My Ballroom Dancing Dream Gown

If you also follow my friends/family blog, then you probably have already seen most of these photos. But in this post, I'll go into much more detail about the process of designing and building the gown... so far.




I'm calling this one of my master works of my lifetime. Or at least I will, when I finish it. From initial research and conception to its present state, it has been over a year in the making, with over 100 labor hours and I-will-not-say-how-many dollars invested in it so far, and it's still not done. But I got it this far along, to the point of wearability and a significant "Oh, my!" factor, in time for a Quickstep that I performed with my ballroom instructor as part of a showcase night on 11/11/11.




I haven't documented the design and production process as thoroughly as I would have liked. I began doing research over a year ago: taking photographs at competitions and showcases, focusing on gowns that had details that I admired; peeking at the internal structures of any existing competitive ballroom dancesport gowns that I could get my hands on; searching for further design inspiration and ballgown production tricks and tips online. The manner in which a dancesport ballgown needs to be constructed - giving the appearance of sleek lines, yet lots of volume, while seeming to weigh almost nothing - is a whole animal of magic unto itself.

I had been under the impression that my patron (who pays for my lessons with my instructor) was going to pay for me to do my first Pro-Am competition in April or May, so I had plenty of motivation to get moving on the design. By February, I had a pretty good idea of what I intended for the cut of my gown, the shape and attachment of the floats, and a range of colors that I would consider. I drew pencil sketches of the front and back views. Then, armed with a folder containing my sketches and research, I took a Friday off work and did a day trip to New York and spent the whole day - from when the fabric stores opened until they closed - collecting swatches, devoloping and comparing various color and fabric schemes, and eventually making a lot of purchases.

Within days of dropping I-will-not-say-how-many dollars on many yards of gorgeous silk charmeuse, silk chiffon, and a variety of potential applique accent fabrics, I was informed by my instructor that my patron had decided he didn't want to pay for me to compete yet - maybe never. I was crushed, and did a good bit of crying for a few days. Lacking a deadline, and feeling little but sadness and loss when I looked upon my fabrics, research, and sketches, I folded everything up neatly in a box labeled "dream gown," and tucked it away in a far corner of my closet.

But over the summer, I began to get my hopes up that my patron might pay for me to compete Pro-Am at a big competition in mid-November. In addition to that, I knew I would be performing in a showcase one a week before the competition, so I figured that even if I didn't end up going to the competition, it would be a big enough motivation that I could get the gown built in time for the showcase, rather than trying to fancy-up my practice skirt with sparkly accessories like I did last year. So I pulled the box out of the closet in August, and began to make peace with it. I began by patterning and building the foundation leotard, which unfortunately I did not document with photos. But that's the lighter purple color that you can see peeking between the appliques.

I don't have many shots showing the process, mainly because I was in such a tight time-crunch and sleeping so little that stopping to take documentary photos seemed like an unaffordable luxury.

Initial sketch, front view:


When I painted the sketches, I had purchased the purple fabrics, but had not found a pleasing-enough fabric for the appliques. I eventually eliminated the seams I sketched under the bust (actually, they are in the built-in leotard, but I appliqued over them), and I brought the appliques further down the hips and wrapped them all around the torso. I still need to finish the appliqued hairpiece.

Initial sketch, back view:


The decoration on the upper back of the finished gown was not part of the initial sketch, and instead came about entirely through trial and error. The floats turned out almost exactly as I sketched them, except that the middle one dips down further in the center than initially intended, thereby making it more floaty than in the sketch.

Here are some of the many pieces that were selectively cut out from a gold(and orange, purple, fuschia, and cream)-on-black paisley-printed spandex, backed with iron-on stitch-witchery, prepared to become appliques:


I really made an effort to have no more than two identical cut-outs of any one shape, so it was fun trying to decide in which direction to turn my scissors every time in approached a new printed element.

This is a remaining scrap of the stretchy fabric from which I selected and cut all the shapes for the appliques.


On its own, it's rather hideous, isn't it?

The numerous skirt gores were pinned to a dress form, just at their top edges, in order to hang overnight. This allowed their bias-cut edges to stretch as much as they wished before they were inserted into vertical straight-grain seams all around the gown's princess-seamed foundation (draped over table in rear). Doing this helps prevent the puckering that often occurs when a bias-cut edge is attached to a straight-grain or cross-grain edge.


One of the aspects of this project that felt the most artistic was when I was working out the applique placement on a dressform. This sort of work has a very sculptural and intuitive feeling to it, and I can honestly say that I have a real knack for it. I spent many hours doing this, taking many photos and re-working the placement of each layer until I was satisfied, then steaming each piece into place, and eventually securing it all with a machine zig-zag stitch around every exposed edge.


