I realize that I'm months behind, but I have a backlog of photos that must be commented on. But I suppose I do need to leave myself some material for Worlds, so I'll be selective. Here's Emily Hughes at the Cup of China looking noticably more sophisticated. It's nice to see Emily leave the perpetual variations on blue dresses behind, with this subtle but elegant black number for her Carmen program. The sheer bodice with the intricate beading makes her the picture of understated glamour, and I like the detail of the scattered sparkle on the layered sheer skirt. It's difficult to avoid looking boring in black, but Emily does well here in an almost Jennifer Robinson-worthy dress. ¶ 9:56 AM 0 comments
I find that a lot of ice dance gala programs are quite ho-hum, mostly because the teams tend to choose sappy ballads of the "Sometimes When We Touch" variety that put me to sleep. But V&M chose "Black Magic Woman" and they actually DANCE with each other, and look at how amazing Tessa looks in that LBD. So simple, so elegant - and look at that pleating by her left knee - subtle, very subtle. And one must admit that Scott looks just dashing. To resist the urge to go full-out spangly and skanky for the gala and wear chic all black - and at 19 and 17...wow. I think their costume designer deserves multitudinous awards. Perhaps I over-gush. They're wearing all black, how boring, you say. Well take a look at basically every other ice dance team and perhaps you may see why V&M are so utterly fabulous to me. PS-their gala program is HOT.
[Photo: Janice Gehman, V&M Official Site] <-- do take a look at their photo gallery for more photos of their loverly costumes from Skate Canada
And sometime maybe soon I might post on CoC and TEB...
¶ 12:52 AM 0 comments
In the few short years I've been watching them, despite their youth, Tessa Virtue and her adorable partner Scott Moir, have managed to take the crown of best-dressed ice dancers out there, and quite possibly the best of all figure skating disciplines. Basically every costume Tessa wears is exquisite, and Scott's simple, dapper ensembles are a welcome respite from the suffocating ruffles, sequins and unrestrained frouff we see from other male dancers. Tessa's periwinkle frock features a tasteful square neck on an elegantly embroidered bodice with sweet cap sleeves. The open (but not too open back) is punctated with a pretty bow in tonal ribbons. If Tessa keeps this up, she's heading towards Shae-Lynn Bourne territory.
The other couple du jour is of course gold-medal winners Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon, who will tentatively take the title for most-improved costume-wise (and possibly skating-wise too). These two have made some incredibly dodgy choices in the past, but recently have been spot-on sartiorally speaking. Gone are the days of misguided First Nations homage, dominatrix tango dancer, and shredded kimono sleeves (and subsequent Olympic wardrobe malfunction). Instead we have sumptuous frocks for Marie-France and natty evening ensembles for Patrice. Marie-France's jaw-droppingly gorgeous cream dress was the perfect choice for the music, "At Last". I love the beaded straps and criss-cross back, the mini-ruffles on the sweetheart neckline, the luxurious bodice embroidery, and the drop-waisted sash/bow. Also note the soft, multi-layered skirt. Genius design, I say. All in all, it was a good night for Canadians. And I'm in love with these costumes so much that I'll probably just keep posting photos from every competition these folks enter.
[Photos: Skate Canada - Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images; D&L #1 - Gérard Châtaigneau; D&L #2 - Susan D. Russell; D&L #3 - Margaret Burwell -- All 3 D&L photos found at their official website] ¶ 11:54 PM 0 comments
This is more than just a slight resemblance. Especially the LP dress, that's a blatant rip-off of Sasha's Rachmaninoff dress, also known as The Dress. I don't know how Sasha pulls off putting purple, orange and gold together, but she does. Sasha's dress works because the purple is a bluish shade that constrasts quite nicely with the splashy orange skirt, and the gilt-edged plunge neckline is exquisitely designed. Fumie's dress, while not awful, misses the mark because, although it's hard to tell with these pics, the purple of her dress isn't quite as blue as Sasha's, and it looks funny with the pale orange. And the gold-embroirdered neckline isn't nearly as nice. Granted, Fumie's hair looked very cute, and her dress really isn't all that bad, but not up to her usual standards.
