One of the reason I blog about my tutus is to help my remote clients see how out a design together from fabric choices and consultation about choreography, music and dancer’s personal style. It must be hard to try to develop a design with a person you’ve never met so I think the blog fills in a few gaps.
This post is about a pink tutu I put together for a client and her daughter in Victoria about 1000 km from where I live in Sydney. We went through a few different coloured pinks fabrics and laces but finally settled in this combination.
Corded and sequinned lace
Next we decided on skirt colours. We decided on a white top layer grading down to a dark pink to match the leotard fabric. I do a bit of hand dyeing of net and I often dye a few extra pieces or experiment with colours ( or just make mistakes) which I stash away for future use. In this case my dyeing frenzies yielded great results.
hand dyed net
And from chaos and experimentation comes order with the addition of a layer of glitter tulle for a bit of sparkle.
pink clouds
Putting this skirt together was a dream. The different pink layers played against each other so beautifully. As i tacked the layer together the skirt’s personality changed. There are some things about make tutus I love and the transformation of a formless puff to a tutu skirt is a miracle of engineering!
tulle lotus
My client just wanted a flat plate like she has seen on my lemon and lime tutu. The trick is to make a piece of linear scalloped selvedge curve around the tutu skirt. I had to judiciously snip out some pieces of the lace and bring the lace over to fill the gap. This creates a gentle curve. The arrangement at the sides is a little different because the curve is steeper around the dancer’s hips but with a bit of cleverness I can divert the eye from these differences.
reconstructed lace as a plate
Corded lace lends itself beautifully to bodice decoration giving a rich textural feel to the embellishment. The lace had a lot of holographic flat sequins so it didn’t need much more bling. I added some pretty little flower shaped sequins and secured them with red AB seed beads to continue the textural feel. A few large rhinestones finished the look.
textural embellishment
Using the lace as a bodice decoration ties it in perfectly with the flat plate.
plate
And the whole effect was really very pleasing.
another tutu floating in my garden
The studio cat was also pretty pleased … really he was!
Tybalt, Photographic assistant
and then of course on a real dancer
the smile says it all
This tutu is stunning 🙂 I am looking for something like this for my 8yr old for next year (2015). She is roughly a 6-8, first time doing a classical number. How much would this be?
Thanks in advance 🙂
Emma.
Hi Emma,thanks for the comments! Yes this tutu defied all expectations. I knew it would be pretty but as it cam together it kept surprising me with its loveliness. This tutu was $425. From a base price of $300 I added $25 for hand beading on bodice, $25 for the nude insert, $50 for the plate and $25 for the clipped net. The graded skirt was complimentary as I had the more unusual colours already in my stash so I did not have to custom dye the net. Where are you located? Postage in within Australia is about $20. Overseas postage maybe up to $80 (including insurance).