This was the triumphant shot I sent to Bryce once I had the leotard built, the skirt applied to the leotard at the desired angle, and the first round of appliques stitched in place. About three spools of thread had been used for all of that applique stitching, so far. The project still had a long way to go, but it looked like a gown, and darned svelte!


The skirt of the gown is obviously un-hemmed at this point. It felt so rich and luxurious to have all that silk charmeuse puddled on the floor and trailing behind me. But that length simply can't work for ballroom dance.

Hemming the skirt, one of the last steps before the gown could be wearable even though incomplete, turned into a huge stumbling block that took many hours longer than expected - at the worst time possible, as this was down to the wire. I had planned all along that I would apply horsehair braid all around the hem to give it that awesome loop-de-loop look that makes it stand away from the body in fat ripples. But I hadn't realized that the extreme curve of the skirt hem, due to the insertion of all the godets, would determine that I wouldn't be able to simply fold the fabric over it and topstitch. Rather, I had to topstitch it in place along one edge, then apply a bias-casing, like a quilt-binding, all around it.

Let me tell you that sucker was A BEAR! Horsehair braid can curve a bit, but not THIS much. The total circumference of that hem is over three times the circumference of the circle that it makes when you spread it on on the floor, so you can imagine the extreme curve of it. I should have known better. If I had realized from the beginning that I would need to apply a bias casing, rather than realizing it through trial-and-error, I might have saved myself some time. As it was, the application was very rushed, and the stitching turned out wonky, with the hem showing drag lines across the bias-binding in many places. I thought I was going to have to take it out and re-do it after the showcase. But I've since decided that I can live with it, since it's so wavy that only a small section of it shows at any one time, and when I'm dancing (and that's when it really matters, right?), you can't make out the drag lines at all. But if I had been building this gown for someone else, I would have to fix it, at no charge.


There is much that still needs to be done to it before I wear it again:
-Continue the applique work further down the hips, especially on the left front, so that the transition from stretchy print to non-stretchy solid feels more organically flowing, and less blunt and jarring, also giving a smoother fit down to hip level.
-Take it in more through the waist... not a minor matter, since this will require partially removing some of the appliques in the waist area, performing the alteration, then reapplying the appliques. If you look closely enough, you may notice some slight bulging above and below one side of my waistline in some photos. This was the result of a "quick fix" - snugly applying an internal elastic waistband, intended to bring the fit closer to my waist in the torso area, where the leotard fabric had stretched over the course of many hours of holding it taut it while zig-zag stitching appliques onto it. It looks fine when I'm standing up straight, but when I bend or flex at the waist, the internal elastic waistband has the unfortunate effect of cutting into my waist, causing a bulge that looks like chub above and/or below it. Not cool, given the sleek lines that a ballgown of this sort is supposed to achieve! And a good lesson/reminder that quick fixes make for more work in the long run!
-Cinch the bodice in along the armscye edges, especially where it is gaping along the left armscye - another fitting modification that is not a minor matter because so many appliques will have to be gently partially-removed, then reappplied.
-Properly-attach the corsage flowers (just safety-pinned in place for performance), preferably with snap-rigging so they can be removed when I get the gown cleaned.
-Finish the matching applique headpiece (not shown, because I had to give up on it and just pin some flowers into my hair.
-Apply a few hundred rhinestones.

But even just getting to wear it in its present state, I was so happy!




I didn't plan my hair. And I'll never be able to duplicate it. I just twisted, pinned, and glued, twisted, pinned, and glued. I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this whole "ballroom dancer hairstyles" thing. The key is to use a TON of gel and hairspray.

As for my make-up, I don't really know what I'm doing there, either. I just do what I was taught when I was on the ballroom dance team at my undergrad, over 10 years ago: long fake lashes, eyeliner extending up and away from the eyes 1/4 to 1/2 ", lots of dark eyeshadow, plenty of blush, and bright, plumping lipstick - along with basic minimal corrective, i.e. under-eye concealer for the dark circles, and plenty of transparent powder to reduce glare.


I made five silk flowers from bias-cut strips of silk charmeuse for the chest corsage and hair decoration.


This is my international standard ballroom instructor. Sorry, ladies (and gentlemen)... he's taken... and then some.


Oh, and that's right... I did some dancing in this fancy get-up!



