Ballroom Dance Competition Costume

 Shame on me for not posting sooner, but the Unicorn dance costume was a success!

(A proper post-mortem will come later.) 

However, I've decided to enter my first competition. Just a mini-match for now but I will need a dress for it. Which of course, is very exciting when it comes to "what should I wear?" I've been Pinning ideas for different dress shapes, colors and designs and maybe overwhelming myself. So, it's time to hit pause and layout some design considerations as well as practical ones. Let's start with practical. 

Practical Considerations - Budget and Investment

These are the pillars of practical decisions for costumes (and other creative things): Budget and Investment. 

Budget = what you can spend/spare in terms of time, money, space, and energy. Basically it's what you have on hand already. 

Investment = what you can put into a project in terms of time, money, space, and energy. It's more about capacity.

My analogy of this is Investment is a container 📦 and Budget is water 💧...or marbles...or whatever is in the container. They are similar, but one informs the other. (These aren't official terms just my interpretation.) 

My level of interest in an event will help me determine the size of my investment. A higher level means I'll portion out a larger investment bucket in certain areas. Some of my investment buckets have a limit like my money and time that are outside my level of interest or control. (I'm not a time lord). 

Investment/budget Questions

1. How much can I spend on a dress?
2. When is the event? Will I do this again? 
3. Should I make, rent or buy a dress?
4. What else do I have to pay for?  

1) How Much: Browsing websites, competitive ballroom dresses can range from $150 to more than $5,000. So, after the sticker shock, you realize that serious competitors really can invest a lot! I certainly do not have enough to invest in a $5,000 dress. I don't have enough commitment or interest at the moment. This is something I'm trying, but I'm likely going to try more than once. I prefer performing but it would be nice to have a dress I wear more than once. I've given myself a cap of $500 for the moment. 

When?: I have a few months at the moment but I do have a deadline. Unfortunately, it's the same deadline as Halloween. (End of October.) So I have a limited allowance of time and energy because I'd have to share production time with my halloween project. 

Make, Rent, Buy: Making a dress is the MOST economical option. The cost of materials would be well under $500, but the time commitment is much larger. I'm doing a big Halloween project and my emotional investment is much higher for Halloween. It would be a challenge to make something. 

Renting a dress would be the most practical. It needs to be in the right color and cut but it would not be mine. I couldn't alter it. But at least after the competition it doesn't sit in my closet forever. I also could rent a different style for the next competition. 

Buying a dress has a wide range of options. I could buy a used dress or an inexpensive one that I can spruce up. This does mean I'll have ONE dress that I can wear to multiple events. I'll have to invest more if I want to update or change styles. 

Extra Costs: I also have to consider that for the event I'll have to pay for other things like lessons, possibly new shoes and accessories, and I think I have to pay to participate. (Probably.) So the cost of participation can easily be close to $1000 if not more. 

Now to consider fun stuff! 

Artistic Considerations - Fit, Form, Color, Themes

 At first, I was just raw pinning dresses I liked to my board. Then I paused and noticed patterns. I was pinning a lot of fire based dresses and dresses similar to my unicorn performance outfit. So, certain themes became a driving force as to what I would pin to my board. 

Color and Body Shape sent me down a rabbit hole. I wanted to make sure I was picking dresses that would compliment my shape and features. My upper arms always annoy me. I really need to tone them up. (something else to add to my routine.) The best advice I've gotten for that was full sleeves or at least sleeves that go past my upper arm. 

To avoid emphasizing my lower half, I need an interesting bodice with a horizontally featured neckline. So a wide V, sweetheart, asymmetrical,  Straight across, boat neck, or a wide swoop neck make my upper half look balanced compared to large hips. ILLUSION! Having a belt or horizontal/diagonal pattern helps too. Also making sure the dress starts to flare out near the top of my hips not mid-hip. 

Oh...but colors...colors nearly drove me crazy. 

Seasonal Color Palettes

The concept is to take colors associated with seasons that compliment your natural skintone, hair, and eye color. The basic idea is you'll lean either towards warm color tones or cool. It can be complicated by also adding how saturated (or greyed out) the color is or how Light/Dark it is (adjusting the black and white in it.) There are many free resources and guides out there. However, if you happen to be like me and actually have a NEUTRAL SKINTONE, then most of the quizzes or tests to find your season will lead to frustration. See, it's neither cool nor warm. You can pick EITHER. 

