Costume Drama

As promised, here is the saga of the costume Abby wore for for her solo.   Moms usually don’t get involved in making costumes at this level of competition, but I ended up doing it because her choreographer wanted her to wear an orange unitard with a deep halter back and it was impossible to find one on the internet.  So I morphed Jalie 2916, found the right knit at Spandex House and away we went.  Everything was moving along well even though my deadline was looming and then I got to the neckline and all hell broke loose.   In retrospect I think I used the wrong kind of elastic, but needless to say it looked terrible and didn’t fit her in the least through the bust.  Abby of course tried to minimize the problem and kept saying it was fine, but I was literally losing sleep over it.

Fast forward to the competition.  Abby is in the dressing room doing a quick run through and I come in to see how she’s doing.  She’s wearing a gray knit halter top over the costume and she says to me “Mom, I’m falling out of it I have to wear this too”.  Now let me explain this halter top:  Abby made it.  It was a top she wore as street clothes that day.  2 days prior she used one of her father’s most ancient grotty t-shirts to make herself a halter.  No pattern at all, she just drew on the fabric with chalk, cut it out and sewed it up on my industrial.  I wasn’t even in the room when she made it.

Now I’m torn; she just got her 10 minute stage call and she leaves the dressing room.   My mind is racing as to how to deal with this because dance schools are very very strict about costumes, for example if one dancer forgets a glove or hairclip then everyone has to remove it for the routine.  Last minute costume issues are not encouraged because it creates havoc at an already tense moment.   But she couldn’t go onstage without the gray halter because she’s falling out of her costume.  So I make an executive decision, grab her twin sister and say “Em, run backstage and tell Abby to go ahead and wear it;  if Rennie says anything tell her to say is was my idea and I’ll take the blame for it.”

So she dances.  She performs beautifully and from the audience the gray halter actually looked really good, that much orange by itself would have been too much. I’m standing in the back and Rennie walks by with a big smile on his face; he claps me on the shoulder and says “What do you think?  Wasn’t that beautiful?” and I agree, laugh, and tell him the whole story.  He says “Oh I thought that was part of the costume;  I think the colors look really good.”  And then he runs off to check on the next set of Gold School kids who need to be on stage.

Back in the dressing room Abby asks how it was.  I tell her the good news is that she was amazing and Rennie loved it but the bad news is that she can’t wear that halter until after Nationals because now its officially part of her costume.  She laughs and gets ready for her next routine.  And she scored gold on her solo.

Per aspera ad astra