The SP dress isn't as obvious a copy of Sasha's Malaguena dress as the LP dress is of the Rachmaninoff dress, and I probably wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the aforementioned similarity. But the all black with a bright underskirt of Fumie's dress certainly seems to take its inspiration from Sasha's dress. Now, my question is, who is responsible for this costume-copping? Was it the work of a lazy costume designer, or was Fumie deliberately paying homage to two of Sasha's classic dresses? If so, it's too bad that Fumie's dresses comes across as deeply discounted versions of Sasha's.
[Photos: Sasha - Jay Adeff; Fumie - Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images]
Meanwhile, for the second straight weekend, one of my favourite costumes has gone tragically unphotographed. This time 'round it was American Alissa Czisny, who wore a cute, chic, black-and-white strapless number to complement her music from the Sabrina soundtrack. Channeling Audrey Hepburn is always a good idea, especially if you have the fresh-scrubbed sweetness to pull it off. Anyway, I'm sure pictures of Alissa in this dress will be far easier to track down this season than photos of Kiira Korpi might be. Still, the moral of the story is, the photographers should take shots of all the skaters, not just the ones they feel like. ¶ 11:16 PM 0 comments
I'm so surprised that Susanna Poykio of Finland is pulling off this costume that I had to post it. The mock turtleneck, the deluge of rhinestones on her bodice, the very Avril Lavigne-does-Vegas glittery fishnet armbands and the odd musical choice of a string re-interpretation of Metallica's "One" all would normally spell tacky disaster. However, especially from far away, this costume actually works for me. It somehow suits the music, and if I pretend I don't see the blinding glare of the massive rhinestones, I can't help but commend Susanna for an entirely appropriate costume choice, even if it isn't to my taste.
Meanwhile, Fumie Suguri, who is consistenly one of the best-dressed skaters on the circuit, makes a rare misstep, albeit a minor one. The design itself I quite like. The simplicity of the bodice is offset by the flare of the skirt - a pretty sheer black overlay with a splash of bright colour. Fumie definitely works subtle black lace well, seen here on the sleeves of the dress. I'm neither here nor there with the rhinestone design on the front, but the back has quite a cute diamond design that you can't see here. In fact, the more I look at this picture, the more I actually like the dress. It looked worse on TV. My only real issue here is with the Halloween colour scheme - it looked very jarring and garish, especially when you factor in her purple eyeshadow (which usually looks good, but definitely not with the orange). If only she had picked red instead of orange, or ditched the black in favour of a more tonal colour combo. Anyway, my criticism of this costume is collapsing on itself because I guess it's not that bad after all...demonstrating again how Fumie always manages to look elegant.
[Photos: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images] ¶ 12:24 AM 0 comments
Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay are skating to music from The Notebook soundtrack this season, which is why I'm disappointed in Anabelle's dress. It's cute and sophisticated, but she could have had so much more fun with the film's 50's setting. If only she wore a red polka dot sweetheart neckline halter dress. Maybe she will get a new dress as the season goes on...her hair looks great though (hard to tell with this pic). That being said, boring as it it may be, her black dress is nice and tasteful, which is more than can be said for most of the other skaters. Cody looks perfect all in black. You can't go wrong with that face.
John Baldwin's costume is terrible, don't look at it. But his parter Rena Inoue's periwinkle one-shouldered dress is gorgeous. This might be Rena's best costume to date. These two have been known to make some dicey choices, but Rena at least got it right this time. The silver detailing is exquisite, I wish I had a better shot of this. Best of the evening. Now if only she could transfer her newfound good taste to poor John over there.
I just love the Siudeks. Their lifts are always breathtaking but it's nice to see them continually improve their overall skating. Dorota's dress is alright, basic black again but with a bit more razzle dazzle than Anabelle. I'm not a huge fan of the rhinestones running down the halter front but I do like the crisscross design on the bodice and back, which you really can't see here. Nothing special about this costume, I just wanted to put them on here.
