present that had been nonetheless within the competitors a part of their careers. They’d method me as we had been doing the present and say, ‘I actually love the best way your stuff is made. I want any individual to make my stuff for me for this yr and design it.’”
Pizzacalla’s method to competitors design has been formed by each type and necessity.
“I feel that due to location and due to the ability set of trades that I’ve obtainable to me, I by no means actually attempt to compete with somebody like Jef Billings, who’s extra of a glitzy sort of costume designer,” he stated. “I’d say that I’ve a sure sort of type that I’m comfy with. I have a tendency to love doing extra fashion-oriented attire, like avenue garments that work on a skating degree. I additionally, due to my background as a theatrical costume cutter, have a tendency to love to chunk into issues that inform a narrative or attempt to create a personality.”
British designer Sophie Whittam is one other waiting for the visibility provided by the Olympic stage, with shoppers Penny Coomes & Nicholas Buckland, two-time British nationwide champions, probably Sochi-bound. “It does give me the chance to go the additional mile and push my boundaries to create actually distinctive costumes,” she says.
Whittam, a former aggressive skater, left the game to pursue her pursuits in style, happening to review design at Chesterfield Faculty, run a boutique, and work as a style technician within the BA (Honours) Style Design program at Sheffield Hallam College. However whereas nonetheless a youngster, she lower her tooth stitching costumes for buddies nonetheless competing within the sport, paving the best way for her later focus. In 2009, she started Sophie Costumes in Sheffield, and since then, Whittam has labored with a number of of Nice Britain’s highest-profile skaters, together with longtime dance champions Sinead Kerr & John Kerr.
Like Pizzacalla, Whittam factors to the non-public type that shines by her creations.
Whittam, too, notes the impression her background has had upon her method to design.
“I feel it’s evident in all my designs and costumes that I really like what I do and I get pleasure from it,” she stated. “Additionally being a skater myself, I’ve the information and understanding of what it feels wish to put on costumes and to carry out in them. It’s so essential to really feel your finest in competitors—in any case, that’s what all of the hours spent coaching are for!”
Whereas the gown is the product, the skater is the mannequin, making design of key significance to many rivals. Although many skaters place their belief within the fingers of their designers, whether or not exterior professionals or relations, others play a extra central position within the inventive course of. And a few, like Madison Chock, who received U.S. ice dance silver in 2013 with companion Evan Bates, create for themselves.
“I’ve all the time been concerned within the design technique of my costumes,” she says. “However for the previous few years, I’ve designed them alone.”
Chock, who’s all in favour of pursuing a future profession in design, factors to some sensible positives of designing her personal items. “The beauty of designing my very own costumes is that nobody is aware of my physique higher than me,” she stated. “Subsequently, I do know what seems to be finest and can flatter my determine most.”
Whereas Chock & Bates, who prepare on the Novi Ice Area, have offered applications with themes as wide-ranging as Cirque du Soleil, Les Miserables, and Dr. Zhivago, Chock’s personal type stays a connecting thread.
“I feel my private type is all the time altering and evolving and it undoubtedly carries by in my designs,” she stated, “although I all the time attempt to keep true to the character I’m portraying on the ice.”
Sparking Inspiration
Character, and theme in a broader sense, is, certainly, one main issue setting aggressive skating design other than excessive style.
“It actually all the time begins with the music and this system,” says Pizzacalla.
Whereas a character-driven program can simplify the designer’s activity, summary music picks can open the door for numerous sources of inspiration.
“I all the time are likely to get a sense a few piece of music, whether or not it’s a colour, or whether or not I really feel that one thing is ethereal or up to date or interval,” Pizzacalla stated. “After which I feel, okay, effectively who does that sort of factor that provides me that feeling?”
High fashion has impressed a few of his work this season: Fernandez’s lengthy program, for instance, evoked ideas of Gaultier.
“I feel that I search for concepts from sure designers that I feel are going to talk to the best look,” he stated. “And generally a gown desires to have a Chanel sort of high quality to it, or, you recognize, it actually simply relies upon. A number of instances, I’ll spend loads of time flicking by magazines, and it may be some designer I’ve by no means even heard of, however whenever you see it, you suppose, yeah, that’s the sensation I’m going for.”
Whittam additionally cites excessive style as her main guiding gentle.
“I’ve such an enormous library of collated pictures which I really like. It may very well be a easy element, a form, colour, something,” she stated. “I’m continually impressed by different style designers, notably when the Haute Couture collections come out, as that is extra alongside the strains of my work, the place you’ll be able to discover and be probably the most elaborate, probably the most inventive and ingenious. I wish to take concepts from the stage and display screen, and pop stars akin to Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, and Michael Jackson. The stage and display screen, style magazines, and the newest catwalks additionally preserve my work present and fascinating.”
And Chock seeks concepts by perusing quite a lot of sources.
“My inspiration can come from something and every part,” she says, “from style magazines, Pinterest, art work, present traits, to colours in nature.”
For sure ideas, the very best concepts can come from a glance in direction of the previous. Pizzacalla was in the midst of designing costumes for Moore-Towers & Moscovitch when he was interviewed.
