The Winter Olympics are pretty much around us and you know what it means: We’ll see dozens of figure skating suits that will bother KiraKira apps and will not even make them justice. Thanks to Tonya’s success, I was re-interested in fancy skating and this year’s tournament will surely be one of the most watched events in the race – and as always, the chips are very high. So, in addition to bringing ice tricycles to the ice, skaters must really stand out from their best and brightest chorus. After all, leaving an impression on the jury, an unforgettable Cheap Halloween Costumes was half the battle.
We can expect that the clothes in Pyeongchang are as always, and the art of making real clothes has undergone great changes in recent years. Cheap Halloween Costumes designers like Pat Pearsall, Jan Longmire, and Lisa McKinnon are among the most needed looks, yet comfortable enough to allow a skater to spin on the skating rink without having to worry about a closet failure. “Fabrics are a lot lighter now than before, and they are very stretchable,” said Pat Pearsall. “She has among her clients seven times the country’s national gold medalist Mirai Nagasu. “Colors are getting better and the same is true for the closures we use for gowns.No one uses a heavy metal zipper anymore, and thankfully, the use of a meatnet allows designers to really be creative and dress better.”
Before the start of the race, we have mastered the behind-the-scenes operations on the real situation of preparing for the Olympics. Continue reading to find out what you need to know to create everything from the art of a jazz figure skating dress, made directly from the experts themselves.
design concept
The initial Cheap Halloween Costumes planning phase is crucial, and each designer takes a different approach. She said the first step for Jan Longmire, who had designed clothing for American national champion Karen Chen in 2017, was to “take skaters as individuals.” “Once I got connected with them and I knew their personality, then I could get into music – but music was my second.” From there, Longmil started to elaborate. “When I started sketching, a lot of designs were done automatically.” I draw sketches on fabric and beads based on who they are and how they feel. Then I go into the story of who wrote the music because everyone has a story that eventually adds to their story no matter whether the judges or the audience gets it.
Lisa McKinnon, who worked with Karen Chen, designed skateboarders Maia Shibutani, Vincent Zhou, Alexa Scimenca Knierim and Christopher Knierim during the 2018 Olympics to understand the significance of the skaters’ own clothing before beginning. “After I got to know a skater and listened to their music, I asked them to make a preliminary investment in the design (silhouette, style, color, high collar, beading) and whatever unsafe they might have.” “Then I put all of them together, sit back and listen to the music while sketching.
Although McKinnon and Longmore had a Cheap Halloween Costumes idea before listening to the skater’s song, Pat Pierce took another approach. She said: “The first step for me was listening to music.” A skater would usually give me a clip, and I listened 20-30 times, thinking about the type of music. Then I picked some useful sketches, sent them to the skater, and from there decided the color, the neckline, and the sleeves. After that, they sent me their measurement data and we added the garments to the production plan. ”
colour
There are many factors that affect the performance of skaters and music plays an important role. Pearsall said: “When I heard the music, I knew what color the music was.” “If the music is jazz, I often use red or blue or black, and the real music is usually blues and very romantic The music gets a lighter color, and of course there are times when skaters have very specific ideas about what colors they want. ”
For Langmeyer, making colors just right is a key part of the design process. “I want to have full control of the color, so I only buy white cloth and then do all the dyeing work on the stove at home. A lot of things are rubbish because it’s not solved, but I can shade and do whatever I want to do.
