I am one of these who has to have a new dress for everything. Not that I've been in many comps, but I wouldn't dream of wearing the same dress twice, and I always make my daughter a new dress each comp too.

So here I go again, spending hours on Ebay researching fabrics, trims, beads & hotfix etc, gradually gathering all the necessities to make my new dress (I have to make, can't buy them in my size). I estimate each dress much cost around $300 AUD by the time I'm done - that's with me making it. And that's not counting all the stuff that doesn't get used because the concept changes 1/2 way through

Most of the skaters here (very small rink & small skating population) hire dresses from the association, many wouldn't own a dress. Our rink is tiny and there aren't that many skaters competing, especially at adult level. These competitions are usually quite small.

Am I going over the top? How much money & time do others put into their comp dresses? How much is Over The Top?

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

I don't use much hotfix jewels on my skating dresses, I use the cheaper seqins and or beads that i sew on, so I think it only comes to material $50 cost price per dress for me. Time wise its insane... if I charged per hour to make my dress, all my dresses would be worth insane amount in pricing lol. I generally work on them for a good few months but only a few minutes most of the time, so its hard to tell. But each dress probably takes at least 100 hours or so...

Some of my habits
1) Usually new dress for a new program (conversely I have reused an old dress for new program once)
2) Keep same dress per season/program... so if I repeat my program I will repeat my dress
3) Take old dresses apart to "remake" them at a fraction of the price
4) Use some of the old ones as practise dress

What I plan to do in future:
1) Continue to "remake" old dresses
2) Reuse certain dresses that I feel are sewn to my satisfaction once in a while
3) Possibly sell them off second hand if I can bear to let them go one day.

__________________
~
Tidesong

Hi Karen

We must be from the same egg, I just love dressing up, I never grew out of it and with skating you can wear dresses that you wouldnt normally be able to to wear.

My opinion is that life's to short to worry about what is over the top, when it comes to competition just go for whatever you want, the restrictions are not what they used to be and in my experience there seems to be very little that the judges will deduct points for although overdone makeup is one, they are far more interested in the skating, but if the dress makes you feel good the performance has to be influenced by it.

I too dont compete as much as most people on the forum 1-2 per year but when I do its a big event for me.

Best of Luck

Well, my current competitional dress is this: http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3442/a1su5.jpg
I made it out of a (new) skirt in size XXL which I got at a thrift shop.
Total cost: 5 euro. People at the club said it looked good
I couldn't have gotten the material that cheap even. And they had several of those skirts, I'm sorry I bought just one.
I've got material for another one like this from leftovers of sparkly material I got from a ballroom dress maker who had little bits over. It's too little to make a ballroom dress with, but enough for a skating dress if you combine it with black lycra!

Of course then I have this full closet of materials and decorations I picked up at thrift stores, marketplaces, sales etc, all of it new, usually tagged, but oftentimes from like the 80's or so, and when I wanna make a new dress I dive into the closet and try to make a suitable combination. Then cut the stuff up and make a dress of it.

I prefer to spend my money on lessons, ice-time, expensive boots I'm comfortable in... Are graf edmontons over-the-top for somebody doing singles? Many would say yes, but that's where my money's going, skates I am actually comfortable in. Same with you and your dresses, as long as you can afford it and enjoy it, go for it. I've seen such excessive dresses around the club from time to time!

When I was ice dancing much more than I am today, I wore fancy competition dresses.... these were custom made (it's almost impossible for me to find a stock skating/dance dress that fits) and very bling-bling.

__________________
American Waltz... Once, Twice, ???? ...

Q: How many coaches does it take to fix Jen's Dance Intro-3 Problems
A: 5 and counting...

I make my own, since its hard finding one that fits my torso (I've got more girth and don't want a dress riding up).

I normally don't want to spend more than $75 on a dress....however I made my artistic dress for this year and it has ROWS of 5" fringe....that stuff is not cheap! It cost about $100 to make and I did not bling it. That is still cheaper than buying one.

I say if it helps you psychologically and you can afford it-go for it! But if you are doing it in an attempt to impress the judges, you are wasting your time. They would rather see clean footwork than 5,000 stones on a dress.

__________________
Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

Well, since you asked ... yes, a new dress for every competition is over the top. Pretty excessive. Every skater I've ever known has had one dress per program. If you compete the program 4 times, you wear the dress 4 times. Give yourself a break. It's a skating competition, not a fashion show.