Many people have asked me if I saved money by designing and building my own gown. Well, yes and no: For less than the amount that I have spent on fabric and other supplies (thread, notions, horsehair braid used in the hem, the padded Vickie's bra that I built into it, the rhinestones that are still waiting to be applied, etc), not taking into account what my labor would have cost if I were paid for it, I could have ordered a pretty nice dancesport ballgown from China. But nothing this distinctive. For something this distinctive, I'd probably have to spend at least a few thousand dollars (probably more like $5K, based on ones I just scoped-out online) to have it custom-designed and built by a company in the US. But I don't have a few thousand dollars to spend on a ballgown. Even the I-will-not-say-how-many dollars that I have spent on fabric and other supplies has been a significant financial burden. So while I didn't "save" money by designing and building my gown myself, doing so did make it possible for me to acquire a gown that is very distinctive and looks like I spent $3-5K or more on it.

Throughout the joyful evening of the gown's work-in-progress debut at the ballroom on the showcase night, and on a number of occasions since then, I have received inquiries from women interested in having me design and build a dancesport ballgown for them. The line of approach that I have begun to take is to say: "I might consider it, maybe during a time of year when my workload is lower, but you might not want to pay me what I would have to charge you in order to make it worth my while." Over 100 labor hours (including initial conception, shopping, patternmaking, and all of the building) have gone into this gown so far. I think that by the time I'm done with it, it will be more like 150. And, because I'm making this gown for myself, I have taken a lot of shortcuts that made the process faster (except for a few shortcuts I mentioned that have made more work because of things I still have to fix). I was able hold parts of it up to myself in the mirror, and try it on as needed to do tweaking over the course of the (still unfinished, sigh...) building process. But if I were building it for someone else, I'd be limited by having to do fittings and make design changes at set points over the process. There are some parts on the inside of the gown that look very ugly, which I don't mind because it's my animal/baby, but if I were building this gown for someone else, things like ugly internal construction wouldn't slide. Figuring that this gown would have taken about 150 hours (to completion) to build for someone else, if I had charged only $20 per hour (which is insulting... that's what an overhire stitcher in Theater Costume Shops gets paid, but I'm a skilled cutter-draper (the person who makes the patterns and sculpts garments on dressforms), and designer), I'd have to be paid $3000 for my labor, plus reimbursed the cost of fabric and other supplies. If I were paid more like the $30/hour minimum that a designer/builder of my caliber should get paid, then the labor cost would shoot up to $4500.

But there is more to this matter than just the money. This project took a lot out of me. It was my biggest project aside from my job and my dancing, for over a year. During the final weeks leading up to its work-in-progress debut, it was my whole life outside of my work hours. I would work on the gown on the bus on the way to work, get to work early, work on the gown, do my job-job, stay to work on the gown or pack gown parts to work on at home, work on the gown on the bus on the way home, sleep 5-6 hours, and repeat. My social life suffered, my physical and emotional health suffered, my dancing suffered (rather self-defeating, since the gown is supposed to support the dancing), and my marriage and other relationships suffered. I am so grateful that my husband is so tolerant of the rise and fall of my schedule as my various obligations, projects, and obsessions come and go (like blogging... you may have noticed I only post a few times a year now... if anyone is even reading this!). This gown was (and is still going to be, for another 40-50 hours over the next couple of months) my baby, my labor of love. For me to create and build something like this for someone else, they would really have to make it worth my while. They would have to make me want to build their gown as dearly as I had wanted to build my own.

But, hey! I really want to buy a home, where we can raise an actual baby, not just practice babies (i.e. cats, houseplants, and ballgowns), but we're nowhere near having enough saved for a down payment! So... want me to build a dancesport ballgown for you? Got $5K or more you're willing to drop on it? And when I hand it over to you, will you love it as dearly as I do, as much as if you had made it yourself? If so, then let's talk, my friend!

As for the matter of whether or not my patron will ever pay for me to compete Pro-Am: I don't know. The more time that passes, the more I lose hope for it. I don't know why my patron still doesn't want me to compete Pro-Am (it's not financial; this expense would be a drop in the bucket for him, practically the equivalent of me buying a latte at Starbucks), but it is one subject which it is not appropriate for me to broach with him, so I may never know. I may be the only dancer in the history of Pro-Am that started at Bronze level and went straight through to Open Gold level (I've almost passed through Gold, and the next level after that is Open Gold) without ever once doing a Pro-Am competition. But even if I never do get to compete Pro-Am, I'm EXTREMELY GRATEFUL for having had this opportunity to go so far with my ballroom training - training that I could never have afforded on my own. My patron is kind and generous, and a gentleman who keeps an appropriate distance and has never tried any funny business. This has been an amazing journey.

But I've got the winning gown, so if he ever decides he wants to send me to compete Pro-Am... I'm so ready!