So after torturing myself with trying to figure out if my wrist veins were blue or green (because they're blue-green in natural light. >_<) I ended up just picking a tone, following the path and ending up being either a Deep Autumn or Deep Winter. 

Cardigan Empire website has a great resource on the Seasons (and sub-seasons) with images of people that fit that season. 

Head Covers also has a good flow chart (including tips for us neutrals!)

Frump Fighters's quiz and analysis was very in-depth. But I think it can both help and confuse. Taking the quiz I fell into 3 seasons which was frustrating. A pretty common complaint so...

Finally, if you're not sold on the whole season thing, the Tonal Quiz may be of use. 

All that to say, I wasted a lot of time honed in on a stupid thing and couldn't make progress until I had settled down. Because this was just going to help me eliminate some of the dresses from my board and help me have a few colors to pick from. 

Themes

Once I was able to get back to the pin board, I started focusing on only the colors that were in my palette and ended up coming up with a couple of guiding themes! They were: 

• Flame Hashira (Shutup...)
• Night and Day
• Gothic Rose
• Yellow Rose of Texas

Roses have been my thing lately. I'm incorporating them into a lot of my kimono designs. 

Night and Day came about because I saw a dress that reminded me of a dress I wore in Middle School that looked REALLY good on me color-wise so figured that I could repeat that. 

Day because I wanted to have a contrast in case I compete in both Smooth and Rhythm and would need 2 dresses. And it also lets me continue with a flame motif. 

Flame Hashira is what it is. Incorporating the color palette of my favorite character. Shut up. 

My precious!

Current Design Plans/Ideas

So there was a dress I pinned that I absolutely wanted but it was far out of my price range and I could not validate the cost. So I decided I'd make something with the elements of that dress that I liked. But I have several backup plans because as of writing this I still need to discuss things with my teacher and get advice on what to look for, colors and such. I've done my homework without knowing the full assignment and I may have done too much work for nothing. 

Or not...they know I'm creative and make my own costumes. 

I finally sat and doodled what I wanted based on my Pins and Theme ideas. 

First Draft of all my ideas side by side.

Didn't like my original sketch for Latin Goth Rose

Alternative ideas for making or Adjusting Flame dress

Current Analysis of My Designs

Smooth Flame - Obviously, this is the one I'm most excited about since I have 3 variations of it.  The flame pattern that is diagonal will either be rhinestones or spandex applique. Ignoring my original sketch and focusing on the newer ideas. The dress can be made from scratch or I found a low-priced dress under $150 that I could "ruin" with making my own adjustments. So far, this is the cheapest creative option. You can see my calculating over there. 

Latin Flame/Sun - I didn't feel as inspired to make a sun or flame version of the Latin style dress. I tried something but I nixed it. 

Smooth Night - I found a dress similar to my design that I could purchase. I would just add a few more stones here and there. It would be the lowest cost in terms of time and money. Also looks a lot like my old dress. 

Latin Night - This one I also found an affordable design available that would only require a little bit of trimming. 

Smooth Goth Rose - While inspired by a dress I could buy at a low cost I think I could do better making this one myself. It would be an expensive option in terms of time though and materials. 

Latin Goth Rose - Didn't like my original sketch. While I thought the "rose petal" lettuce hem is thematically correct, I think it makes my hips look big. So, I think I could make this one from scratch. The applique could be tricky since I want to use rhinestones or shiny material, but maybe just straight up applique with stone accents would make more sense. In anycase, it's an easier option than Gothic Rose Smooth. 

So for Smooth my first choice is Adjusted Flame where I don't have to sew. :D My second choice is Night which means once more, I don't have to sew anything. 

For Latin, Gothic Rose is my first choice since I got a pattern and know what I need for it. Night is my second choice again because it requires no sewing effort on my part. 

Conclusion

This is to be continued. I have class on Monday and a party tonight so I'll get more feedback. Funnily enough Purple Roses are the theme of my party dress. It's a 1950's theme and I found a CUTE dress online to dance in. 

I'll also do my cost analysis on the projects to help fuel a decision. ^^