I have to say I agree- a dress for each competition is over the top. Even the elites use their dresses for the entire season.

Do you compete the same program each time? If you use a different program each time- then I would say it's not too ridiculous to have a new dress each competition. And if you have the money, well it's yours to spend, regardless of what we think (though you did ask- I personally would probably want to spend it on more lessons.)

How old is your daughter? You might not want her to get in the habit of expecting a dress each competition if she's young- as she gets older the skating bills will add up a lot quicker and that habit might have to break.

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

I love getting new skating dresses and find I spend a lot of time I should be working staring at dresses on sites like icewear.com. If you feel like you absolutely need a new skating outfit, I have found a cheaper alternative. I get dance dresses from dancewearsolutions.com. The costumes are gorgeous and much cheaper than skating dresses. The only drawbacks are the material (can be too thin at times) and the styles (not your usual skatewear). It's definitely worth looking into-I've gotten several dresses from this site for competitions.

__________________
deannathegeek
"It's like trying to do a toe loop in hockey skates-you have to have the right tools for the job."

Some of the girls at my rink (and us big girls too) borrow from each other. It's a cheap way to get a new look!!!

Another way to get a new or almost-new dress (if you must have one) is eBay. You can get a plain one and bling the heck out of it for a fraction of the cost of a fancy new one.

__________________
Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

A new expensive dress for every competition is WAY over the top......Growing skaters often need new dresses because they have outgrown them.. However, since the dress is an integral part of the planning for your freeskate or freedance program - why would you want to change it every time? Sort of a waste of time and money. Wouldn't you be better off making yourself and your daughter new practice dresses that will get some use. Or better yet - why not offer your services to other skaters and then you can get that creative bug out of your system while making a little money....
I have a dress that cost $350 when I was 8 - a lot of money - but it fit the program music, and I wore that thing for at least 20 competitions and tests and never got tired of it. Now my dresses cost $800-$1,000 and believe me - I don't change them every competition. With a short and long program that gets to be expensive, so I keep the programs for at least two years. The result is that after a few years I have a few dresses to choose from for exhibitions etc. but always wear the same dress for competitions as it was specfically made for the music.

BTW - I remember hearing stories about competitions where the bling outshone the abilities of the skaters and members of the judging panel would get punchy after a judging a number of flights of skaters wearing more feathers and sequins than talent - so unless your skating abilities are up to the bling of the outfit - better to tone it down. How many skaters have we seen totally decked out in the latest sparkle looking like Olympic medallists - only to get on the ice and not be able to skate at all?

What level are you skating at? (Obviously it's a higher level, since you have a short and a long, but just wondering- since my goodness thats a pricey dress!)

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Doesn't take much to get a dress that price any more, especially with lots of bling Anyone skating above the Juvenile level has a short and long dress - and if you do pairs or dance - add another couple of dresses as well!!

I ordered a dress from Carrie Jones - and it was $300 with just a bit of bling - and that was for a practice dress for Sectionals. I was at the Cranberry Open and a vendor there was selling unblinged dresses for $500!!! and they were going like hotcakes. Check out the Tania Bass website - there is a fabulous tango dress (which one of my friends is trying to duplicate) for over $2,000..........and her dresses come in children's sizes!!!

I was amused, watching the European championships the other week, to notice that the women in the Ladies' Short Programme who hadn't much hope of qualifying for the Free tended to wear off-the-peg generic "skating dresses" such as many of us adults would wear; the ones who had more hope of a good finish had obviously spent a lot of money on their outfits!

I am getting a new outfit for our free dance; it is a Queen medley, and Husband already has a Queen T-shirt that he wore for his programme last year, which was to Bohemian Rhapsody. So I have bought a matching T-shirt, only girl-cut (and luckily it's not too short, I suddenly panicked), and am having a new black skirt made, the same cut as my practice-skirt but nicer material and a proper fastening, not ribbons. I may or may not stone it - probably not, as stoning makes me cross & sweaty! Either way, it will flatter my figure!

__________________
Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

That is a really nice tango dress. She has another dress listed for $2,500. I can't imagine paying that for an off the rack dress- what must her customs dresses cost!