That project
Once the fabric is ready, the designer can begin to create the garment. Although they usually have a good idea what they might look like, there is plenty of room in the process. “I knew how to make garments with snaps and hooks before presenting the sketches to the skaters, but after the dyeing was done, I began to cut and sew them and uncoiled them,” Longmire said. “It’s a Constant editing, I think all of us put us together. ”
Because garments are seldom worn, most garments are made according to a closed standard. Pearsall said: “There are usually buckles on both sides of the shoulders, sometimes with hooks on your neck and hooks and buttons.” I never used zippers because they broke. If the zipper is broken, you will not wear this dress! ”
Although most designers do not understand the concept of using zippers, they avoid using any unnecessary hardware. My former skater, McKinnon, said: “It’s always better to keep as little money as possible.” I really understand what a garment needs to feel comfortable so I try to stay away from complex, structured clothes. My trick is that I try to keep the real clothing as simple and elastic as possible and then let it really highlight the details. ”
Crystal
The sparkling appearance of ice is the detail, with the progress of the design process, the designer’s vision really began to form. Longmire said: “I decided to block some parts or throw nude fabrics here and there, and then I frantically refurbished.” I like Bling – I’m not “simple” or “elegant,” but to light the ice . These people are gliding over a large white space, so if you are conservative about this bling it will get lost. There’s something called the 40-foot rule, which means you do not see the intricacies of design once you’re 40 feet away. This may be true, but you can surely see a dress blinded! ”
Crystals play an important role in appearance – we are not just talking about the old Rhinestone here. “I usually use Swarovski only because I can rely on quality.” Now it’s fashionable to use large stones, but for some dresses this can be too heavy. Weight can be quickly added up. Since 2014, I’ve been doing Mirai Nagasu clothing, this is her first real problem, because she has done a triple axis in both programs, she really knows the weight of this dress. We’d like to be very cautious about this, so she and I talked a lot about the weight of stones and glues this year. We hope it will be needed for choreography, but we do not want it to be a problem. For this year’s long red freestyle dress, I eventually canceled a large area of Chinese motifs to make it more asymmetrical and light. ”
Although too much crystal can measure an ice skater, the gypsum process itself is a hard job for a Cheap Halloween Costumes designer. Pearsall said: “I use glue to apply crystals one at a time.” It took only a day and a half to make a full-blown pattern of clothing and less than 2,500 gems were rare. Some have more than 5000. “As expected, ornaments are not cheap,” said Long Mill, “Crystals are the most expensive part of the process, outside the workforce. “The crystals are expensive, you can easily put $ 400 into a garment, and that’s conservative.”
Timeline
While the crystal application itself may take a day, the timeline can vary by designer. Pearsall said her work normally takes three to four days, taking weeks, while Longmire’s fabric dyed for an extended period of time. “It takes 10-12 days for everything from start to finish, because everything I do is manual, and we’re talking about ten hours,” she said, adding that she spends a total amount of time on an elite skater. “At least 200 hours.”
McKinnon has its own method of streamlining the process. “For the first piece of clothing, I try my best to keep things to a minimum and we’re just basing our clothes.” That way we can make sure everything is perfect before we begin to do the details. Of course, sometimes when you work with a good skateboarder or an overseas person you have no chance to make accessories at all – I have to make an entire outfit without accessories and shut it down. In this case, it is important to understand the size and proportions of an ice skater, and when I do that, I’m sure to reduce the risk. ”
For the Winter Olympics, McKinnon actually created two essentially the same look as Maia Shibutani. “We’ve never really made two copies of the same garment for backup, because everything is fixable – if something goes wrong, that’s the problem,” she said, but this year I did the second for Maya’s short program Piece of clothing This is part of her progress this season as she and her partner Alex want to continue their tournament. So we made a more colorful clothes, leaving a deeper impression, she took both. She will practice with one piece of clothing and the other with her actual performance. ”
rule
Like everything in the Olympics, figure skating has its own rules – it also applies to clothing. Rumley said: “The guidelines are changing all the time, but every girl must wear a skirt, she can not wear tights.” There is a 50% rule, which states that 50% of the skater’s body Must cover the fabric. While nude fabrics are considered “nude” regions, you have to have more coverage. ”
The application of the rule is sometimes problematic. “It’s mostly about how much material the front of the dress has, but no one seems to worry about the back of the dress – it may not have a back and it will not bother them at all.” Pearsall said with a smile. “I actually measured The front line of my skirt, even within the guidelines, I was told I might need more coverage. You basically have to make scores to figure it out, so I tend to make mistakes on the conservative side to avoid adding more fabrics to my clothes in the future. ”
While the implementation of the percentage poses challenges, it does help to prevent accidents on the closet. Longmire said: “The clothing should be constructed so that it can be worn without problems, especially for girls who have grown to be significant women.” When you cover a 12-year-old, you do not have trouble with clothing, but when you cover an eighteen year old The must seize her leg, pull it over her head, bend back, and you just pray for your right to do your job. ”
In addition to coverage issues, skaters also have general guidelines on wardrobe choices. “After the nation, the U.S. federal told Karen Chen they do not want to see her wear white, which is the same thing that happened when I was working with Sasha Cohen in 2006,” said Longmore. “For Sasha, we wore the same red clothes and started arguing who likes white, who likes red, they are the same in all respects, but Karen does not like the idea of reproducing clothes in different colors and we do not have I do not know what she was out of, but as long as she found something that made her feel confident, it was important.
