I don’t make a lot of costumes for end of year concerts, actually I duck for cover whenever anyone says the word “troupe”. I figure I paid my dues when my daughter was dancing. But occasionally a solo costume is needed and I’m very happy to help. This one was great fun. Karen and I are often on the same page with “less is more” and that the costume is there to support the dancer and the choreography not the other way around. Here is what we came up with for her daughter’s Red Queen tutu.

We chose a beautiful paprika red rather than the usual pillar box red and teamed it with black. But we needed a colour mid way between the red and the black for the middle side front sections. I placed some fine black mesh over the red and voila; perfect gradation.

Everyone knows that the Red Queen in the Queen of hearts so we felt we didn’t need to overplay the heart design so we insinuated hearts into the design with lovely baroque swirls.

I tried with a few more pieces and settled on this design. BTW, doesn’t the mid colour between the red and black look great?

The skirt needed a little drama too so the top black layer was highlighted with gold glitter tulle and filled in with reds, plums and blacks.

Here’s a pictures of the underneath of the skirt with all the gorgeous reds.

I did struggle a bit with the placement of the appliques for the skirt so I played with a number of placements before I was happy.

Too skimpy

Too pointy

Just right, although I did tweak it just a little to make a bit more of the long points.

I think with a fancy tiara and some draped sleeves this could also be a very effective Spanish tutu.

 

I was very pleased to receive this photo of the beautiful and vivacious Georgia in the tutu I made for her. We added the red hearts at the request of the teacher.