[Photos: US Figure Skating]
By the way, I'm crestfallen that I can't find photos of Kiira Korpi from the weekend. Both her SP and LP dresses were adorable. I'm amazed at how well she pulled off that frothy mint green dress (LOVED the bow detail) she wore in the free skate. It was cute, but dangerously close to 10-year-old territory. But when you look like the lovechild of Katherine Heigl and Charlize Theron I guess it makes any costume look better. My goal this season is to find pictures of this...if Kiira finishes higher than 7th in something, 'twill make my task much easier.
Huzzah, Grand Prix season is upon us again, and a new season means new costumes. As much I want to go ahead and dissect every single costume right away, that would leave no fun for a long season to come, so I'm going to do this bit by bit. I'll start with one good and one bad from this week's ladies' short program.
Although perhaps a little too conventional, Kimmie's dress wins out for me because of its refreshing simplicity. White is always a good choice if you want to look fresh and lovely, which is exactly how Kimmie looks here. The blue rhinestone detailing is pretty and the baby cap sleeves give the dress a sweet, youthful silhouette and is entirely age-appropriate. This dress isn't exciting but it suits Kimmie's music and she looks cute, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Sadly, Miki has once again made an ill-advised costuming choice. This style of dress, with the copious use of illusion netting and random snaking glittery fabric, is so tacky yet is seen all too often in ladies' skating. There's no coherence in the design; too much is going on here and it's distracting. However, I do like to point out the positive, and Miki's hair looks great, especially with that gorgeous clip/bejeweled comb thingamajig she has at the back, which you can kind of see here. On another positive note, that's the most spirited and fun skate I've seen Miki perform in a long time. ¶ 11:24 PM 0 comments
I said I didn't like the bodice detail on Joannie Rochette's SP dress in my Olympic post, but I changed my mind last night. I like the lower half with the flowers, maybe it's a little bridal, but it looks pretty. It's sparkly and looks great on the ice...definitely one of the nicer dresses of the competition. ¶ 1:40 PM 0 comments
The pretty:
L to R:
What a gritty comeback for Marire-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon after that painful fall in Torino. This FD was beautifully skated, and they deserved their silver (so close to gold!). This costume is quite pretty, especially compared to some hideous FD dresses Marie-France has worn in the past. I think there's a bit too much frouffyness going on in this dress, but thankfully Patrice is simple (displaying rule number 1!) to contrast her romantic dress.
Margarita Drobiazko and Povilas Vanagas (I'm so happy they came back!) had an amazing free dance in Torino (how did they NOT get a medal?! gah). I was hoping they'd pull through with one in Calgary, but depsite a great FD, it wasn't meant to be. However, at least Margarita was dressed tastefully, which is more than can be said for some of the dancers! This simple but elegant Phantom of the Opera dress perfectly suited the music and performance, and I love the corset-style bodice.
The horror:
Top to bottom:
Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder, the team that brought you the "a copious mass of sequins are sufficient to cover my modesty" dress and the yellow headband, always manage to show up in costumes that should never have seen the light of day. The gold, the quilted red, his horrible top...I can't even begin to analyze this, it's all putrid. Awful taste, just awful. The only cool thing about this costume is the face gloves...but why must they be green and mauve?
Tanith Belbin, what have you done? Just because of the rest of the field consistenly chooses over-the-top, ridiculous costumes, does not mean you have to join those ranks. Your costumes used to be so pretty and well-designed, so what the hell is this? Red and pink, together on one dress? The oversized black tulle ruffle (I never thought I would have to put "tulle" and "ruffle" and "Tanith Belbin" in the same sentence) is dangerously close to joining Charlize Theron's Oscar bows in the massive shoulder accents wall of shame. While this dress doesn't hold a candle to Delobel's monstrosity, this choice is disappointing because Tanith is so much better than this.