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

The more elite level the skater - the more the custom made outfits have to cost, even for the men. Johnny Weir's outfit probably cost someone about $3,000. I believe that the Vera Wang dress that Nancy Kerrigan wore at the Olympics was in the $3,000 range.

But then - put the cost of the dress in perspective. With choreography costs in the $1,000-$5,000 range (or more) depending upon who you use - on top of 3-6 hours of ice a day with at least an hour of lessons, the dress becomes reasonable!

Canada's Mira Leung wore the worst off-the-clearance rack dresses for the longest time, and finally started wearing something decent last season.

There is something to be said about looking the part - as long as you can deliver. I know that ice dancers frequently sell or borrow dresses because they need so many and they are as expensive as ballroom gowns at times.

$3,000 for an elite level custom dress seems "reasonable". But who pays $2,500 for an off the rack skating dress? Or maybe Tania Bass would only sell one of them?

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Here's the dress I just got for my Artistic program for ISI Adult Nationals-I'll be skating to Love and Affection by Nelson. I got the burgandy dress. I'm a little thick in the middle for my height, so in an Adult Medium the dress fits fine, but comes down past my knees

__________________
deannathegeek
"It's like trying to do a toe loop in hockey skates-you have to have the right tools for the job."

I spotted that too, good old Jerry's

Awh come on Boots you have to put some sparkle on it, after all there was nothing under-stated about Freddie Mercury!!!

Perhaps some glitter glue if you dont like stoning, but be sure it's suitable for fabric, but the general idea is great, and maybe a little glitter cream on your arms.

Our programs are usually one-off events. We don't have a competition season here, we are an island state, with one small rink. There is a Technical Competition mid-year (May, this year) and an Artistic Comp later in the year. That's 2 comps a year, and two programs of differing styles & music. If I were competing interstate I would take the same program and dress to that. But yeah, they are special events for us.

As I said though, I can't buy dresses my size, except for Rivers Edge, and I don't like their skirt styles (I always think if it doesn't look good on the person they chose to model it, then it isn't going to look any better on me). I don't find things that fit on Ebay, and there's no-one I can swap with here. Making my own is the only way I'm gonna get a dress.

__________________
Karen

I skate - therefore I am

Well if its a different program then its pretty normal to have a new dress. Also as long as you have no problems affording it and you like it, then why not?

__________________
~
Tidesong

Can't wait to see it! I have two new programs (interpretive and freeskate) that I will be debuting at this year's Mountain Cup - and, of course, I am making two new dresses to go with them. I bought myself a bejeweller and am looking forward to stoning the death out of both of them....

A different dress for every program is not over the top, but - fashion diva that I am notwithstanding - I do wear my competition dresses more than once.

__________________
If you keep your eyes on God, you can walk on water.

I've been getting away with the same dress for a year because I moved to another state, lol

I figure I can get one competition out of it here and then I really do need to retire it and get a new one.

__________________
Revised Official 2010 Goals checklist
Skate __
New boots __
(lowering the bar for 2010 as I haven't skated in a year)

To say nothing of glitter on the Husband's bald patch..... which he hates, but sometimes has to put up with!


Oh, I am glad you're coming again!

The thing about dance, of course, is that you need different types of dresses. I own a few generic "dance frocks" which get worn when all else fails, but I also own a dress that is only ever worn for tangos and one that's only worn for waltzes (and the occasional Blues).

__________________
Mrs Redboots
~~~~~~~~
I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

I used to compete a lot and am hoping to again, I will admit, I have a lot of dresses. However, I tend to have the one dress for my free skate, one for the artistic each season, I also need dresses to test in and for practice. Because I do solo dance I currently have a lot of dance dresses, you need a tango-ish dress and a waltzy dress, etc and so on.

I have bought some of the Tania Bass dress that are semi custom and let me tell you, they are worth it, the craftsmanship on the dresses is incredible, plus the look like they would last years. I also use US icewear which makes some of the most comfortable dresses around and sets the skirt at the top of the hip bone not the waist. This makes my legs look shorter and my torso longer. Its not a normal problems but we all suffer from different issues.

Anyway, I would stick to one dress per season for your free skate unless mid season you decide the dress is either uncomfortable or bad luck, then get a new one if needed.

__________________
Who me? Couldn't be....
http://www.youtube.com/bouldersk8r