“Proper now with Dylan and Kirsten, I do know that between myself and the choreographer, we’ve talked quite a bit about their free skate,” Pizzacalla stated. “The choreographer actually desires it to make it really feel like they’re out on a date. We’ve talked about it having a sort of Noel Coward really feel to it—dapper, with a smoking jacket, and women in beautiful cocktail attire.”
Music selection can generally current a puzzle for the skilled designer, particularly in a sport the place athletes preserve returning to the identical musical selections. “Usually I’ll have beforehand produced a fancy dress for a specific piece of music, after which a brand new shopper may have the identical piece,” Whittam stated. “I wish to make it possible for I method it with an open thoughts and as a clean canvas, a chance to discover my design abilities additional.”
Pizzacalla notes the issue that may come up whereas working with a shopper who has discovered her personal inspiration.
“Individuals will include an image that they’ve present in {a magazine} and I’ve to try to work out make that right into a skateable gown,” he stated. “A number of instances, folks will see issues and say, ‘Oh, I really like that,’ and you must work out, ‘Effectively, how are you going to maintain that on?’ When it’s an image of some very flimsy sheer gown or one thing, you suppose, ‘Effectively, you’re not going to get by two competitions in that gown.’
“However, you recognize, you get there ultimately, normally. There’s all the time a approach to get there ultimately.”
Certainly, for each designer and shopper, an concept is just as robust as its capability to be realized. Whereas design is already guided partly by ISU restrictions —feminine dancers should put on skirts, for instance, and costumes should not distract from a dancer’s bodyline—the realities of on-ice motion, coupled with an purpose for aesthetic attraction, can current their very own exams.
“Every design faces its personal challenges, as each costume is totally distinctive in each side from measurements, sample drafting and chopping, to stoning,” Whittam stated. “Sometimes, attire can find yourself in as many as forty-plus separate sample items with over 5,000 stones. There’s a fantastic line between stitching and engineering in some instances!”
As a skater, Chock (pictured with companion Evan Bates, proper) is ever vigilant of the difficulties a program’s components might pose to a bit.
“As our applications are made, I take into consideration the lifts and actions we execute, so I can ensure that my costume received’t be proscribing in any approach,” Chock stated. And it’s all the time good to have an additional set of eyes so I actually worth the opinions of my mom, my companion’s mother (who’s an artist herself), and my seamstress.”
Whittam additionally factors to the challenges concerned in measurement, notably when a typical 4 (or so) fittings is probably not doable. “For abroad clientele and those that can’t attend a measurement session, I’m reliant on measurements being correct to make sure a right-first-time match,” she stated. “It’s extra complicated making for grownup skaters who’ve a extra mature physique form versus younger women. Comparable challenges are confronted when making males’s costumes.”
Pizzacalla is aware of effectively the challenges of making for male skaters. After chopping males’s costumes for CBC productions, in addition to for Stars On Ice, the territory turned his area of interest as he branched out into aggressive design.
“There gave the impression to be a good quantity of people that might deal with women’ attire, however there was an actual void out there for locations for boys to get their costumes made,” he stated. “A number of moms might handle to place collectively a skating gown for his or her daughter, but it surely was the poor moms of the boys who appeared to essentially wrestle with tailoring for them.”
Pizzacalla’s benefit as a males’s designer permits him to craft coordinated items for a workforce.
“I feel it’s all the time finest when any individual does do each costumes,” he stated. “I’ve seen some skating groups the place the woman will simply go off and get her attire made, after which the boy’s mom is liable for getting one thing made for him, after which there by no means appears to be a connection between them. So if I’m going to do a workforce, I love to do each costumes, in order that I can preserve management over the colour palette and in order that we are able to preserve a consistency to it. It’s principally like making an attempt to place collectively an outfit, however making an attempt to place collectively two outfits that talk to one another.”
However skating design on the elite aggressive degree additionally usually presents one other difficulty of extra inner consistency. It’s powerful to please the attention of each rinkside spectators and at-home tv viewers. Fantastic element and textures can disappear at a distance, showing to in a different way to spectators within the nosebleed seats. Sure patterns and striping might strobe onscreen, and colours can turn into washed out or tackle a subtly completely different hue—what’s purple on the ice might seem burgundy to followers at house.
“On tv you do have further strain,” Whittam stated. “Usually small particulars are ‘misplaced’ from a distance, however when skaters are sat within the kiss & cry, they may have digicam close-ups, which is able to give spectators a better inspection of your costumes. I wish to suppose that my work seems to be simply as spectacular up shut as from a distance.”
And but the development course of, as Pizzacalla notes, can generally turn into a easy growth of the design.
“I’ll usually begin engaged on a gown, and because it begins to look on the model, it begins to inform you what it desires, you recognize?” he stated. “I wish to let issues develop for themselves.”
For skating designers, each skilled and newbie, whether or not creating for potential Olympians or novice regional dancers, technical snags and sensible considerations might pale subsequent to the larger query of innovation in a discipline formed by its personal sometimes-limiting tips and the whims of theme. However this, suggests Pizzacalla, may turn into alternative.
“Generally probably the most difficult factor is to not be doing one thing that you simply’ve performed earlier than,” Pizzacalla stated. “How am I going to get this gown from idea to the model, in a approach that I haven’t performed fifteen instances earlier than? Generally that problem may be probably the most rewarding—whenever you begin off sort of not realizing the place you’re going, and also you simply preserve working at it.”
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